Guardian Life adopts Aiken-Pinnock - First Sunshine Girl endorsed in player-sponsorship programme

Experienced national netball player, Nicole Aiken-Pinnock, is hoping her third World Netball Championships will be a successful one, with the ace player determined to lead the Sunshine Girls to success in the IFNA World Cup in Australia this summer.

She is the first of 12 national players to be sponsored, courtesy of a $1 million endorsement from insurance company Guardian Life, through the Adopt-a-Player programme, which was held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel yesterday.

"It is a great feeling to be going to the World Netball Championships; this is gonna be my third championships," Aiken-Pinnock said.

working hard

"I have had a lot of experiences, but definitely can't take anything for granted because all the other top teams are putting in the work and working hard, so training continues. So I will be working hard in preparation for the championships," she assured.

"We are putting in the work, and that's all that matters every time that we take the court at training. Even days when we don't feel like training, we know that we have to do the work because that's what's gonna take us to the next level," she added.

"We will be playing ... with one goal in mind, and that is to be the number-one team," added a determined-sounding Aiken-Pinnock, who has been representing Jamaica for 10 years.

"I know that it is gonna be history, and we are just awaiting that," she underlined.

She also used the medium to issue a call for more companies to assist the Sunshine Girls' journey Down Under, while thanking Guardian Life.

"If corporate Jamaica should come on board and support us, it will motivate the players. What Guardian Life did for me today will push me to work harder," she explained.

Netball Jamaica President, Marva Bernard, is calling for more support.

"There is a $15 million tag on just getting the team to the World Cup, and Guardian Life has done what they did in 2007, in coming on board to assist us to get the necessary funding to send the team and prepare the team," she noted.

"Our girls are winners, and Jamaica loves winners. We ask them to assist us, as Guardian Life is assisting us to ensure that we will be, in fact, be winners," she continued.

"We saw on and off the track the level of support for athletics; netball is asking for the same," Bernard noted.

Meanwhile, Eric Hosin, president of Guardian Life, said his firm supported a team that stood for good values.

"We saw something that we want to support, because here is a team that works hard and has a very good attitude, and this is something that we want to support and encourage," he pointed out.

"Not only in terms of sports, but generally as Jamaicans, this is one of the things that makes us proud. And with their commitment and dedication, we want to try and make life a little easier for them, in terms of them achieving the goals that they want to achieve," he concluded.