GOLDEN girl Sarah Ayton is backing a scheme to help 2012 Olympians avoid poverty after she returned from Beijing with a gold medal and £30,000 of debt.

Double Olympic gold medallist Ayton and teammates Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson are among dozens of athletes offering a piece of their public image for as little as £20 on the Be Number 1 website.

Ayton and Webb have been instrumental in the online campaign.

The fundraising scheme works by dividing an image of an athlete into 999 pixels with annual sponsorship ranging from £20 per pixel to £1,000 per pixel – 80 per cent of which goes directly to the athlete.

In return the sponsor gets a dedicated page to upload images, videos, news and messages.

Ayton, Webb and Wilson have achieved unrivalled success in the Yngling fleet since 2007 but it has come at a high cost.

Their programme for 2008 cost about £330,000, but only a third of that was met by Lottery funding.

Sarah’s mum Colleen Ayton, The Yngling Girls’ account manager, said: “They are £30,000 in debt and now it has been confirmed that the Yngling will no longer be an Olympic boat, The Yngling Girls as a company will no longer exist.

“Not only will they have to wait until November to find out what class will replace the Yngling and campaign for that, but they have to beg, borrow and steal to clear this debt. Every bonus they have received over the past few years for doing well has been ploughed straight back into the campaign. They’ve always been so much in debt they could never enjoy it as a personal reward.”

She added: “Regardless of what they sail in 2012 they’re still getting calls from the bank about this last campaign and at this moment we’re struggling to find £30,000.”

Ayton and Webb’s agent Hugo Ambrose set up the fundraising site after he was horrified that the pair considered quitting within a year of their Athens success due to a shortage of funding.

Ayton said: “There is no doubt that the private support we received on top of central funding enabled us to retain our Yngling title in Beijing.

“Be Number 1 is a great mechanism for a huge number of people and businesses to get involved in a fun, modern way to help raise money for Britain’s aspiring young sports stars, so many of whom lack the financial assistance to fulfil their talent at the highest competitive level.”

Other Weymouth-based sailors offering their pixels for sale include Ayton’s husband, Athens bronze-medal windsurfer Nick Dempsey, Beijing bronze medal windsurfer Bryony Shaw, gold medal Laser sailor Paul Goodison and British 470 sailor Saskia Clark.

Visit benumber1.co.uk for details.