Sportspeople back Dobbin's PM plea on ME funding

A total of 360 sportspeople sign a letter calling on the prime minister to meet Beth Dobbin and increase funding towards ME research. 'It feels like you're days away from death' – Beth Dobbin More than 350 sportspeople – including Olympians Dina Asher-Smith and Tom Daley – have signed a letter to the prime minister calling on him to meet former sprinter Beth Dobbin and commit to increased funding towards ME research. Dobbin, 32, recently revealed in an interview with BBC Sport she had been diagnosed with "life-decimating" ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and as a result spends more than 22 hours a day in bed. ME is a chronic, fluctuating disease, causing symptoms such as sleep problems, issues with thinking and memory, pain, and severe persistent fatigue that does not improve with rest, and more.

It has no known cure or specific treatment. More than 400,000 people in the UK are thought to have ME, though the true figure could exceed one million, with severity ranging from people able to work or study to those requiring round-the-clock care and tube feeding. On 21 October, Dobbin wrote to the prime minister but did not receive a response – and she has now been backed by athletes across sport. "For many of my team-mates, I dropped off the face of the earth four