Olympic sports suffer major cutback in funding
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Thursday, 29, Jan 2009 07:51
Funding for eight Olympic sports have been slashed by at least a third due to the ongoing troubles with the British economy.
Sports were Britain are unlikely to win medals in the London 2012 games have been targeted when it came to the reduction in funding.
This means sports like fencing, handball, shooting, table tennis, volleyball/beach volleyball, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling will all have to make do with less money in the lead-up to the London games.
As a result of the reduced funding, British Olympic Association (BOA) might not get their dream of having a British athlete compete in every sport in 2012.
At one time there were 46 shooting athletes preparing for the London games, but now there are only ten due to the lack of funding. It is a similar story when it comes to water polo, which has seen its funding cut to half to £1.45 million. Handball will have to make do with £1.448m over the next four years after having been given £2.99m over the last three years.
UK Sport have insisted that they had no option but to cut the funding on some sports and give additional support to sports, like cycling – which won 14 medals in Beijing – which have more chances of winning gold medals in London.
"It was vital that, having successfully targeted our medal prospects, we also maximised the chances of every sport for London 2012 within our limited resources," said UK Sport chair Sue Campbell.
"The past few months have not been easy for anyone, and the decisions we have taken have been tough.
"But I firmly believe we have done the best we can to deliver for all sports whilst remaining true to our core responsibility of driving medal success that was seen to deliver so well in Beijing."
BOA chief executive Andy Hunt admitted he was disappointed by the cutback in funding and insisted he was working with UK Sport and other organisations to "find a solution".