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Olympic cash cuts hit athletics
ATHLETICS, the blue riband event of the Olympic Games, has been handed a cut in its cash allocation to prepare for London 2012 while eight other sports face an uncertain future, it was revealed yesterday.
Click here to read about the polarised Yorkshire reaction to the news.
UK Sport announced the detailed funding for the next four years and 17 Olympic sports including cycling, sailing, swimming and rowing – all successful in Beijing – have been given increases.
Public interest in the 2012 Games will focus most intently on the track and field events, but athletics' budget will drop from 26.5m in the run-up to Beijing to 25.1m over the next four years.
The sport failed to meet its target of five medals in Beijing, and medal prospects for London are similarly limited.
By contrast, the biggest investment in any single sport will be in rowing – 27.4m, a 5.5 per cent increase.
Cycling, the most successful sport in Beijing with 14 medals, receives 26.9m a 21.5 per cent increase.
UK Sport's head of performance Peter Keen said athletics would now concentrate on a fewer number of athletes – 30 rather than 40 – in the expectation of achieving six medals in London compared to four in Beijing.
Keen said: "They are looking to allocate around 30 full packages to their leading athletes who are in with a medal shot. It is a more focused approach."
Keen also admitted that the investment in athletics is more likely to pay off in 2016 than in London.
UK Athletics chief executive Niels de Vos said the restructuring of the sport had ensured the cuts were not even worse.
He said: "Had we not made the changes it could have been more severe. Overall, I'm pretty pleased."
Badminton also has a slight cut in its spending while eight Olympic sports also face cuts but have yet to receive a confirmed figure. They are: fencing, handball, shooting, table tennis, volleyball/beach volleyball, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling.
UK Sport confirmed that hockey, basketball, synchronised swimming and wheelchair rugby only received funding at the last minute after the Government agreed to reduce an expected 79m funding shortfall to 50m by providing 29m from Exchequer funding.
The total funding for the next four years will be 246.8m split among 19 sports and 45.6m going to Paralympic sports – 15.7m more than before the Beijing Paralympics.
A further 12m has been set aside to be split among the eight sports who have not have their funding confirmed. UK Sport will now look at the possibility of securing funds from other sources.
UK Sport's board authorised the allocation of the cash – they also had to decide where to implement a 50m funding shortfall cause by the Government's failure to raise any cash from the private sector via its Medal Hopes scheme. UK Sport will now take over the search for cash from businesses.
The British Olympic Association remain unhappy that any cuts had to be made at all.
BOA chief executive Andy Hunt said: "It is disappointing that just three months after the most successful Olympic Games for Great Britain in 100 years, the Government have failed to honour their funding promise.
"For those sports that have learnt today that they face an uncertain financial future, two years of planning and investment has been thrown up in the air.
"The BOA is deeply concerned that the opportunity to find the Chris Hoy of table tennis or the Rebecca Adlington of volleyball in future Olympic Games has been put in jeopardy."
UK Sport chief executive John Steele said the funding meant the British team would still target a top-four place in the medals table in London, and second in the Paralympics.
Steele said: "The target is for top four with more medals won across more sports. They are ambitious targets but we now have the resources to achieve them."
Some of those sports who have not had funding confirmed already have expensive programmes under way. Handball, for example, trains its teams in Denmark.
UK Sport said no guarantees could be given but meetings would be held in January to plan for 2012, and there was still hope of new cash being obtained from the private sector and other public and Lottery funds.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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