Medal potential "rather than grassroots participation will continue to determine how money is allocated" to elite sports after a public consultation suggested that sports fans and administrators "are happy for taxes and lottery ticket purchases to be used to buy Olympic success," according to Josh Burrows of the LONDON TIMES. UK Sport, the organization responsible for distributing £100M ($147M) annually, on Thursday indicated it "will not compromise in its medals-first strategy after a six-week public investigation that concluded in December and has been condensed into a 137-page report." The decision not to change course will "come as a disappointment" to team sports like basketball, synchronized swimming and water polo, all of which saw their funding cut in the cycle to Rio 2016. However, there have been "two notable tweaks:"
- UK Sport will continue to invest "primarily in athletes believed to be within eight years of winning a medal," but will consider funding for a longer period of time "where there is a performance need and if finances allow."
- UK Sport will consider factors such as number of medal-winners and participation level, "but only when deciding how to allocate funding to sports of equal medal potential" (LONDON TIMES, 3/19).
'NO COMPROMISE' APPROACH: BLOOMBERG's Sara Marley reported basketball, handball, table tennis, wheelchair fencing,
sitting volleyball and wrestling had their funding eliminated
after failing to win a medal in London. UK Sport CEO Liz Nicholl: "We're not going to move away from the 'no compromise'
approach. Nothing changes in respect to actually getting the right money out there to the right sports for the right reasons." Eighty-six percent of sporting groups and 70% of 757 members of the public polled "were in favor of the medal focus" (
BLOOMBERG, 3/19). In London, Owen Gibson reported in the wake of funding cuts, there was criticism from some who said that the "medal-centric funding approach that had underpinned Great Britain's rise" from 36th in the medal table in Atlanta in '96 to third at London 2012 had "gone too far." Critics, including a House of Lords select committee, argued that "focusing disproportionately on sports such as cycling, sailing and rowing had meant those such as basketball risked withering on the vine." UK Sport Chair Rod Carr said that he had been "impressed by the level and quality" of the engagement with the review. Carr: "It demonstrated that UK Sport's role in delivering medal success is valued highly by our stakeholders and the British public, and that they'd like to see our investment reach even more aspiring athletes" (
GUARDIAN, 3/19). REUTERS' Mike Collett reported basketball was "particularly hard-hit, with critics suggesting it was exactly the sort of sport that appealed to urban youngsters who were otherwise failing to engage with the idea of a sporting legacy that was a pillar of Britain's hosting of the 2012 Olympics." U.K. Sports Minister Helen Grant said, "I welcome UK Sport continuing to focus on medals and medalists ... but I am also pleased that it is open to taking the broader value of its investment into account in its funding decisions" (
REUTERS, 3/19).
