Great Britain’s "no compromise" Olympic and Paralympic medal-winning formula is "facing its biggest ever revolt" after UK Athletics Chair Ed Warner condemned the “perverse” decision to strip wheelchair rugby of all its elite funding, according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. Warner "broke ranks" to accuse UK Sport of cutting adrift some of the most physically impaired athletes, the consequences of which he warned were "calamitous" for their futures and "sent the wrong message about the country’s attitude towards those in greatest need." England rugby player Mike Brown, an ambassador for the sport nicknamed "Murderball," which "shot to fame at London 2012, also attacked the outcome of last week’s decision by UK Sport over the amount of taxpayer and National Lottery money each Olympic and Paralympic event would receive during the build-up to Tokyo 2020." As well as wheelchair rugby losing more than £3M ($3.7M), archery, badminton, fencing and weightlifting "were stripped of all their elite funding." The intervention of Warner "represented the biggest challenge to the ‘no-compromise’ model" that has lifted Britain from one Gold Medal at the 1996 Olympics to 29 at London 2012 and a record 67 medals overall at Rio 2016. It was the first time the head of one of the big winners of that approach to funding has "spoken out publicly on behalf of one of the losers." Stressing that he was doing so "in a personal capacity" and not in his role as UK Athletics chair, Warner said that he had “a lot of respect” for the UK Sport funding system but suggested those in charge had gotten “slightly too close to the machinery” and had been “blinded to the perversity of some outcomes.” Explaining that the sport "catered for athletes with severe impairments, many of whom are too disabled to take part in other para-sports and some of whom are servicemen and women injured in the line of duty," Warner said, "Where are some of them going to find work? Some of them will, I expect, end up on benefits as a result of the removal of that funding. And, yet, for the sake of £2 million ($2.5M) over four years, this is a sport moving in the right direction that stands, to me, as a shining example of inclusivity, Britain’s embracing of para-athletes. It was an iconic sport in the Paralympics at London 2012" (TELEGRAPH, 12/15).
