Eight sports will challenge UK Sport's funding decisions for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to Nick Hope of the BBC. Seven -- including badminton -- "were due to receive no investment for the four-year cycle leading into the Tokyo Games." Powerlifting is also challenging UK Sport -- "but over the decision on who should manage its funding." All sports had until Tuesday to notify UK Sport of "their intent to challenge the decisions." Goalball, table tennis, archery, fencing, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby join badminton in challenging the removal of their funding. The decision to cut all funding for badminton "came as a surprise" after Chris Langridge and Marcus Ellis won Bronze at the Rio Olympics and helped GB "better the target" set by UK Sport. Although proof of correct governance and "talent pathways" for young athletes form part of the decision-making process, "the most important element of any pitch for funding is to prove they have genuine medal prospects" for the next Games. Badminton England CEO Adrian Christy said, "Our understanding is that UK Sport doubt our Olympic medal credentials. However, we have players who have not only won Olympic medals but also won world tour titles and super-series titles and these are the biggest events in our sport and we are regularly beating the best in the world." British Weight Lifting has objected to UK Sport allocating its £1.3M ($1.6M) of funding for its Paralympic athletes to the English Institute of Sport to manage, rather than its own program. UK Sport will reveal its findings by the end of February, "with those still unhappy with any verdict able to make a formal appeal" to the "Sport Resolutions" board (BBC, 1/17). In London, Paul Hayward reported the U.K. Government is "being urged to investigate whether the stripping of elite funding from wheelchair rugby" indicates a "discriminatory" attitude to Paralympic sport, as the game known as "murderball" fights to have its income restored. UK Athletics Chair Ed Warner, who "is speaking in a personal capacity, is among the most vocal critics of UK Sport’s belief that wheelchair rugby falls short of medal potential." Warner: "The more I’ve reflected on the decision to cut wheelchair rugby from funding, the more perverse it seems to me. And increasingly it looks as though there’s something discriminatory against the funding of the Paralympic program across all sports" (TELEGRAPH, 1/16).
