Ed Warner chaired UK Athletics until '17 and has since worked at British Equestrian and British Basketball.GETTY IMAGES
Former UK Athletics Chair Ed Warner said that the funding of Olympic sport in Britain is "bloated," "flawed" and needs a "radical overhaul" to end the dependency on national lottery money, according to Sean Ingle of the London GUARDIAN. Warner, who was chair of UK Athletics until last year and has since worked at British Equestrian and British Basketball, also claimed that "too many people are receiving funding" and "some of the bigger sports have so much money they don't know what to do with it." UK Sport invests £100M ($129.4M) into elite sport each year "but that figure is expected to drop" after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. At the same time, many smaller sports -- such as wheelchair rugby and badminton -- are not funded, "which has led to pressure on the system." Warner's solution is for all Olympic sports to be required to fund 25% of their programs through sponsorship, commercial activity or other means after Tokyo, "thus saving the system" £18M ($23.3M) a year. He said, "The funding system has achieved its purpose but its flaws have increasingly become apparent. It needs a radical overhaul to make it both fairer and to respond to the tougher financial realities round the corner. Does cycling really need the size of program it has, given 92 riders are funded on the Olympic program? ... And do you really need 76 athletes in track and field on the Olympic program? Or 65 sailors and 54 swimmers? (GUARDIAN, 8/6).
HEAVY LIFTING: INSIDE THE GAMES' Brian Oliver reported Britain's elite weightlifters "have had to turn to crowdfunding in their attempt to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as the sport has hit rock bottom financially." For "the first time in memory," Britain cannot fund a team to compete in the Int'l Weightlifting Federation World Championships, which will be held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, in November. Britain has had weightlifters at every Olympic Games since Berlin 1936 "but that run may end in Tokyo if the athletes' fundraising efforts do not bring in enough for them to attempt to qualify" via the next two IWF World Championships and European Championships. Weightlifting was one of five sports that lost its elite level funding last year, when UK Sport "decided it was not strong enough to bring home medals from Tokyo" (INSIDE THE GAMES, 8/6).
