posted Dec 4, 2008

When funding is limited, resources will always be focussed on the most succesful sports. Atheltics was bound to lose out as, aside from a few world class Brits, athletics has significantly underperformed and there are few signs that this situation will change. One problem has been the reliance on the school/athletics club system for developing athletes. With athletics underperforming at international level, our potential star athletes of the future are drawn away to other, more successful sports. What we really need is a regionaly atheletics development system where kids with potential are identified at a young age and are taken under the wing of professional coaches who can develop and nurture their talents.

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posted Dec 4, 2008

£25million is still a ridiculous amount of money to give athletics.

UKA and it's predeccesor (BAF) have a long history of poorly allocating their funding. The whole sport is built around 2-3 superstar, an 10-12 mediocre athletes being fully funded and the rest of the sport being largely ignored.

As if this wasn't bad enough the few athletes they fund are the ones who already have huge sponsorhip deals and no real need of the money.

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posted Dec 4, 2008

I'm surprised nobody has thought about it this way. Those sports that are already successful are so because of their funding. Those nations who we beat to the medas will be redoubling their efforts to win next time. Therefore successful sports cannot rest on their laurels and need continued investment to maintain their success.

If this takes up the lions shar of the budget so be it. As I said, spreading the money too thinly will result in minimal success.

After the most prominant sports have been dealt with the rest of the money should be dished out to the sports with the most potential.

People should also be cautious of comparing the amounts given to each sport as costs are not comparable. Take table tennis and sailing for examle, the costs here are not comaprable. A small budget for sailing would be worthless, if you are going to invest in it you need to do so heavily. Table tennis has lower running costs and therefore a smaller budget could have similar effects on the success of the sport.

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posted Dec 4, 2008

The reason the govenrment has given so much to basketball is nothing to do with medal prospects - after all, even if we exceed our wildest expectations we can only win one medal. What it's about is having a team sport in which the public can get behind and create public enthusiasm. Since it doesn't look like we'll have a football team they've gone for b'ball

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posted Dec 5, 2008

The sports without confirmed funding are now looking for private investment. Indeed, water polo has already announced that it has receievd private backing.

But what safeguards are in place to check the source and appropriateness of any such funding? How appropriate would it be if any private backing was linked to an athlete on an Olympic progam?

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posted Dec 6, 2008

"I dont understand how shootings funding has decreased, didnt they do well getting us medals?"
They failed to pick up either of the 2 medals they targetted. They picked up a gold Paralympic medal though.

Shooting accounts for about 1/4 to 1/3 of the Commonwealth haul, but not so much of the Olympic haul.

Shooting has a fragmented structure of national governing bodies - which is being dealt with through a series of proposed mergers to make the whole thing simpler and more efficient. There's also the issue that there is a lack of a formal progression ladder. Yes, there's a GB squad, but there isn't a simple route to progress club->county->region->home nation->GB

GB training is also fragmented, based over a number of ranges - indoor/outdoor, different courses of fire, different targetry, etc. There is no single training base with all the right facilities, and partly because of this, GB shooting has slipped on the world scene since the glory days of Malcolm Cooper and Alistair Allan in the 1980s.
However, there has been a real push in recent years to modernise, and bring the structure up to a fit-for-purpose model. It's not all there yet, but is a work-in-progress.

I could normally accept a funding drop for shooting given the failure to meet targets, but it seems odd (downright suspicious!) that sports that have achieved/failed to achieve similar targets are now being treated differently when it comes to funding.

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posted Dec 6, 2008

'The reason the govenrment has given so much to basketball is nothing to do with medal prospects - after all, even if we exceed our wildest expectations we can only win one medal. What it's about is having a team sport in which the public can get behind and create public enthusiasm. Since it doesn't look like we'll have a football team they've gone for b'ball'

So what? The stated reasoning behind funding was to enchance medal prospects and as far as we were made aware, the funding sports receive is based to a large extent on how many medals a sport is expected to deliver or did deliver. Basketball does not fit into any of this criteria. Anyway I would rather support the GB hockey teams who have a much greater chance of medal success than the basketball team.

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posted Dec 6, 2008

No need for the 'so what?' I agree with you. I was merely pointing out thre governments perspective. I too would much rather watch hockey. I've always thought these sports where you get a score every 10 seconds are a complete bore.

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posted Dec 7, 2008

Why is there no highlight programme for the summer games? Our best ever results yet the BBC seems only want to show very brief highlights during Sports Personility of the year. In a gloomy summer it cheered up the whole nation.

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posted Dec 12, 2008

This is fantastic news. Basketball is a fantastic sport which deserves more recognition in the UK. This extra funding will be brilliant.

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