Olympics funding: Britain's boxers get rise but swimming loses out

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Olympic funding for Rio 2016

Britain's boxers are among the biggest winners in UK Sport's Olympic 2016 funding programme, but swimming has had a £4m cut to its budget.

Boxing saw an increase of 44.5% to £13.8m but handball, basketball, table tennis and wrestling lost all support.

Overall, 18 sports have seen their money go up, while five have had their budget cut by UK Sport.

A record £347m will be made available for the four-year cycle to Rio, an 11% increase on funding for London 2012.

The Paralympic portion of the overall funds has risen from 16% of the total budget to 20%, with swimming, athletics and cycling all being rewarded for their success with big rises, but archery and powerlifting cut.

The investment will be used to support Britain's elite Olympic and Paralympic athletes and comes after Sport England revealed an increase to grassroots sports funding on Monday.

UK Sport said the distribution of money was based on whether sports met their medal target in London.

Britain's boxers won five medals from a 10-person team to meet their target, with Nicola Adams, Luke Campbell and Anthony Joshua all winning gold, and the sport's funding rises from £9.5m to £13.8m.

In contrast, swimming missed its target of five to seven medals, winning only three, and its funding is reduced to £21.4m - a cut of 14.9%.

Archery, badminton and volleyball have also had their funding cut after missing their targets, as has judo, despite the latter beating its medal target.

Another big winner is water polo, despite Britain not winning any medals in the sport at London 2012. Funding is up from £2.93m for the men's and women's team to £4.5m solely for the women's.

Volleyball's budget has dropped from £3.5m to £400,000 with only women's beach volleyball benefiting from central support.

Rowing retains its place as the best-funded British sport, up over £5m to £32.6m - an increase of 19.47%.

Britain's rowers won nine medals at Dorney Lake to exceed their target by three.

Athletics sees its funding rise by £1.6m after winning six medals in London, while cycling receives an increase of £4.6m after bringing back 12 medals.

Britain's sailors, who won five medals after being set a target of three to five, are boosted by an extra £1.5m, while the equestrian team, whose five medals included three golds, receive a £4.5m boost.

UK Sport's target is for Britain to win more medals in Rio than in London, where the teams won 65 medals at the Olympics and 120 in the Paralympics.

UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl said: "We want to be the first nation in recent history to be more successful in the Olympics and Paralympics post-hosting.

"Today will be good news for some and it will be painful for others who haven't met the criteria.

"They are very disappointed but I think some of these sports have to improve their base, their competition structure, and drive up competition before they can really compete for medals at a world level.

"We have been guided by our no-compromise approach.

"I hope the sports that have been hit today will go to sports like hockey and gymnastics and talk to them about how they have got back to where they are today.

"Hockey had their funding cut [in the past], they went bust, they were in dire straits and they have done amazingly well to recover."

Rio 2016 Olympic funding

Sport - London 2012 budget - Rio 2016 budget (%)

Archery - £4.4m - £3.1m (-19.7%)

Athletics - £25.15m - £26.8m (6.6%)

Badminton - £7.43m - £5.9m (-20.6%)

Basketball - £8.6m - £0 (-100%)

Boxing - £9.55m - £13.8m (44.5%)

Canoeing - £16.18m - £19.1m (18%)

Cycling - £26m - £30.6m (17.5%)

Diving - £6.5m - £7.5m (14.75%)

Equestrian - £13.39m - £17.9m (33.6%)

Fencing - £2.5m - £3.1m (22.56%)

Gymnastics - £10.77m - £14.5m (34.6%)

Handball - £2.92m - £0 (-100%)

Hockey - £15m - £15.5m (3.2%)

Judo - £7.49m - £6.8m (-9.3%)

Modern Pentathlon - £6.29m - £6.9m (9.7%)

Rowing - £27.29m - £32.6m (19.5%)

Sailing - £22.94m - £24.5m (6.8%)

Shooting - £2.46m - £3m (21.9%)

Swimming -£25.14m - £21.4m (-14.9%)

Synchronised Swimming - £3.39m - £4.3m (26.5%)

Table Tennis - £1.21m - £0 (-100%)

Taekwondo - £4.83m - £6.9m (42.75%)

Triathlon - £5.29m - £5.5m (3.9%)

Volleyball - £3.53m - £0.4m (-88.7%)

Water Polo - £2.93m - £4.5m (53.6%)

Weighlifting - £1.36m - £1.8m (32.3%)

Wrestling - £1.44m - £0 (-100%)

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251 comments

  • Comment posted by Chorley Lass, at 15:27 18 Dec 2012

    Why is Judo having its funding cut despite BEATING its medal target?

    Which dipstick came up with that - and I'm no follower of Judo.

  • Comment posted by family guy, at 16:13 18 Dec 2012

    Rowing £32m Swimming £21m? Anyone wincing?

    Access to boats is often elitist vs Swimming one of the MOST important accessible sports our kids could do. We need MORE swimming role models...not less

    The posh rowing accents of our olympians dont inspire kids in central Birmingham or Liverpool to take up rowing.

    I think the logic is fundamentally flawed here somewhat

  • Comment posted by U15106251, at 15:35 18 Dec 2012

    2.PaulMersonsBluePen

    In the Olympics we ranked 3rd in the overall medal table. Third - with USA and China above us (both of whom have completely staggering population numbers and enormous budgets compared to us)

    Does that not count as being "among the world's elite at a multitude of sports" in your book?

    What more do you want?

  • Comment posted by stmcmullen, at 17:00 18 Dec 2012

    There is clearly a misunderstanding of the difference between the elite funding announced today and the grassroots funding announced yesterday. Whilst I am disappointed that Handball has lost all its funding at the elite level- its understandable - the grassroots funding has doubled -still disappointingly low for a sport that has huge legacy potential

  • Comment posted by wirral18, at 16:50 18 Dec 2012

    Thank God the swimmers have been given a kick up the backside.

    One, literally ONLY ONE PB in the entire Olympics. An absolutely disgraceful performance from all bar Jamieson.

    They went in there with the aim to have fun rather than win. Look at Purchase and Hunter for what coming second should look like.

    How many times did we hear "I know i didnt hit a PB but i had great fun"
    Awful.

  • Comment posted by U14787692, at 15:52 18 Dec 2012

    Fantastic for boxing, I'm so pleased for them all, but particularly the women boxers who had to take a total gamble some years ago that their sport would be recognised. I also hope the cut in funding for swimmers will concentrate minds!

  • Comment posted by U14334010, at 18:26 18 Dec 2012

    Absolutely ridiculous. Just as these up and coming sports such as handball and volleyball are getting some momentum after the olympics, they get their funding wiped away! After the olympics i decided to give volleyball a go at university and loved it. This just seems like a kick in the teeth.

  • Comment posted by U15544200, at 00:58 19 Dec 2012

    Rowing is NOT expensive! My rowing club membership costs less than the local gym fees. I get free coaching and access to equipment and training rooms. Please can you also educate yourselves about the difference between UK Sport (elite, all about medals) and Sport England (participation, getting lots of people involved). Two very different pots of money!

  • Comment posted by U15543831, at 19:43 18 Dec 2012

    I want to hopefully be a athlete participating at the 2020 Olympics in handball and cutting handball's funds completely has seriously ruined my dreams. They have killed handball in this country now. The Games this year were all about inspiring a generation so why are they ruining people's chances to get up to the elite level and possibly future medal prospects?

  • Comment posted by EvilAidsy, at 17:09 18 Dec 2012

    I would like to see funding being paid to elite athletes being seen more as a loan. The likes of Ennis and Farah will make millions in sponsorship from their 2012 success that was paid for by us so aren't they now in a position to pay that back to their sports to be re-invested in up and coming youngsters?

  • Comment posted by Ceiswyn, at 17:05 18 Dec 2012

    @81. family guy

    "Another posh Rowing Club on the Upper thames vs a new Pool in Glasgow"

    What's wrong with a rowing club in Glasgow? They ought to be good with boats :)

  • Comment posted by U14935356, at 16:58 18 Dec 2012

    "Good to see handball, basketball, table tennis and wrestling being cut off. No-one in Britain cares for those sports, they dont deserve a penny from us."

    Handball was popular during the Games and Basketball is one of the fastest growing sports. Sadly "The Suits" only see two medals for each rather than that by backing the GB teams they could inspire youth better than our footballers.

  • Comment posted by U14341964, at 16:57 18 Dec 2012

    I don't understand why in this day and age Boxing is even considered a sport. The whole aim of boxing is to hit the living daylights out of someone, inflict as much hurt and damage on them, usually around the head. Most doctors despise boxing and call for it to be banned, at both amateur and professional level because of the long term brain injury effects that are not noticeable immediatly

  • Comment posted by Tiger Rose, at 16:36 18 Dec 2012

    @46 Rowing's not an elitist sport. Mist towns/cities have rowing clubs which aren't too expensive to join & usually have lower rates for Juniors. You don't need your own boat as you'll just use the club boats.

    Sadly I do think there is a perception that Rowing is elitist therefore those from lower socio-economic backgrounds don't take it up only perpetuating the 'rowing's for toffs' view.

  • Comment posted by jerusalem9769, at 15:27 18 Dec 2012

    Chuffed about the swimmers, apart from the occasional outstanding individual they consistently fail at Olympic Games only to continue regardless for the next 4 years with a variety of excuses. Only shame is that the 'elite' swimmers we already have will continue to be funded for their mediocrity whilst the younger, more worthy prospects will lose out.

  • Comment posted by HatTrickRick, at 20:23 18 Dec 2012

    Team sports which don't need much equipment are the most cost effective way of getting more people into sport. I therefore find it very short sighted that neither Basketball, Handball and at £0.4m volleyball were not better funded. These sports will provide medals if supported over multiple Olympic cycles and in the meantime would get thousands of young people involved.

  • Comment posted by U13767059, at 17:34 18 Dec 2012

    At #102 I commented on the judo cut and netball funding via Sport England. I have now looked at the funding criteria on the UK Sport website which includes a 'good governance' clause. In the light of this how has Taekwondo qualified for an increase given the world body enquiry into its mismanagement of Aaron Cook and his decision to switch to representing the Isle of Man?

  • Comment posted by KTL, at 16:02 18 Dec 2012

    Hockey is mentioned as a winner on the money front but half a million more is peanuts. The women came 3rd and the men 4th and really worked their socks off for the whole time. As usual an exciting sport is sidelined.

  • Comment posted by U15543368, at 15:46 18 Dec 2012

    #14 is right - every one of the 13 rowing crews that GB entered got to the final of its event, and 9 of them got medals. These 9 crews contained 28 different people, which was a quarter of all the people who got medals in the whole GB Olympic team. Getting so many individuals to such a high standard is an incredible achievement.

  • Comment posted by U15370961, at 15:36 18 Dec 2012

    Totally agree with #9.

    "UK Sport said that the distribution of money was based on whether sports met their medal target in London."

    How can Judo fail to get an increase... I too am no real Judo fan, except when a Team GB athlete competes, but c'mon, where is the logic in that decision!!!!

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