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Tuesday, 4 February 2014

Rio 2016: Four sports suffer Olympic funding cut

Breaking news


Basketball, synchronised swimming, water polo and weightlifting have all had their Olympic funding withdrawn.

UK Sport has decided to put money into other sports ahead of the Rio Games in 2016 and Tokyo 2020.


We are still on the road to Rio but we now have to qualify for EuroBasket 2015 with our hands tied behind our back
British Basketball's Roger Moreland


Three Paralympic sports - wheelchair fencing, goalball and five-a-side football - have suffered the same fate.

UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholls said it would be "high risk" to continue funding sports with little chance of winning a medal by 2020.

Around £350m will be spent preparing Britain's best medal chances at both the Olympics and Paralympics.

British Basketball reacted to the news with "disappointment" and claimed that the UK Sport funding system "appears to show bias against team and emerging sport".

The sport was in a similar position a year ago, but managed to win funding for a year on appeal. Now, that money has gone completely.

"The basketball community at home and abroad will be aghast that this can happen again," said Roger Moreland, British Basketball's performance chairman.


This is a very significant point on our journey to Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020
UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholls


"We are still on the road to Rio but we now have to qualify for EuroBasket 2015 with our hands tied behind our back."

A UK Sport statement said funding had been increased to 18 Olympic and Paralympic sports following the "most rigorous annual investment review process".

Several sports have had a funding increase, including triathlon, whose pot of money goes up from £5.5m to £7.5m, a 35% increase.

Others with increased funding include canoeing, fencing, gymnastics hockey, judo, sailing, shooting and taekwondo.

But funding has been reduced for swimming, down to £20.8m from £21.4m, and badminton, down to £5.7m from £5.9m.

In Paralympic sport, para-canoe has received the biggest rise, up from £2.3m to just over £3m.

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