BADMINTON officials reacted with a mixture of dismay and disbelief last night after finding that their sport was the big loser in UK Sport's funding plans for Olympic and Paralympic sports for the Tokyo 2020 cycle. Despite Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge winning a bronze medal in Rio, Britain's first-ever men's doubles medal, the sport in which Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour excels will receive none of the £345m of National Lottery and government funding which UK sport has announced will be invested over the next four years.
Archery, fencing, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby will also not receive funding over the next Olympic cycle, while cycling, which returned 12 medals at Rio, had its funding cut by more than £4m to £25.98m. The figure represents quite a drop-off for Badminton, considering the sport had its central investment cut from £7.4m to £5.9m after London 2012, after no players managed the minimum fourth to eighth-placed finish which had been predicted. In total, up to £345m will be invested in 31 Olympic and Paralympic sports for the next Games - £2m less than a record £347m allocated in the run-up to Rio to harvest an unprecedented 67 Olympic medals and the 147 Paralympic ones. Funding has yet to be confirmed for the five Olympic and two Paralympic sports which are added to the programme for Tokyo - baseball/softball, karate, skateboard, sports climbing, surfing, Para-taekwondo and Para-badminton. UK Sport has set Team GB a medal target of winning 51 to 85 Olympic medals and 115 to 162 Paralympic medals in Japan.
“We are staggered by this decision, it is incomprehensible," said Adrian Christy, the chief executive, who plans to appeal. “Despite the most successful Olympic Games since 2004 for GB Badminton, the decision presents a catastrophic impact on the sport and it will mean the cessation of all funding that supports the performance and operations of the GB Badminton Programme. How can you return from the best games for more than a decade, in a year where our players have demonstrated World Class performances and where we can demonstrate the journey to Tokyo is on track, only to have every penny of investment withdrawn! We are prepared to fight for the hopes and dreams that their talent deserves and will be making representation to UK Sport and appealing to Sport Resolutions (UK) in due course."
“We are absolutely staggered at the decision communicated to us by UK Sport this morning," said Stephen Baddeley, chair of the GB Badminton Board. "That a sport which has only just recently contributed to the greatest ever medal haul for Team GB at an Olympic Games has to inform its athletes and support staff that their aspirations for continued future success have been shattered in an instant, is one that we are finding difficult to comprehend.”
A total of £345m will be invested in 31 Olympic and Paralympic sports - £2m less than the record £347m allocated for the Rio Games.
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