The life of an elite athlete is a precarious one. For British athletes, particularly those who are involved in so-called minority sports, both their immediate and longer-term future is almost exclusively dependent on their funding, which is dished out by UK Sport. With few athletes outside of the major sports able to make a living on their endorsements and prize money, National Lottery funding is a life-saver.

It is a cut-throat business, though, something that Eilish McColgan found out to her cost this week. It was announced on Wednesday that the 25 year-old has been omitted completely from British Athletics’ performance programme in what is a significant blow to the Dundonian.

McColgan’s career has been one of continual ups and downs; significant performance improvements have regularly been closely followed by lengthy injury lay-offs. However, McColgan’s 2016 has shown just how talented an athlete she is; after serious and seemingly never-ending foot injuries, McColgan switched event from the 3000m steeplechase to the 5000m. It was a risky decision in Olympic year but the gamble paid off quite spectacularly as McColgan obliterated her personal best and made the Olympic final in Rio, something that seemed an extremely far-fetched goal at the start of this year.

It has been reported that British Athletics’ decision to omit McColgan from the latest round of funding is because of her age which, let me remind you, is just 25. Yes, a 25 year-old is unlikely to suddenly become medal potential if they have shown none of that form until this point. But McColgan has proven that as long as she can have a sustained period of full fitness, she has the ability to be world-class.

National Lottery funding is there with the specific aim of funding athletes to win medals. It’s not a charity, and neither should it be. Decisions on who is to be allocated funding and who is to miss out should be made on the basis of cold, hard facts and not any sentimentality due to previous results or anything else. There is not a bottomless pit of money and so not everyone who thinks they should be funded, can be.

However, there must be an element of subjectivity used in certain cases. If McColgan had been mediocre for most of her career until now, she would not deserve to receive money. If she had, like Dai Greene, the 2011 400m hurdles world champion, been world-class in the past but had failed to show that form for several years, she would not deserve to be on funding.

But McColgan’s case could not be further from these examples. That she managed to get to the Olympic Games at all in an event that she had been training for for less than a year was impressive. That she made the final is remarkable and demonstrates her talent, particularly when you consider that the strength-in-depth of the 5000m is immense. This result proves that at her best, McColgan could certainly be a medal contender.

UK Sport’s aim of accumulating as many world and Olympic medals is understandable. But it has to be remembered that elite sport is not always black and white; there are cases which do not always follow the rule book. Dame Kelly Holmes showed flashes of potential early in her career but her injury-plagued journey to the top meant that she was 34 before she won two gold medals at the 2004 Olympics.

This is not to say that McColgan will emulate Holmes’ feat of 12 years ago, but she has earned the right to be given the opportunity to see how far she can go. She made it to Rio 2016 without the support of National Lottery funding and she has already stated that she will continue running with the belief that she can continue her progress in 2017. Elite sport is a brutal place and every elite athlete knows this. But sometimes, decisions are made that aren’t just brutal, they’re wrong, and this is what has happened in the case of McColgan this week.

AND ANOTHER THING

British Gymnastics’ decision to ban Louis Smith over a video in which he appeared to mock Islam has been met with widespread derision. Smith’s behaviour was neither clever nor funny and the four-time Olympic medallist promptly apologised for his “thoughtless actions” But the lines seem to have become blurred as to what the role of a governing body is.

In the process of handing down a two-month ban to Smith, British Gymnastics have shown that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the principle of free speech.

Nobody, including Smith himself, is defending his actions but it is not the place for governing bodies to decide to invoke the now defunct blasphemy law. Athletes have a responsibility not to bring their sport into disrepute but it is not the responsibility of those governing sport to police what comes out of an athletes mouth. British Gymnastics must be publicly rebuked by politicians for their actions, or else we’re on the start of a very slippery slope.