Funding Cuts Threaten 2012 Medal Hopes

Eight Olympic sports and four Paralympic sports have been told to expect funding cuts of up to 75% in UK Sport's 2012 budget announcement today. Such drastic cuts will reduce the number of athletes in some sports by up to 50%, threatens medal chances, and could decimate talent development projects aimed at fulfilling the 2012 Olympic bid team's mantra of a sporting legacy for Britain.

The 12 sports waiting to hear news of the decision have been in limbo since early December when UK Sport revealed a £50m budget shortfall after a government drive to recruit funding from the private sector failed abysmally. A pot of £292m was allocated to sports predicted most likely to medal, with just £11.2m remaining to be shared between the 12 sports – an approach that UK Sport have termed "no compromise".

For sports like wrestling the expected news is heartbreaking. "The information I have suggests that [we] will be cut by 70-75%, which is a massive cut," said performance director Shaun Morley. "We will struggle. It is unrealistic to expect we can now produce a medal at 2012. The rug's been taken from beneath us, what we thought was guaranteed funding taking us toward 2012 has suddenly gone and all we're left with now is sufficient funding to try and maintain a very small program." Morley hopes to retain just eight athletes – half of his current crop – when the last 6-12 months has seen his group make significant progress on the international stage.

British Handball faces losing its centralized training program which could see athletes dropping out of the sport altogether. "The cuts are quite drastic. I think that's across the board," said performance director Lorraine Brown, "There's £11.5m left of £50m, that's 25% of what is there. We've already instigated our changes and we've gone for a worst case scenario."

Brown says that the rest of Europe – where handball has 20 professional leagues boasting attractive salaries – cannot believe the funding crisis. "For a host nation national team not to be given support has shocked the rest of Europe," said Brown.

Two professional handball clubs have already come forward to rescue eight British players to the Bundesliga - the best men's league in Europe – but uncertainty hangs over the rest. "They've already given up a lot by moving to another country and taking up another sport," said Brown – British handball players were recruited from other sports through the Sporting Giants program - this will now be the litmus test to see if they make it. If a club doesn't take them‚ the possibility is they could drop out of the sport."

Table Tennis also fear a loss of personnel with the impending cuts making staff redundancies likely, they also stand to lose their high performance center in Sheffield. All 12 sports have been told to search out alternative funding partners, but in the current economic climate that is no easy task.

"We've sat round the table with other partners," said Richard Yule, chief executive of the British Table Tennis Federation. "That's helpful to a degree, but that help is at the margins when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds. These other agencies can't close that gap."

"I'm not looking to be overly critical of UK Sport‚ if the sum of money they had agreed with the government had been forthcoming we would be well supported going forward. I hope Sue Campbell [chair of UK Sport] has been doing her very best to persuade the treasury to release additional funds."

UK Sport yesterday issued a statement confirming that they have been trying to raise more funds, but have not indicated any success as yet. They expect to make an announcement regarding the distribution of the remaining 2012 budget later this afternoon.