UK Sport has denied performing a U-turn after announcing it will now support badminton players, among others, training for the Tokyo Olympics following heavy criticism for initially denying the sport funding.
The chief executive, Liz Nicholl, said the decision to give badminton and archery athletes with a chance of reaching the Games a share of an additional £2.5m pot was not an admission it had made a mistake.
“The reason why we didn’t fund badminton was because we couldn’t fund any of the sports that had some medal potential but not strong medal potential, and now what we have done is find a new and different way to fund archery and badminton,” she said. “This is a chance for us to look at something a bit innovative. It’s targeted support for specific athletes to see whether they can deliver medals in Tokyo 2020.”
Badminton received £5.9m in the four-year cycle to Rio 2016 but when the UK Sport funding was announced in December 2016, the sport had been stripped of all support at elite level. They also failed in an appeal.
Chris Adcock, a bronze medallist at the 2017 world championships, was among those involved in the appeal and welcomed UK Sport’s decision to introduce the support plan, which could assist up to eight athletes.
“We’re happy that UK Sport have recognised that the sport has got the potential to medal, and we have been medalling at recent majors. This funding goes into helping the system around us so that we can build to success in Tokyo and beyond. Given what happened 12 months ago it is a bittersweet day. It could have been better but as a squad, and personally, we are happy that UK Sport have recognised the achievements and progress we have made over the last year.”
Following the review, Great Britain’s medal targets for 2020 have been raised to between 54 and 92 from 51-85 and the Paralympic aim increased from 115-162 to 119-168.
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/01/badminton-archery-olympic-funding-tokyo-2020