INVESTIGATION
Insider’s verdict on GB’s Olympic bosses
UK Sport have been labelled ‘arrogant and controlling’, whose ‘obsessive focus on medals’ meant they could not countenance criticism in a consultative report even when it was pointed out their approach was detrimental to grassroots sports.
The Mail on Sunday have been told about ‘a bit of a culture of fear’ within UK Sport in 2014, when the report was being compiled and that their communications team acted to dampen comments questioning the narrative of UK Sport and Team GB’s success at London 2012.
A number of athletes and UK Sport former employees have approached The Mail on Sunday since our revelations last week about how Team GB Olympians were used as ‘guinea pigs’ to test nutritional drink ketones in competition, even t hough t he organisation could not guarantee that it complied with anti-doping laws and the substance was only available for research purposes.
One source was involved in a consultation process, overseen by ComRes, an independent agency which was commissioned to write a report about UK Sport’s success in 2014. The source said that the use of ketones despite the risks was unsurprising given the culture at the organisation then.
The source said: ‘Senior leadership were arrogant and controlling. They were very careful to ensure their “no compromise” narrative wouldn’t be challenged.
‘The entire process and report was geared towards trying to justify this obsessive focus on medals and unsurprisingly it did. There was a bit of a culture of fear at UK Sport [at the time]. It was very hierarchical with everyone getting very panicky about what those at the top would think.’
THE r esearch i nvolved individuals from UK Sport and multiple different British sports governing bodi e s ‘ workshopping’ their perceptions. The source revealed that UK Sport figures played an active role to make sure any views counter to the medal- based approach were portrayed as ‘a minority view’. But the source says: ‘The aim of the independent report was to express the entire range of public and private opinion.’
UK Sport, funded by the National Lottery, are t he Government agency responsible for grants to Olympic and Paralympic sport in
Britain and are one of the primary factors in Britain’s success at London 2012, where Team GB finished third in the medal tables in the Olympics and Paralympics.
In 2014, UK Sport commissioned ComRes to write a report about UK Sport’s success, as a strategic part of their messaging to the public towards the Rio 2016 Olympics.
The source said that during the consultation the focus of UK Sport’s funding remained the small number of sports, such as cycling and rowing, that were more likely to reap medals. Minority sports were apparently an after-thought.
‘The leadership were very worried about losing their grip on the narrative. It’s a big claim they had, that 2012 has been a massive success story,’ said the source.
‘By far the worst aspect of it was the mistreatment of team sports such as basketball and other popular non-Olympic sports such as netball and squash. Basketball is a hugely popular sport worldwide, so is very competitive at Olympic level. It also only counts for two medals in the overall medal table which UK Sport uses to measure its own performance. As such it gets derisory funding in comparison with obscure individual sports, like rowing and cycling, where more medals can be picked up.’
Another issue raised was UK Sport’s l ack of i nvestment in grassroots sport and whether investment in elite-level sport was the best way to inspire a nation. ‘What senior leadership didn’t want was for any of the arguments that suggests grassroots sport isn’t benefiting from this approach to be included, because in their view that wasn’t relevant,’ says the source.
‘The argument was: “Well, we’re all about elite sport, elite sport is the Olympics. So any criticism that sort of pertains to these non-Olympic sports or sports that don’t generate lots of medals not being funded, is an invalid criticism”. It’s a shame because we clearly also did a lot of good things and setting in place clear objectives and pathways for elite athletes has delivered superb results. [But] the relationship between mainstream grassroots sports participation and winning a medal in a sport which nobody has ever heard of needs to be re-examined.’
A ex-senior UK Sport employee contacted The MoS to say it was ‘a relief at last to shine a light on some of the controversial projects that have been pushed by the hierarchy and never come to light’.
Another source questioned the extent to which the 2012 ketones study complied with independent ethics approval. It is standard for an expert panel from a neutral university to set the criteria for a trial and Portsmouth University did approve trials for ‘ a small number of case studies and perhaps one or two experimental studies’. Among the caveats was that ‘athletes and coaches should have had experience using and evaluating [DeltaG] before use in serious competition’ and that these should be ‘in smaller competitions before the Olympics’.
The former UK Sport employee said: ‘Tests in 91 Olympians across eight sports doesn’t sound small scale to me. My experience is that when the higher-ups wanted something to happen, it happened.’
UK Sport told the Government last year that Team GB could top the medal tables at the 2032 Games if they were given £3billion. It has received £345million for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cycle.
UK Sport declined to comment on questions about the ComRes report or on the ethical issues, though a spokesperson said: ‘Research and innovation projects are conducted in line with the highest ethical standards, within the rules of international sport and are assessed by expert independent research advisory groups.
‘Consultation takes place with UK Anti-Doping and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) wherever necessary to ensure projects comply with international anti-doping regulations. The Ketone Ester project received independent ethical approval from the research advisory groups in January 2012.’
UK Sport resolutely deny any accusation that Olympians were used as ‘guinea pigs’ and said they found this allegation both misleading and offensive.