Leading sports facing Paris 2024 funding cuts
A number of Great Britain’s most successful Olympic sports face funding cuts for the Paris 2024 cycle as UK Sport plans a broader, longer-term approach to winning medals in the future.
The elite sports funding body has secured an increased settlement of £352million which will be split between a greater number of sports – 43 in total. That compares to £345m split between 32 sports for the Tokyo cycle.
That means money for emerging sports, such as climbing, surfing and skateboarding – which will all feature at the Olympic Games for the first time in Tokyo next summer – via a progression fund. In total, seven sports will share a £10.3m funding pot.
An additional new fund worth £3m will be open to applications from other sports such as breakdancing, which is set to feature at the Olympics in Paris for the first time and did not apply for progression funding. However, some of the most successful sports for Great Britain have lost out for Paris. Rowing funding has been cut by almost 10%, to £22,212,008, as has swimming (11.4%), equestrian (11.6%), modern pentathlon (20%), sailing (4%) and athletics (3.6%).
Cycling’s Olympic funding is up more than 12% to £27.6m, while badminton and archery have both received big increases. Gymnastics – a sport which is subject to the ongoing Whyte Review into allegations of bullying by coaches – has suffered a 6.7% decrease.
Paralympic sports are set to receive an overall increase in world class programme funding from £55.5 min the Tokyo cycle to £61.8m for Paris.