Government Reduces 2012 Funding Gap To £50m

The government has agreed to provide an additional £29m to athletes ahead of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics reducing the gap in the original promised funding to £50m.

When London was announced as the host city, the government pledged that a £600m package would be given to UK athletes to boost medal hopes at the 2012 Games.

UK Sport, which handles budgets for Britain’s Olympians and Paralympians, had been allocated £600m over six years for elite sports, with £300m coming from the government, £200m from the Lottery and £100m from the private sector.

However with UK Sport on the verge of announcing its financial allocations for the various sports it had become clear that there was a £79m shortfall in this figure due principally to the £100m element of the overall sum that was scheduled to come from sponsorship from the private sector.

The government has now stepped into to reduce this shortfall to £50m meaning that while the established sports will be given their previously promised allocation some of the more developing sports will not.

Culture secretary Andy Burnham stated: ‘It’s a good deal but a realistic one given the changed economic circumstances we are now in. People can build for London. This is a package that works for everybody.’

UK Sport will inform the 26 Olympic and 20 Paralympic sports what their London 2012 budgets are today.

Burnham added: ‘It really is for the experts now to take difficult but realistic decisions, sport by sport, about where our medal potential lies. But we are saying that no sport will be cut adrift.

‘Sport is such a great thing to invest in, even in difficult economic times. It’s not frivolous spending in any way, shape or form. This is money that brings real benefit in terms of greater activity in the population and real joy, real happiness when we see our national team do well.

‘It is also right now that we really up our efforts to bring in private sector funding to support our preparations for London.’

Team GB finished fourth in the medals table in Beijing, exceeding expectations by landing 19 golds. China were top with 51 golds, followed by the USA (36) and Russia (23).

At the Paralympics, Team GB claimed 42 golds to finish in second place in the table, 47 behind the hosts.