11 sports join forces to revolt in new call for UK Sport to reverse cuts

The biggest ever revolt against Great Britain’s ‘no compromise’ Olympic and Paralympic medal-winning formula will be reignited on Thursday when 11 sports snubbed by funding chiefs call for new UK Sport chairman Dame Katherine Grainger to scrap the policy.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that the national governing bodies of archery, badminton, baseball/softball, basketball, fencing, handball, table tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and wheelchair rugby have joined forces to demand Grainger, who officially starts this week, conducts a review of the decisions made by the government-appointed body for Tokyo 2020 and beyond.

The move by the 11 sports is being backed by the chairman of UK Athletics, Ed Warner, who broke ranks in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph in December to condemn UK Sport’s funding award for the next four years.

That meant archery, badminton, fencing, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby were all stripped of millions of pounds of public money, and other sports failed to regain funding lost after London 2012.

The decision provoked a backlash from those involved in each sport, and campaigns for that support to be reinstated. However it was the intervention of Warner that represented the biggest challenge to the ‘no-compromise’ model that lifted Britain from one gold medal at the 1996 Olympics to 29 at London 2012 and a record 67 at Rio 2016, the first time the head of one of the big winners of that approach to funding had spoken out publicly on behalf of the losers.

Stressing that he was doing so in a personal capacity and not in his role at UK Athletics, Warner said he had “a lot of respect” for the UK Sport funding system but suggested those in charge had got “slightly too close to the machinery” and had been “blinded to the perversity of some outcomes”.

Warner was particularly exercised about the decision to cull wheelchair rugby, accusing UK Sport of cutting adrift some of sport’s most physically impaired athletes, the consequences of which he warned were “calamitous” for their futures and sent the wrong message about the country’s attitude towards those in greatest need.

He and the heads of the 11 sports are banking on Grainger, Britain’s most decorated female Olympian whose appointment as UK Sport chair was exclusively revealed by The Telegraph last month, being more sympathetic as a recently retired athlete to the plight of those whose funding was snatched away after UK Sport raised the threshold for individuals to receive a share of its £137.5 million-a-year budget.

It also warned in February of more funding cuts to come in Brexit Britain, telling sports which avoided losing their exchequer and National Lottery support to stop “going cap in hand to government” and start fending for themselves because the money given to them would dwindle further after Tokyo 2020.

Reacting to the latest move by the 11 unfunded sports, UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl said: “We have had to make some tough decisions around investment for the Tokyo cycle. We did not take these decisions lightly and are acutely aware of the impact they have on sports, athletes and support personnel.

“We acknowledge the progress and commitment of the sports and athletes affected. This is just a matter of us having to prioritise available resources towards those with the strongest medal potential as we focus on our aspirational goal to deliver more medals and medallists at Tokyo 2020.

“This is the first time that we have been unable to support every sport that has athletes with the potential to deliver medals at the next Games.

“To support those affected, we put in place a comprehensive transition and support package and have worked closely with these sports to help staff and athletes move away from dependency on UK Sport funding.

“In the meantime, we will still be supporting more than 30 sports with the collective potential to win more medals in Tokyo 2020, in a way that will make the nation very proud once again.”