GB Badminton staggered by Tokyo funding rejection

LONDON (Reuters) - British badminton chiefs said they were "staggered" on Monday after UK Sport upheld a decision to cut funding for the sport in the cycle leading up to the Tokyo Olympics, despite the men's doubles bronze medal win in Rio. Badminton, along with archery, fencing, table tennis and weightlifting, missed out when UK Sport announced in December how it would allocate 265 million pounds for Olympic sports. Dismissing representations to the government body responsible for financing elite sport in Britain, UK Sport said badminton would receive nothing, even though Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge won the men's doubles bronze medal in the Rio Olympics last year. "Given the strength of evidence we were able to present to justify investment, we cannot believe UK Sport has concluded that they should stand by their decision and award zero funding to our GB programme," GB Badminton said in a statement. GB Badminton received 5.74 million pounds in the Rio cycle and achieved their pre-Games target of delivering a medal. "We have players who are on track to win medals for the nation at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and our belief in those players remains as great as it's ever been. We will now take some time to consider our next steps," the statement added. UK Sport's ruthless approach, which has produced record medal returns at the last two Olympics, was justified by CEO Liz Nicholl on Monday. "It is uncompromisingly focused on excellence, relative merit and what it takes to pursue the ambition to win more medals and create more medallists in Tokyo to inspire the nation," she said in a statement. "The sports that made representations to our Board were unable to provide any critically compelling new evidence that changed our assessment of their medal potential for Tokyo. "They remain in a band that we cannot afford to invest in." Only weightlifting received some positive news with its funding being returned after an original decision handed it to the English Institute of Sport who manage the programme. Britain finished second after the United States in the medals table at the 2016 Olympics -- above sporting powerhouse China -- with 27 golds. Its total of 67 beat the 65 won by Britain at London 2012. (Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Gareth Jones)