UK Sport 'quietly confident' that Team GB can improve Rio Olympic medal haul at Tokyo 2020

UK Sport are “quietly confident” that next year’s Tokyo Olympics could surpass the record-breaking feats of 2016 after new data revealed that British athletes have been performing better at world level than the team in Rio de Janeiro.

With just seven months until the Olympics start in Tokyo, research into both the number of medals that have been won at a world level, and the number of placings between fourth and eighth, have shown positive advances during this cycle, especially in the breadth of sports which could realistically win gold.

Whereas Team GB athletes won world medals in 15 different Olympic sports between 2011 and 2015, the same data between 2015 and 2019 shows that there are now 22 sports in which medals have been won. The total numbers of world medals won by British athletes also showed an increase, from 115 to 118.

“It’s looking good,” said Chelsea Warr, UK Sport’s director of performance. “Our bases are loaded - the talent is there, our medal potential is there.”

Asked if there was confidence that an extraordinary haul in Rio de Janeiro of 67 Olympic and 147 Paralympic medals could be surpassed, Warr said: “The international context has changed. It’s definitely tougher. A lot of new sports and disciplines have come in. We’ve had to be agile about moving on these quickly.

“But, when I think about the results of this year, and I compare them to where we were in Rio at the same point. And when I think about the number of fourth to eighth places that we have, and I think about the quality of the people and our track record. If you put all that together, I’d say I’m really quietly confident. And if you polled the sports out there, they’d say the same thing. They are under no illusions. An inch of complacency now is the enemy of excellence. But seven months is quite a long time and there’s an opportunity to correct things and or enhance them. We’ve still got things up our sleeves.”

Athletes in judo, skateboarding, archery, climbing, fencing, badminton and karate have all won global medals between 2015 and 2019, having not done so in the same four-year period before Rio. In the past 12 months, Team GB athletes have won 48 world medals compared to 47 in the 12 months before Rio. The respective numbers of fourth to eighth place finishes has also risen by 30 from 188 before Rio to 218 going into Tokyo.

The big caveat is that Team GB athletes out-performed expectations at Rio when their projected target range started at 47 and they actually achieved 20 more medals, of which 27 were gold. UK Sport's aggregated medal ranges were between 40 and 77 for the world events in 2019 and will again be updated in consultation with the individual sports as Tokyo nears.

The Paralympic athletes have also showed improved trends since Rio. From a range of 105 to 146, they won 127 world medals in 2019 compared to 125 in 2015. The number of fourth to eighth places also increased from 175 before Rio to 182 over the past year. Team GB athletes were ultimately second in the medals tables at both the Olympics and Paralympics in Rio. The Olympic results surpassed even London 2012 and represented both the greatest performance at an Olympic Games since 1908 and the best ever outside of this country.

Warr also stressed the improvement that has been made by some of the other “Premier League” nations, specifically hosts Japan, who are expected to capitalise on new sports such as skateboarding, climbing and surfing. She said that the United States had moved into a “whole new league” in their domination of athletics and swimming while China had “woken up” after being “caught napping” at Rio. They have taken a number of leading coaches from around the world at “eye-watering salaries”.

There is particular excitement at how the breadth of potential medal-winning sports has increased following criticism that the funding strategy had focussed too narrowly on sports like cycling, rowing and sailing, which have historically delivered multiple medals. There is confidence that those traditional medal-winning sports will again peak effectively but tweaks to the funding system have included an individual stream, where specialist support can be specifically targeted, and ‘aspiration’ funding to help certain sports who do not receive full funding.

Russia’s Olympic exclusion is not expected to make a huge difference to Team GB’s medal projections as their main medal-winning events are generally different.

Speaking before the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended Russia’s Olympic ban, UK Sport chief executive Sally Munday said that she hoped “a situation can be found where clear athletes can compete in some way”. She also admitted that no-one could confidently predict that the Tokyo Olympics would be free of doping.