UK Edition
Heads of 11 sports to meet Katherine Grainger in bid to reverse cuts
The heads of 11 sports denied funding by UK Sport will meet with Dame Katherine Grainger on Wednesday morning in a bid to convince her to scrap Great Britain’s ‘no compromise’ Olympic and Paralympic medal-winning formula.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal Grainger has granted an audience to the national governing bodies of archery, badminton, baseball/softball, basketball, fencing, handball, table tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and wheelchair rugby, which joined forces this summer to demand a review of the decisions made by the government-appointed body for Tokyo 2020 and beyond.
The action by the 11 sports followed UK Sport’s decision to strip archery, badminton, fencing, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby of millions of pounds of public money and refuse to reinstate funding for other sports which suffered the same fate after London 2012.
That sparked the biggest ever revolt 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, with the then chairman of UK Athletics, Ed Warner, among those to condemn the funding award.
Warner even suggested money could be found to bankroll sports cut adrift by UK Sport by abolishing it altogether and transferring its functions to the British Olympic Association and British Paralympic Association.
Grainger, Britain’s most decorated female Olympian whose appointment as UK Sport chair was exclusively revealed by the Telegraph, ruled out revisiting the 2020 Games decisions upon starting her new role but vowed to listen to the concerns of the 11 sports.
Badminton and wheelchair rugby have particular reason to feel aggrieved given their results at Rio 2016 - the former hit its medal target - and subsequent exploits.
Both sports have delivered European gold this year, with Chris and Gabby Adcock going on to win world bronze at the weekend.
The chief executive of Badminton England, Adrian Christy, warned earlier this summer of the consequences for the sport if Grainger failed to act.
“We want her to open her mind, eyes and ears, to see and hear what is happening around the system and take this as a matter of priority,” he said.
“Systems will break. I’ve made 33 redundancies in total, We’ve gone from 24 athletes to 12, five coaches to three and no sports science. We’re buying that in piecemeal.
“Our development pathway is eight to 12 years, so if we lose the Tokyo cycle, we’ve lost 2024, too, and will have to rebuild.”