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Frankie Gavin - one of Britain's World Champions
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Of all the media stories swirling around the world of sport in the past month or so, the one that caught my eye the most is likely not to have registered with many of you reading this article. Not least because it was published half way around the world.

On 20 November the Australian Olympic Committee put out a press release saying that they were increasing the funding available to their Olympic athletes ahead of first Beijing next year and then London 2012. The reason, according to AOC President John Coates, was simple: “Our arch rival Great Britain has made dramatic advances at our expense.” The Australians, he said, needed to do more to stay ahead of us, and more money needed to be spent.

“Arch Rival” - what an extraordinary, and welcome, admission. For many years, the Australians have been the benchmark for what we might be able to achieve as a nation in sporting terms. We can never hope to compete with the likes of USA, China and Russia. Demographics simply make that impossible. But why not aspire to overtake the Australians, particularly on the Olympic and Paralympic stage?

Indeed that is exactly what we are seeking to do. When UK Sport put its submission in to the Treasury in late 2005 seeking additional funding for our elite athletes ahead of London 2012, we set ‘aspirational goals’ to show what that funding might achieve in six years time. On the Paralympic side it meant holding onto our second position in the medal table (a tough enough task giving the rising standard of international competition and with China utterly dominant) whilst aiming for the top spot.

On the Olympic, we said we should aspire for 4th in the medal table: behind the big three but beating Australia. To do so would mean a quantum leap in performance terms, and a massive effort from everyone involved, but with the right resources we believed it was possible.

The Chancellor listened. UK Sport asked for a doubling of its existing funding, and essentially we got it. As a result we now have a total of around £600 million to invest in our Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls between 2006 and 2012. The only caveat on that is that while the vast majority is from the National Lottery and Exchequer, the Chancellor stated that £100 million of that sum should be found from private investment.

The DCMS, the Department responsible for raising the £100 million, is actively seeking ways to achieve this, with our full cooperation and support. It will not be easy, especially given the very crowded nature of the sports sponsorship market and London 2012’s own requirement to raise substantial sums to pay for the Games themselves. I remain hopeful that we can find a route to obtaining this money, however, because without it we are not going to achieve our ultimate goals. A £600 million mission will become a £500 million one, with the consequent downgrading of our performance aspirations.

What is true is that the additional funding we have already has led to some clear improvements in the performance of our Olympic and Paralympic sports. On the evidence of 2007, we are making great strides. Over the summer, in those sports that have competed in World Championships, we won a total of 42 medals in Olympic disciplines.

Better still 12 of them were gold, from seven different sports. We should salute our Champions, from the amazing achievements of our established winners - the track cyclists especially, but also sailing and rowing, and of course the gold medal won by Christine Ohuruogu in athletics – through to newer World Champions like Tim Brabants in canoeing and Frankie Gavin in Boxing, our first World Champion ever in that sport and part of a growing band of boxers who probably would have turned professional by now were it not for UK Sport’s funding support.

Underpinning these performances has been evidence of real progress in other sports not normally in the spotlight. Archery, Gymnastics and Judo all enjoyed impressive medal winning performances at World Championships this summer, while the women’s Hockey team excelled in qualifying already for Beijing. And both the men’s and women’s Basketball teams took great strides forward towards London 2012 qualification after years in the doldrums.

Our Paralympic athletes had many fewer World Championships this summer, but still managed to pick up 46 medals.

All this shows real progress. Compared to the last pre-Olympic year, 2003, we have won 13 more medals this time around and – crucially – twice as many golds. We have more athletes coming through with I think the drive and ambition to compete and win on the world stage.

We are not leaving this to chance however. UK Sport is now in the middle of devising and introducing a major new means to manage our high performance strategy and keep track of how we are progressing over the next five years. Called “Mission 2012” it is an approach which seeks to ensure that the sports in which we invest are on the right track by examining how they are doing in three dimensions: athlete performance; systems and leadership; and the overall ‘climate’ of the performance programme.

Each one of these dimensions will be assessed by the sports themselves on a quarterly basis, and the results will be analysed by a panel of experts brought together by UK Sport – including Sir Clive Woodward, now Director of Elite Performance at the BOA, and Steve Cram.

Mission 2012 is geared around the sports, and aims to help them to help themselves. It will help UK Sport account for what is a substantial public investment in sport, but it is not about bureaucracy. It is about how best to help a sport assess where it is now, and what it needs to do to maximise its own chances of success.

For UK Sport, it will also ensure that we are able to create a lasting legacy of success in this country, through the building up of standards across the world class performance system: not just medal winners in 2012 but in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and beyond.

We have an awful long way to go, and with Beijing around the corner next year time is pressing. But I do think that we should as a nation feel that every attempt is being made to ensure our Olympic and Paralympic success. Mission 2012, and the resources that underpin it, is our means to deliver it. Maybe the Australians are right to be worried.

This article first appeared in the December edition of ‘Whitehall and Westminster World’.

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