UK Sport

We use cookies to track and analyse visitors to our website

These cookies help make the website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation. They are necessary for our website to function and cannot be switched off.
These cookies gather information to understand how visitors interact with the website, such as how many people are using our website of which pages are popular to help us improve user experience. Switching off these cookies will mean that we cannot gather information to improve the user experience.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by a third party provider whose services we have added to our website. Switching off these cookies mean that areas of our website cannot work properly.

Cookies are small text files that can be used by websites to make a user's experience more efficient.

The law states that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site.

For all other types of cookies we need your permission.

This site uses different types of cookies. Some cookies are placed by third party services that appear on our pages.

You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.

Learn more about who we are, how you can contact us and how we process personal data in our Privacy Policy.

Skip navigation
the national lottery
Twitter Facebook Youtube Instagram LinkedIn
  • About us
    • Our Directors Team
    • Our Board
    • Panels
    • Strategic Plan 2021-31
    • Our partners
    • English Institute of Sport
    • Accessibility
    • Contact us
    • Media centre
    • FAQs
    • Working at UK Sport
  • Our work
    • Investing in sport
    • Investing in events
    • Talent identification
    • Coaching
    • Powering positive change and social impact
    • International relations
    • Leadership, development & governance
  • Events
  • News
  • Sports
    Olympic sports
    • Archery
    • Artistic Swimming
    • Athletics
    • Badminton
    • Basketball
    • Bobsleigh
    • Boxing (Amateur)
    • Canoeing
    • Curling
    • View all
    Paralympic sports
    • Boccia
    • Goalball
    • Para-Archery
    • Para-Athletics
    • Para-Badminton
    • Para-Canoe
    • Para-Cycling
    • Para-Equestrian Dressage
    • Para-Rowing
    • View all
  • Resources
    • A Code for Sports Governance
    • Organisational Health
    • Annual reports
    • Board minutes
    • British Cycling independent review
    • Complaints and whistleblowing
    • Eligibility
    • Fraud, corruption and bribery
    • High Performance System Advisory Group
    • HR policy templates
    • Pregnancy guidance
    • Reports
    • Privacy policies
    • Publication Scheme
    • Recruitment framework
    • The Whyte Review
    • Tenders
    • Transparency and open data
    • Welsh language scheme
  • Jobs in sport
    • Explore career pathways
    • Jobs in sport
    • Submit a job
  • About us
    • Our Directors Team
    • Our Board
    • Panels
    • Strategic Plan 2021-31
    • Our partners
    • English Institute of Sport
    • Accessibility
    • Contact us
    • Media centre
    • FAQs
    • Working at UK Sport
  • Our work
    • Investing in sport
    • Investing in events
    • Talent identification
    • Coaching
    • Powering positive change and social impact
    • International relations
    • Leadership, development & governance
  • Events
  • News
  • Sports
    Olympic sports
    • Archery
    • Artistic Swimming
    • Athletics
    • Badminton
    • Basketball
    • Bobsleigh
    • Boxing (Amateur)
    • Canoeing
    • Curling
    • View all
    Paralympic sports
    • Boccia
    • Goalball
    • Para-Archery
    • Para-Athletics
    • Para-Badminton
    • Para-Canoe
    • Para-Cycling
    • Para-Equestrian Dressage
    • Para-Rowing
    • View all
  • Resources
    • A Code for Sports Governance
    • Organisational Health
    • Annual reports
    • Board minutes
    • British Cycling independent review
    • Complaints and whistleblowing
    • Eligibility
    • Fraud, corruption and bribery
    • High Performance System Advisory Group
    • HR policy templates
    • Pregnancy guidance
    • Reports
    • Privacy policies
    • Publication Scheme
    • Recruitment framework
    • The Whyte Review
    • Tenders
    • Transparency and open data
    • Welsh language scheme
  • Jobs in sport
    • Explore career pathways
    • Jobs in sport
    • Submit a job
Press Enter to Search
News

Steele: We are on way to building world class system

Published 31 July 2008

I have been asked this week if £235 million is worth spending to send the Olympic team to Beijing.

Some of you reading this may have a double-take moment when you see the figure involved. £235m sounds like and is a serious amount of money. But then, we are a nation that is now serious about its sport – and Olympic and Paralympic sport in particular. After all, we are looking forward to hosting the world’s biggest sporting event in four years’ time.

We know that Seb Coe and his team will create the ultimate setting for the London 2012 Games – but the Games won’t be a success if the home team doesn’t perform. Seb himself has said that home athletes winning medals is not just the icing on the cake for 2012 success, but pretty well the key ingredient.

Which brings us to the £235m figure. That represents our total investment in 24 Olympic sports over the past 4 years – with more invested in Paralympic sport - via the Government and the National Lottery.  Like all big numbers, it helps to break it down to understand where it goes and what we hope it can deliver.

Of UK Sport’s £235m investment, well under half has actually been targeted at the athletes that will make up Team GB in Beijing. Put another way, we have invested £22½m a year to support our best talent – still a lot of money, but more reasonable when you realise it underpins the medal hopes of over 300 athletes.

The investment is very necessary - the days of the plucky amateur are long gone. Olympic sport is now a sophisticated science where nothing can be left to chance and anything that can make as little as a 1% performance improvement can mean the difference between ending up on the medal podium or being amongst the also-rans. Just look at Athens, where five of Team GB’s gold medals were won by a collective margin of just 0.545 of a second.

So we invest to allow our athletes to train full-time and have access to the country’s best coaches, facilities, technology and medical support. We also ensure that they are ready to compete in any environment across the globe, by acclimatising to jet lag, heat and humidity – all of which present hurdles to success in Beijing.

The list goes on, and it all costs money – an average of £50,000 a year for our Olympians – from Chris Hoy to Tom Daley. That  is what it takes to achieve success - those moments that last long in the memory, where our athletes stand on top of the podium as the union jack is raised and ‘God Save the Queen’ is played to a world audience of billions.   Our athletes’ success is also an inspiration that will get people into sport and help tackle issues from obesity to social inclusion. It can create a powerful sense of pride and put Great Britain firmly amongst the world’s sporting superstars.

We can only have this sense of confidence because we are on the road to building a world class system – in Olympic sport there are no half measures, just a total commitment to work as a team delivering success.  UK Sport’s investment will contribute to medal success in Beijing and even more so in London in four years time.  That makes the £235 million not just worth spending, but money well spent.

This article first appeared in the Guardian yesterday.
 

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
News
five athletes sat on stage in mid disussion
International Relations Seminar 2023
21 March 2023
Eilish crossing the line celebrating with her arms in the air
New research shows British public support athletes speaking out and driving social change
8 March 2023
Female wheelchair basketball player lines up a shot at the hoop.
UK Sport makes first awards from NGB Development Fund to support organisational health
22 February 2023
Sport jobs in the UK
Find & advertise UK based sports jobs here
Read more
Funding Partners
  • DCMS
  • TNL partners
Strategic Partners
  • British Olympic Association
  • Paralympics GB
  • english institute of sport logo
  • Sport England
  • Sport Northern Ireland
  • Sport Wales
  • Sport Scotland
Sitelogo
Sitemap
  • Homepage
  • About us
  • Our work
  • Events
  • News
  • Sports
  • Resources
  • Jobs in sport
  • UK Sport editorial policy
  • Freedom of Information Act 2000
  • Website terms
  • Accessibility
  • Cookies policy
  • FAQs
Contact
UK Sport
6th Floor
10 South Colonnade
London
E14 4PU
E: info@uksport.gov.uk
T: +44 (0) 20 7211 5100
Follow us
Twitter Facebook Youtube Instagram LinkedIn

© Copyright UK Sport 2023