Last Friday, we at UK Sport announced our investment decisions
for Tokyo 2020 alongside our challenging ambition to deliver more medals and
medallists in Japan.
The announcement was of major interest to the sports
concerned and also one that the rest of the sporting world would have taken note
of following GB success in Rio 2016.
When we talk about those amazing few months in Brazil this
summer, we shouldn’t forget the scale of the achievement: becoming the first
nation to increase both its Olympic and Paralympic medal haul post hosting.
We won Olympic gold medals across more sports than any other
nation that competed in Rio while in the Paralympics, eleven sports claimed
victory in Rio which marked the biggest gold medal haul since the introduction
of National Lottery funding for high performance sport in 1997.
The performances of GB athletes in Rio saw us finish second
on both the Olympic and Paralympic medal table, firmly establishing the nation as
a sporting superpower.
It becomes all the more impressive when you look at just how
far we have come in the past 20 years since Atlanta 1996. Back at those Olympic
Games, we won just one gold medal and finished in 36th place on the
medal table which was felt to be a real low point for British Olympic sport.
UK Sport was established in 1997 with a remit to deliver
medals on the world stage and the results speak for themselves with over 800
Olympic and Paralympic medals having been delivered at the Games since then.
The success has been driven by a high performance system
that is now the envy of the world. It is a people business and the key
ingredient is the talented and committed athletes, coaches and practitioners. Another
key feature of our system is the way that partners work together to deliver a
shared goal by providing world leading support to enable our athletes to
succeed. The partners include the numerous sports that we invest in, the
British Olympic Association (BOA), the British Paralympic Association (BPA), our
sport science, medicine and technology arm - the English Institute of Sport
(EIS) - and the Home Country Sport Institutes. We are definitely better
together!
As we look ahead to Tokyo 2020, the Government has tasked us
with building on the successes of London 2012 and Rio 2016 and that is why we
have set a challenging aspirational goal that will motivate the high
performance system to strive for even greater heights.
Following the most forensic investment process ever, which
began more than a year to go, we have agreed medal ranges with all of the
sports we will invest in and this indicates that we have the potential to win
between 51-85 Olympic medals and 115-162 Paralympic medals in Tokyo. So our
goal is to win more medals and create more medallists in 2020 and with the
continued support of Government and National Lottery players we know that this
is possible
We know what it takes to win and what it costs to win and we
believe the investments we have made for the Tokyo cycle will deliver medal
winning success to inspire the nation once again.
We would love to invest in every Olympic and Paralympic sport
with medal potential but the reality is that the available resources cannot
stretch that far and we have to prioritise to protect and enhance the medal
potential within the system. If we underinvest we will underperform at the
Games, the rest of the world will catch us up and medal success will be put at
risk.
As a consequence, and regretfully, we are unable to invest for
Tokyo in five sports that we invested in for their Rio potential which are archery,
badminton, fencing, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby.
This should not be interpreted as a criticism of past
performance, progress or commitment of any of the sports or athletes affected.
It is a matter of affordability and priorities and the need to invest what it
costs to win in the sports with the strongest future medal potential in Tokyo.
We are sensitive to the fact that this will have a devastating
impact on the hopes and dreams of some athletes, coaches and support teams that
miss out and we will be fully supporting those affected through a transition
plan.
As I told my colleagues last week, our biggest
responsibility is to target our available resources to drive medal winning
success. Our track record of success and the rigour of our processes gives me
confidence that the tough calls we have made are the right calls in support of
our best medal prospects to deliver the agreed medal target ranges but it is
right that sports adversely affected have the opportunity to make
representations directly to our Board before considering the option of a formal
appeal.
That said, the final four years of the journey
to Tokyo 2020 starts now.