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Funding cuts will stop our 2012 dreams in their tracks
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent29.12.08
HUNDREDS of young British athletes dreaming of participating in the London Olympics face disappointment as public funding is cut.
Cash for some sports has been withdrawn because of a £50million shortfall in government funding.
As a result many athletes will have to give up midway through their training programmes. Niche sports such as volleyball and handball are among the losers and while teams are expected to be fielded in 2012 it is feared they will not do well.
Twelve sports - eight Olympic and four Paralympic - will learn their fate from funding agency UK Sport on 29 January.
Other Olympic sports facing cuts include fencing, shooting, table tennis, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling and from the Paralympics fencing, goalball, volleyball and women's wheelchair basketball.
Emerging athletes have told the Standard how their 2012 hopes may now be dashed.
Julia Lydall, 22, pistol shooter from Woking, Surrey
One of the Standard's "Ones to Watch" for 2012, Lydall has already won a Commonwealth bronze and received funding under UK Sport's "World Class Potential" programme.
She said: "My funding prospects look very bleak now and I am going to have to take a part-time job so I can continue with my training. But by doing that it means I will have less time to train.
"One of my coaches was going to give up his day job to devote himself to the sport but he has changed his mind now.
"We were told after the funding announcement that all our booked trips would be honoured but after that they will have to be self-funded. I do feel the system has let me down."
Huw Goodwin, 25, handball player, from Aylesbury, Bucks
Joined Britain's training camp in Aarhus, Denmark, after being talent-spotted. Goodwin put on hold a career in clinical psychology to be in our inaugural Olympic handball team.
He said: "It costs a lot to be out here (in Aarhus) and it would affect us to be pulled back to Britain, which would make things more difficult.
"I was working in an Edinburgh hospital and I had begun a job in clinical psychology nine months before this opportunity came up. After a six-month trial period I upped sticks and went abroad, leaving behind friends and family. Money has helped us make major inroads and the women are top 15 in the world. If we lost momentum now it would be a serious dent to our ambitions."
Michaela Breeze, 29, weightlifter, from Ivybridge, Devon
Breeze is the only fully funded weightlifter in the British squad of 20. She competed in Beijing and Athens, where she finished 9th. The sport received public funding for the first time in 2006 and wants £1.8 million to continue its programme to 2012.
She said: "It's a downward spiral. No funding equals fewer lifters which equals more difficulty producing results and if you don't produce results you lose even more funding.
"It's difficult to see a way out. I'm told my personal award is secure but it will have an impact on my training camps and squads being run through the governing body. We are in the process of setting up a performance base in Leeds and we hoped that would be the start of something special to motivate youngsters to get involved. There's talk about leaving a legacy but it won't happen by itself."
Andy Pink, 25 volleyball player, from Wandsworth
Moved to Greece to play for first division team Milon. Qualified for a £6,000 per year grants thanks to funding. British volleyball, which was hoping to make its Olympic debut in 2012, received a £4.1 million grant for the past two years but will now only get a fraction of that. He said: "We've got players in European leagues who are being paid by their club sides which means we can free up money for the youngsters. We have 15 to 20 kids training year round in Sheffield. If they cut the funding it will be disastrous for the kids who are just starting to learn."
Sean King, 19, water polo player, from Beckenham
Sean was promoted to Britain's senior water polo squad this year. The funding cut means swimming chiefs have cancelled 90 per cent of the Olympic squad's competitive programme next year. King said: "Now everything's been cancelled except a training camp in Italy next month which had already been paid for.
"This will mean the end of our Olympic dream."
Reader views (3)
if they move the shooting 2012 venue to southern counties in dorset that will save them 27 million pound in one move, that could train a lot of athletes , but locog will spend 42 million instead then knock it down after 2012.
- kevin, dorset
Cut funding, cut facilities. There will soon be no sports for young people especially to do and achieve in in this country. It's ok for people who have no sporting interest to crow about the cost od sport, but what about the cost of no sport?
More juvenile problems, more obesity, fewer positive role models.
And for the not so young, they are being squeezed out by the lack of facility access and the focus on the youth. Older participants keep fit and active by way of sports partciipation and copetition with the various veterans and masters competitions, if they can get access to facilities!
London desperately needs more investment in sports participation - facilities being one of the ways. But that is not being done with these games - the legacy - smiling politicians spinning a lost opportunity into something wonderful. Less facilities in some sports, less opportunities, and not fit-for -purpose sports governing bodies.
- John Whitby, Peterborough, Cambs
great, let's cut funding totally, then maybe the olympic committee will remove the games from London and we can save us millions. the games will do nothing for ordinary Londoners, only the property developers, Politicians and the elitist (wealthy) sports personalities.
The olympic games are corrupt and tarnished, it's time to return to Amateur sport.
- Kerry Trubee, purley
