Triathlon Misses Out on Funding Boost for Olympic Sports

Wednesday, 12th April 2006

Funding for Olympic and Paralympic sport received a massive boost today as UK Sport announced additional funding awards for the three years through to Beijing 2008. There was however, little for the sport of triathlon to celebrate in today's announcement.

A total of £17 million of new investment was targeted at the 27 Olympic sports as a result of the Government's decision last month to allocate up to £300 million to athlete preparations for London 2012.  

Four sports received increased investments of more than £1 million each Swimming, Cycling, Equestrian and Hockey.  Basketball, Handball, Volleyball and Synchronised Swimming and Water Polo were added to UK Sport's Olympic programme having previously not been in receipt of funding.

Triathlon received the smallest increase of all the increases, just £45,000, of which £35,000 is ring fenced for athlete personal award increases and the English Institute of Sport. The £10,000 increase towards programme funding is less than 1% of the 2005-2006 investment and is in effect a reduction after annual inflation is taken into consideration. The next smallest increase at £197,000 was awarded to Diving.  

Norman Brook, Chief Executive, British Triathlon, stated "This was a day of good news for most of the 27 summer Olympic sports, but brought little for the sport of triathlon to celebrate. In real terms, with the new Olympic pathway now responsible for English, Scottish and Welsh performance investment, there is a real risk that we now have less funding than in 2005-2006.  Despite £300 million of new funding being made available to the 27 summer Olympic sports, Triathlon faces the prospect of being less well funded through to Beijing than we were in the periods leading up to the Sydney and Athens Olympics."  

Brook confirmed that British Triathlon officials have been invited to their opposite numbers at UK Sport to discuss the impact of the new performance model on Triathlon's Olympic performance pathway funding.

BTA: 11 April 2006