Badminton chiefs fume after UK Sport reject funding appeal
Great Britain badminton chiefs have declared themselves “staggered” after UK Sport rejected their appeal against the funding cut imposed for the four years leading up to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Six other sports – archery, fencing, goal ball, table tennis, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby – also failed to convince the governing body to reinstate their funding allocation.
Despite Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge winning the men’s doubles bronze medal in August, badminton’s funding was slashed from £5.9m in the four years running up to Rio to zero.
“Given the strength of evidence we were able to present to justify investment, we cannot believe UK Sport has concluded that they should stand by their decision and award zero funding to our GB programme,” read a GB Badminton statement.
UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl said: “The sports that made representations to our Board were unable to provide any critically compelling new evidence that changes our assessment of their medal potential for Tokyo.”