Table tennis, badminton and archery among sports to appeal against UK Sports funding axe
By PA Sport
Last Updated: 17/01/17 5:36pm
Eight sports, including badminton and table tennis, have launched appeals against UK Sport's decision to take away their funding.
Tuesday marked the deadline for sports to start the appeal process against the to give them no funding for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cycle.
The governing bodies of Olympic sports archery, badminton, fencing, table tennis and weightlifting, and Paralympic sports goalball, powerlifting and wheelchair rugby, will each get an hour to make representations to UK Sport's board on February 6-7.
The agency will tell those governing bodies if they have been successful or not in changing December's original decision towards the end of February - if the sports are still unhappy they can make a final appeal to the arbitration service Sport Resolutions.
Table Tennis England chief executive Sara Sutcliffe said: "We ask what more can a sport do to get back in the funding club or is there a glass ceiling for sports like us?
"We've overachieved on everything they have asked of us - governance, new coaches and performance director, results and a complete change of direction - and we've done it without funding.
"My worry is that everybody talks so much about the nadir of 1996 when [Team GB] won just one gold medal that we could be beginning the way back down again. In trying to hold onto second in the medal table, UK Sport is pouring more money into fewer sports.
"Diving, gymnastics and taekwondo weren't winning medals 10 years ago but you will not get sports coming from nowhere like that now, the cut-off for funding is getting higher and higher.
"There is also a complete disconnect with participation: does it make any difference to cycling's participation numbers if they win 10 medals or eight?
"For £1m over four years, we have the possibility of three medallists in the men's team event. Okay, it's not a probability but [UK Sport] is not even giving us the chance. I really worry about the system - this could be our tipping point."
The men's table tennis team reached the quarter-finals in Rio and finished the year with a world ranking of 11th, up 12 places in two years.
But that improvement was not considered good enough by UK Sport when it shared out £330m between 31 Olympic and Paralympic sports.
UK Sport puts each programme into one of five categories depending on their medal prospects. Sports in the bottom group - those at least two Games away from medal-winning potential - did not expect to receive any money and none asked to restate its case.
But, more controversially, UK Sport also decided against backing any of the sports in the fourth category, those projected to win between zero and one medal in Tokyo.
Badminton lost its funding despite meeting its Rio target by winning a bronze in the men's doubles.
Badminton England chief executive Adrian Christy said: "We are still in a bit of a state of shock.
"The emotions we have gone through since Chris [Langridge] and Marcus [Ellis] won their medal in August to being told we were having all our money taken away in December are from jubilation and pride to frustration, anger and bewilderment.
"But we are very determined to demonstrate UK Sport made a wrong decision. We've got lawyers working with us and it is just about framing it in the right way to make the maximum impact."
British Weightlifting boss Ashley Metcalfe is another who will be hoping he can convince UK Sport to think again, although he has two arguments to make.
The Olympic weightlifting programme is in the same camp as badminton and table tennis - a squad on the up but still short of guaranteed medal status - while Paralympic powerlifting has been awarded £1.3m but the money has been given to the English Institute of Sport to manage, not the governing body.
"We will look to challenge the view that we have no Olympic medal prospects and be making the case that we have proven we can deliver good results on low budgets," Metcalfe said.
"And we have been given no indication of what we have done wrong in regard to powerlifting."
For its part, UK Sport has already said these funding decisions are getting harder as more sports have emerged as medal winners in recent years. But it can also point to a remarkable record of improvement since that dismal display in Atlanta in 1996.
The arrival of National Lottery funding, UK Sport's highly-targeted approach and a corresponding revolution in British sports science combined to lift the British Olympic and Paralympic teams to second in their medal tables in Rio.