UK Sport denied to perform U-turn as badminton gets Olympic funding back

Sticking to the decision made earlier, UK Sport denied to perform U-turn after announcing its support to badminton players to train for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Liz Nicholl, the chief executive, said, “The reason why we didn’t fund badminton was because we couldn’t fund any of the sports that had some medal potential but not strong medal potential, and now what we have done is find a new and different way to fund archery and badminton,” she said. “This is a chance for us to look at something a bit innovative. It’s targeted support for specific athletes to see whether they can deliver medals in Tokyo 2020.”

Badminton received £5.9m in the four-year cycle to Rio 2016 but when the UK Sport funding was announced in December 2016, the sport had been stripped of all support at elite level. They also failed in an appeal.

Chris Adcock, a badminton bronze medallist at the 2017 World Championships, was among those involved in the appeal and welcomed UK Sport’s decision to introduce the support plan, which could assist up to eight athletes.

Chris said, “We’re happy that UK Sport have recognised that the sport has got the potential to medal, and we have been medalling at recent majors. This funding goes into helping the system around us so that we can build to success in Tokyo and beyond. Given what happened 12 months ago it is a bittersweet day. It could have been better but as a squad, and personally, we are happy that UK Sport have recognised the achievements and progress we have made over the last year.”