It would see funds targeted towards those sports that have the best chance of delivering medals at the Beijing Games in 2008.
UK Sport yesterday backed a report by the National Audit Office (NAO), the government's independent auditor, suggesting that funding - nine per cent of which comes from sales of national lottery tickets - be concentrated on fewer athletes and sports.
A new strategy, aimed at alleviating NAO concerns, will target funding for “those athletes who have a realistic chance of making the podium in
2008,” UK Sport said.
UK Sport was set up in 1996 to oversee the distribution of public funding to athletes after Great Britain won just 15 medals at the Atlanta Games. That number rose to 28 in Sydney four years ago and 30 in Athens last year, the best performance in a non- boycotted Olympics since Paris in 1924.
The success in Athens followed investment over four years of £92.4million ($173.9 million), or £2.4million per medal, against a UK Sport target of £1.7million per medal, reports Bloomberg.
Maximum annual funding for British athletes was £21,830 in the run-up to Athens, with the average £12,184.
Each sport receives a medal target based on its funding.
