An Open Letter to British Wrestling Association members, athletes, coaches and officials about the future of Olympic funding in the UK

The athletes within the, now 11, Olympic sports cast aside by UK Sport’s current funding policy have little hope for change as UK Sport looks ahead to Paris 2024.

Under the heading of ‘Future Strategy’, UK Sport’s, currently open, public consultation survey (link) on future funding for Olympic and Paralympic sport illustrates that there is little appetite for change.

Sports currently unfunded
by
UK Sport

Archery
Badminton
Basketball
Fencing
Handball
Synch Swim
Table Tennis
Volleyball
Water Polo
Weightlifting
Wrestling

At the London 2012 Games, UK Sport invested the public’s Lottery and Exchequer money into 100% of Olympic and Paralympic sports. At Rio 2016 this figure reduced to 64% and in Tokyo 2020, the investment is likely to be in the region of just 48%. With less lottery investment predicted post-2020, UK Sports policy is fast reducing to an exclusive club with fewer and fewer members allowed in.

This ever reducing strategy must be turned round members of British Wrestling are urged to have your say on how you want the future investment into the British elite sports system to be used.

Should the current policy continue, the implications for Wrestling are huge because our sport is not one that can deliver multiple medal opportunities.

Even sports that met their Rio 2016 Olympics medal target set by UK Sport are still having to convince UK Sport that they have future medal potential; Wrestling is one of many sports left wondering what it has to do to receive investment that can support athletes with future potential.

The effect of UK Sport’s investment decisions is wide-ranging:

• The talent pathway and performance structure is badly affected as the ‘medals at all cost’ policy cuts off all elite funding and unravels the opportunities, infrastructure and pathways for future medal success.
• We have seen athletes retire or leaving wrestling because they cannot afford to compete and British Wrestling cannot afford to support them
• We have less athletes in our programme now, fewer travelling to tournaments. Even as athletes contemplate the British Olympic Association Long List for Tokyo 2020, the talent pathway is highly fragile as we look to the start of Olympic qualification next year
• Other bodies such as SportsAid have followed UK Sport’s lead and have stopped awarding their annual grants to talented 12-18yr old wrestlers “because there is no UK Sport programme for them to go on to…”

Around 18 months ago, a group of 11 Olympic and Paralympic sports came together around a different strategy – the concept that Every Sport Matters. The group strongly believe that:

• The existing approach to funding of Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic sports has created a two-class system that runs counter to Olympic ideals.
• Opportunities for elite British athletes in all Olympics and Paralympics sports need not run counter to the pursuit of medals. More sports competing and more athletes delivering more medals will make Great Britain even prouder.
• Medal targets alone should not be the sole criteria for funding because:
  • UK Sport has a responsibility to ensure that all our Olympic and Paralympic athletes are encouraged and supported to achieve their potential and that a system of development opportunities should be there for all of them.
  • The popularity and levels of participation of a given sport are key to inspiring a nation and must be considered when funding decisions are made.
• An investment system should be developed whereby every Olympic and Paralympic sport would receive ‘baseline funding’ – this would protect the high-performance system in the UK. Sports would then receive individual investment beyond this based on their medal potential. If this approach were applied for the Tokyo Olympic cycle, the money required to provide baseline funding for those sports that are currently unfunded would represent a little over 1% of UK Sport’s total budget of £550 million for the 4-yr Olympic cycle.

What is the future of the current British high-performance strategy if, one-by-one, the current medal-winning sports stop winning medals, thus inexorably losing their funding too – and a generation of talent from other sports has not been able to develop and emerge?

Surely, this is not the way to approach our future.

YOUR SAY will influence hopes of the next generation and we believe there is an opportunity to create a new, bold, inclusive goal to underpin the next 20+ years of participation in the Olympic and Paralympic Games:

– more sports (represented)

– more athletes (qualified)

– more medals won
(across more sports)

This goal can be achieved without sacrificing current medal success. But it will require a change in UK Sport’s current approach – to one in which the current leading Olympic and Paralympic sports will continue to be rewarded but all Olympic and Paralympic sports and athletes will have a chance to succeed.

You are all passionate about Wrestling and all are proud when Wrestlers stand on the podium, not just because of their achievements, but because it inspires young people to wrestle in schools, more people to participate, more members to join clubs, more athletes who want to improve and more athletes who want to compete.

Fill in the UK Sport Questionnaire to keep Olympic dreams alive for British Wrestling’s young athletes.

BY 19th August

Have your say – https://survey.euro.confirmit.com/wix/1/p1865845301.aspx – to exert maximum influence on UK Sport and the Government to keep those dreams alive.

• UK Sport Way Forward Questionnaire