Funding decision for Team GB climbers deferred for a year
- Tuesday 13th December 2016
Dec 13th; 2016
UK Sport has deferred the decision on the funding stream for Team GB climbers targeting the Tokyo games.
Shauna Coxsey et al will have to wait for an other year to see if they will be funded...
Climbers looking to training for and participate in the Tokyo games – as well as athletes involved with the other four demonstration sports – will have to wait for another year to find out whether or not funding streams will be made available to them. Shauna Coxsey – the current IFSC Boulder World Cup Champion - is understood to be committed to train for and compete at the Tokyo Games but believes that funding is vital if Team GB climbers are to do well.
UK Sport explained that whilst there has been a downturn in lottery funding the Government has given an undertaking that any shortfall would be made good so that the total monies invested will equal that ploughed into the recent Rio Games.
Rob Adie, BMC competitions officer, is quoted on the BMC website here saying: “The BMC has assembled a very talented pool of young climbers supported by an incredible set of results from the 2016 competition season, which was submitted to UK Sport in October together with our medal targets for the 2020 games. UK Sport has just confirmed to us that they agree with the medal potential of our climbers and think that our medal target is realistic – it’s fantastic news to have UK Sport’s confidence in our team’s abilities.
“The qualification, format and rules will be clarified by the International Federation of Sports Climbing in March; we will then be in a much better position to ensure we get the adequate support in place for our athletes in this very important year of the Olympic cycle. We will be working with UK Sport in early 2017 to develop our strategy for our World Class Programme and get our athletes on the road to Tokyo!”