UK sport upheld their decision to cut funding for badminton in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. British Badminton chiefs are stunned after their success at Rio, with Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge winning the men’s doubles bronze medal.
UK Sport said that badminton would receive nothing. However it is not the only sport losing funding. Archery, fencing, table tennis and weightlifting are all in the same boat. This is after UK sport announced how it would allocate £265 million pounds to Olympic sports.
In a statement GB Badminton said: “Given the strength of evidence we were able to present to justify investment, we cannot believe UK Sport has concluded that they should stand by their decision and award zero funding to our GB programme.”
However UK Sport CEO Liz Nicholl justified their decisions. In a statement she said: “The sports that made representations to our Board were unable to provide any critically compelling new evidence that changed our assessment of their medal potential for Tokyo.”