We need funding for grassroots AND elite sport to continue to inspire the nation
IT is a time when we should be basking in the success of our biggest sporting stars.
British athletes have enjoyed a remarkable run, from London 2012 through to the phenomenal Olympic Games in Rio a year ago and the London 2017 World Athletics Championships, which finished on Sunday.
Yet some people still question the funding they get.
A rather misleading survey recently suggested only four per cent of the population backed UK Sport’s funding strategy for more medals at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
It said the public would prefer more grassroots investment and more community sports centres.
Of course, we all want this. I would choose the same. But why do we have to choose?
The fact is that we can — and should — have both, because one feeds the other.
For some there is no bigger incentive to try something new than seeing a fellow Brit triumph on the world stage.
The first ever GB Olympic women’s rowing medal was won in Sydney 2000. And the first school talk I gave was as part of that crew sharing our experiences.
A few years later one of the schoolgirls who was in that room competed alongside us in the GB team.
Never underestimate the power of inspiration.
Another incorrect assumption from this survey is that pretty much all of our Olympic and Paralympic athletes went to private school.
That is simply untrue. Just like I did, 85 per cent of the Rio 2016 team went to a state school.
And the vast majority of our athletes rely on National Lottery funding as their sole source of income.
Olympians and Paralympians don’t just turn up on the TV every couple of years.
They are training hard and are out in their communities to inspire young people.
Since London 2012, our elite athletes have made more than 24,000 volunteer appearances in schools and communities across the UK.
Following the London Games when a State of the Nation survey asked the public what aspects of British society made them most proud to be British, Team GB was third behind the NHS and the Armed Forces.
A more recent poll suggests that Team GB is now joint second.