Budget blow for British athletics

Athletics has suffered a budget cut for the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics but 17 other sports will enjoy increases, figures released by funding body UK Sport today confirmed.

The 17 sports including cycling, sailing, swimming and rowing - all successful in Beijing - have been given increases after meeting their targets for the last Games.

The athletics budget will drop from £26.5m in the run-up to Beijing to £25.1m over the next four years. Badminton also has a slight cut in its spending.

A further nine Olympic sports also face cuts but have yet to receive a confirmed figure. They are: beach volleyball, fencing, handball, shooting, table tennis, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling.

UK Sport announced their funding for the next four years with £246.8m being split among 19 sports, £45.6m going to Paralympic sports - £15.7m more than before Beijing.

A further £12m has been set aside to be split among the nine sports who have not had their funding confirmed. UK Sport will now look at the possibility of securing funds from other bodies and programmes.

UK Sport's board yesterday authorised the allocation of the cash - they also had to decide where to implement a £50m funding shortfall caused by the failure to raise any cash from the private sector.

UK Sport chair Sue Campbell said: "The decisions made by the board were not easy but they were right.

"While it is disappointing that we are not able today to offer the full level of resources to all sports, we can only sit down and invest what we have available to us.

"We will now do everything we can to deliver additional funding into sport and help close the gap."