Athletes say ‘thank you’ to national lottery players

Some of Team GB and ParalympicsGB’s most successful London 2012 medallists said ‘Thank You’ today to National Lottery players for their life-changing funding after a record-breaking Olympic and Paralympic Games.

No-one has contributed more to elite sport in the UK than National Lottery players. In fact, almost nine out of ten (86 per cent) Team GB and ParalympicsGB athletes selected for London 2012 have benefited from National Lottery funding at some point in their career, enabling them to train to the highest of international standards and contributing to the team’s outstanding success.

Team GB’s athletes had their best Games in 100 years, achieving the upper end of the medal target range set by UK Sport, with success in more sports than ever before. They amassed a total of 65 Olympic medals – 29 of which were gold – across 16 sports to claim a top three finish in the table.

Before the 2012 Paralympic Games, GB and Northern Ireland athletes were tasked by UK Sport with achieving 103 medals in 12 sports and they didn’t disappoint. Outstanding performances in 13 sports took ParalympicsGB’s total medal tally to 120, finishing third in the table.

By comparison, at the 2008 Beijing Games, Team GB claimed 19 gold medals, 13 silver medals and 15 bronze medals across 11 sports to finish fourth in the medal table, while ParalympicsGB won a total of 102 medals across 12 sports.

623 Olympic and Paralympic medals have now been won by British athletes since the start of National Lottery funding in 1997.

All eyes will now turn to Rio 2016 where Team GB and ParalympicsGB will look to try and better London’s performance with the help of a further increase in National Lottery funding. For the London Cycle, from 2009-2013, £266m of lottery funding is forecast to be invested by UK Sport, with this then increasing to £344m for the Rio Cycle from 2013-2017. This funding will help ensure that GB’s athletes continue to benefit from world-class support as they prepare for the next Olympic and Paralympic Games.

London 2012 Olympic Sailing Finn gold medallist Ben Ainslie said: “When I started sailing as a youngster, trying to qualify for the Olympics at Atlanta in 1996, there was no funding in place at all. When I received Olympic funding in 1997-98, it effectively gave me an extra £20,000 a year as a top performer. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that sailing and all the Olympic sports would be a lot poorer without that level of investment. Looking at the sport we had then compared to the sport we have now, it’s almost unrecognisable: all the physiotherapy, support on the water, meteorology and tidal analysis is there because of the cash we get now.”

London 2012 Paralympic double gold medallist (T34 100 and 200m) Hannah Cockroft said: “I’ve had the most amazing Paralympic Games and it is thanks to National Lottery players that I have had this much success, without my funding my journey would have been a lot harder. Not only have I been able to train full time but I have had access to world class equipment, like my expensive racing chairs. I have had the best time of my life here in London and every hour spent training was worth it to win double gold.”

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