- UK Sport have outlined ambition for Team GB to secure another top-five finish
- Target of 70 medals would be second to 146 medals they won at London 1908
- Agency admits USA and China will be ‘out of reach’ in Paris ‘if not indefinitely’
Team GB could win a post-war record 70 medals at the Paris Olympics, according to UK Sport.
The Olympic funding agency have outlined their ambition for Great Britain to secure another top-five finish in the medal table, claiming between 50 and 70 gongs.
However, UK Sport director of performance Dr Kate Baker believes Britain can actually hit the top of that range and better their tally of 67 from Rio 2016. That would be their best haul at an overseas Games and second only to the 146 medals they won at London 1908.
‘We feel really confident that we can get 50 to 70 and, on a good day, that 70 is really within our grasp,’ said Baker at a pre-Paris 2024 briefing at the London Stock Exchange on Monday.
‘We are likely to be the only nation, other than the USA or China, who will be bold enough to say that we can go to these Games and come home with a minimum of 50 medals. That is an extraordinary achievement.
Team GB could win a post-war record 70 medals at the Paris Olympics , according to UK Sport.
The Olympic funding agency outlined ambition for Team GB to secure a top-five finish again
‘We are definitely not complacent, but we are feeling confident that the system is in a good place and we are on an upward trajectory as we head towards the Games.’
At the last Olympics in Tokyo three years ago, Team GB won 64 medals and finished fourth in the table. Sports data firm Gracenote last month predicted that Britain would claim 62 gongs in Paris and come fifth.
Baker admits the USA and China will be ‘out of reach’ in Paris ‘if not indefinitely’, but expects to be challenging for third in the table with the likes of Australia, Japan and hosts France.
Team GB have now selected all of their athletes and will be sending a squad of 327 to Paris, with 174 females and 153 males competing across 27 different sports. ‘Our breadth is our superstrength,’ added Baker.
It is actually Britain’s smallest Olympic squad since Beijing 2008, largely because the women’s football and men’s rugby sevens teams failed to qualify.
But Team GB chef de mission Mark England said: ‘I have never been more confident in our athletes and our preparations.
‘This is the most sophisticated high-performance system in the world bar none. I don’t see that we are missing a trick.’
The target of 70 medals would be second only to the 146 medals they won at London 1908
UK Sport, though, have refused to divulge specific medal targets for each sport so as not to put extra pressure on their athletes, some of whom have struggled with their mental health.
‘Athletes are fantastic at putting a huge amount of pressure on themselves, they certainly don’t need that from UK Sport by adding a medal target over their heads,’ said Baker, who is also mindful of recent welfare scandals in sports.
‘We have worked really closely with sports from the moment that we awarded funding at the beginning of the cycle, right the way up to recent weeks, to understand what they want to achieve.
‘Whilst we have had lots of conversations about what success looks like, it doesn’t feel right to share those publicly. Every sport has set a target that they are comfortable with.’
The sport with the most British participants in Paris is athletics, who have a squad of 64. However, UK Athletics have faced a backlash for not picking another eight athletes who were eligible for selection by virtue of their world ranking.
UK Sport admit the USA and China will be ‘out of reach’ in Paris ‘if not indefinitely’
UKA chair Ian Beattie added fuel to the fire this week when he defended his organisation’s policy by claiming ‘an athlete getting to the Olympics with little chance of qualifying from their heat or pool, does not have a significant impact on inspiring the nation’.
However, UK Sport chair Katherine Grainger hit back at those comments yesterday, when she said: ‘We know there are a whole range of athletes and whatever they achieve or not this summer, every athlete has amazing potential to have an inspirational effect.’
