British Olympic chiefs yesterday warned minor team sports hoping to compete on home turf in 2012 that they would receive financial backing only if they were competitive.
Volleyball, basketball and handball are among the sports with little or no track record at international level that hope to take part in the London Games as part of a broad effort to field athletes in all 26 summer sports. However, the British Olympic Association (BOA), which selects the athletes to represent their country, said that it would re-evaluate the progress of teams after Beijing this summer.
If teams fail to reach requisite standards or show few signs of being credible by 2012, they may not be entered - despite having status for automatic qualification as the host nation, with the possibility of millions of pounds in public funding.
“Our aspiration is to field the largest possible team, but it’s not in the interests of the overall team simply to enter a team for it to be beaten 54-0, 54-0, 54-0 in the round-robin stages,” Simon Clegg, the BOA chief executive, said. “We will be sitting down with each of the team sports to ensure they will be competitive.”
Britain is targeting fourth place in the medals table in 2012, the position held at the Athens Games by Australia, a nation with strength in core Olympic sports such as swimming. Team GB were tenth in 2004.
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If the Olympics had been held last year, Britain would have finished seventh, according to a theoretical progress chart drawn up by the BOA. Based on the performance of teams at World Championship level, Britain might have won 13 gold medals, nine silver and 22 bronze, The results were driven by continued success in cycling, sailing and rowing, which contributed 21 of the 44 medals’.