News from Labour Matters

Team GB’s Olympic success is partly due to another GB

Sitting in his Suffolk holiday home there’s sure to be one man prouder than most with Team GB’s unprecedented success yesterday in Beijing – the other ‘GB’; Gordon Brown. That’s because he’s been instrumental in providing more than just applause for our athletes.

The Labour Government tripled funding for elite sport in preparation for the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic games to a record £265m over the four year cycle, compared to £84m in Athens and £63m in Sydney. The increase is down to record Government investment announced in the budget of 2006 when the then Chancellor Gordon Brown announced £200m extra in Government cash for elite sport.

This extra funding has enabled our athletes to receive the kind of support winners need at Olympic level and consequently UK Sport, the Government agency in charge of elite sport, has been able to set a target of 35 medals and 41 medals as a “stretch target” for Team GB. UK Sport is also targeting eighth place overall in the medals table, which would be Britain’s best performance in a non-boycotted Olympics since Antwerp in 1920.

Predicting great things from our athletes before the games began Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said:

“This will be the biggest Olympics yet and the GB team goes into it better prepared than ever before. Other countries and old rivals like Australia now look to us as a country that got serious about sport and are now saying they are in danger of falling behind team GB in the medal table.

“Gordon Brown’s decision in 2006 to give more money to elite sport as we get ready for 2012 has made this possible. We are about to enter a glorious new era for British sport and I hope success in Beijing will inspire the next generation of young sports stars.”

The record investment is also supporting the development of an even greater number of athletes through UK Sport’s ‘World Class Performance Programme’. In Athens funding in the lead up to the games supported 500 athletes. In the lead up to Beijing 1400 athletes have been supported by funding programmes.

In the Atlanta games, there was no direct investment of public funding in elite sport and team GB came in a disappointing 36th, with only one gold medal. Medal tables show gradual improvement since the low of Atlanta rising to 10th in Sydney and 10th again in Athens.

Other news from Labour Matters

• Viewers turned off by soft-soap Cameron - 15 March 2010
• Labour releases powerful film on Conservative crime choices - 9 March 2010
• David Cameron's claim to have changed the Tories is exposed as hot air - 7 March 2010