Tokyo 2020 Olympics & Paralympics: UK Sport asks government for exceptional funding
- Published
UK Sport chair Katherine Grainger gave evidence on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday
UK Sport has asked the government for £53.4m in exceptional funding to help prepare Great Britain for the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.
The funding agency has requested money from April 2021 to give assurances that there will be funding up to the Games.
The current funding cycle runs until March 2021 - leaving governing bodies and athletes with several months' gap.
"Unless we know that will be filled, the risks increase for everyone," said UK Sport chair Katherine Grainger.
Grainger gave evidence on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee on Tuesday.
The Olympics are scheduled to run from 23 July to 8 August 2021, with the Paralympics taking place between 24 August and 5 September.
"Every athlete that would have right now been three months away from the biggest event of their lives is isolated individually at home," Grainger told MPs.
"The sports that support them we already know are at some financial risk. The longer the situation goes on they will be at greater risk going forward, and it means that the risks going to the Games next year is increasing.
"What we really need, and ideally need confirmation of in the next few weeks, is that we could get a one-year rollover to go into March 2022 to make sure we can reassure all the sports that their funding is going to be in place and they can have some consistency going forward through to the Games next summer."
The amount requested has been calculated by asking each governing body to provide a detailed review of the impact of the Games' postponement and of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is understood UK Sport has made internal savings of £1.6m to help support the system in the short term.
In 2016, UK Sport announced it had secured a £345m investment of government and National Lottery funds.