Badminton and wheelchair rugby among sports to lose Olympic funding

Archery, badminton, fencing, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby will not get funding in the run up to the Tokyo Olympics.

UK Sport, which distributes money from the National Lottery and the government, will fund more than 16 Olympic and Paralympic sports.

Badminton is the only sport that got a medal at this summer's Games to lose out in the next funding cycle.

Rowing will get the most cash - £32.1m - to help its 100-strong team.

That is just over £500,000 down on what it received to prepare for this summer's games in Brazil.

Cycling, which has reliably supplied a gold rush of medals, gets just under £26m - the fourth-largest award. However, that is £5m down on last time.

In second place with £27.1m is athletics, then sailing with £26.2m.

Swimming, another of Team GB's summer successes with gold from Adam Peaty among others, gets a healthy £21.7m.

Gymnastics - where Max Whitlock bagged a brace of golds - benefits from a £2m increase and will get £16.6m in total.

The total cash pot for the Tokyo cycle, which runs for four years from 2017, is over £265m for 808 athletes. That compares with £274m for Rio.

There is some flexibility in the funding in case competitors in new Olympic sports, such as climbing, start to show medal potential.

Gail Emms, who won badminton silver at Athens 2004 with partner Nathan Robertson, said she was shocked the sport had been ditched after Britain bagged a medal in Rio.

"My initial reaction is, 'hang on a sec, we've won an Olympic medal' - you'd think that if you go out there and win an
Olympic medal it guarantees some funding.

"I think badminton deserves some explanation and I'm sure they will appeal against the decision," said Emms.

"We're not asking for 27 or 30 million like some sports.

"We not asking for anything near that and if I was one of those guys who went out there and came back with a medal, I'd be fuming."

UK Sport CEO Liz Nicholl said the organisation would help the sports that are losing out as they make the transition to non-funding status.