2012 London Olympics

My local TV station recently featured one of our local players, Matt Ware, who is hoping to represent GB in the 2012 London Olympics.

Here's the piece that was broadcast about our aspiring table tennis olympian...

(You may experience a slight delay before the video starts - please be patient)

However, as mentioned in the broadcast above, Matt's attempt to qualify for the 2012 Olympics will now be severely hampered by the news that ...

Eight Olympic sports, including table tennis, have had their London 2012 funding slashed because of a £50m budget shortfall.

The funding shortfall has arisen because a Government campaign to raise money from the private sector failed.

So, on 29 January 2009, UK Sport announced how it would apportion its "basic level of funding" for the eight Olympic sports who missed out on large grants.

And it wasn't good news.

Table tennis has seen a 50% cash cut, down from £2.53 million for the Beijing Olympics, to £1.2 million for London 2012.

GB table tennis performance manager Steen Kyst Hansen was understandably upset by the announcement.

"If that is how they think you run an elite sport programme then I really worry," he said.

"Our funding has been up and down like an elevator and that is no way to build for Olympic success.

"It's all terribly disappointing and we're going to have to have a long, hard think about what we do. But big boys don't cry even when the news is really, really bad."

The other sports affected were fencing, handball, shooting, volleyball/beach volleyball, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling.

The move prompted fears that Team GB may be unable to field a team in every sport in London 2012 as they originally hoped.

Fencing has been cut from £3.07m down to £1.26m, handball from £2.99m to £1.44m, shooting from £5.06m to £1.22m, volleyball from £4.11m to £1.75m, water polo from £3.15m to £1.45m, weightlifting from £1.69m to £0.71m and wrestling from £2.13m to £0.68m.

UK Sport has tried to minimise the impact of the cuts by announcing that the sports will be allowed to have all the cash up front, rather than split annually during the four-year cycle.

It's also hopeful of securing some cash from the private sector.