British Weightlifting celebrate funding increase
It is full speed ahead for British Weight Lifting’s plans for the next four years, after both UK Sport and Sport England agreed to increased levels of funding for 2013-17. UK Sport today announced an overall increase in funding for the governing body of 7.5 per cent, with their total figure for Olympic weightlifting and Paralympic powerlifting being £2,639,433. And on Monday Sport England gave a major boost to weightlifting at grassroots level when they agreed to give British Weight Lifting £1 million for the same period of time. Fiona Lothian, Performance Manager for British Weight Lifting, said: “We are delighted that, having gone through the London 2012 funding cycle with weightlifting as a basic funded sport, the progression and improvements made by our athletes and coaches has been recognised by UK Sport. “The award of core funding plus the addition of a number of athlete personal awards for the Rio cycle is a great boost and shows we are now on the right track. Likewise in Paralympic powerlifting we have five athletes who have been acknowledged as having the potential to medal in Rio 2016. “There is also support for talent identification and coach development across both weightlifting and Paralympic powerlifting which will enable British Weight Lifting to continue to progress towards its performance targets in 2016 and beyond.” UK Sport funds elite performance across both Olympic and Paralympic Sports. They have given weightlifting £1,798,319 for the Rio Olympic cycle, while Paralympic powerlifting has been awarded £841,114. Sport England’s £1 million award includes £200,000 for talent programmes, while the remaining £800,000 is to be spent on boosting
