Call for UK sport to avoid two-tier funding approach – Telegraph.co.uk

Christy, Pond and Sutcliffe all questioned the money spent on events, “international influence” and the EIS, pointing out the latter’s budget has gone up by almost £10million, with some of that going on more than 30 new staff.

They say that sum would fund their programmes and leave plenty of change for other sports.

Sutcliffe said: “Everybody talks about the nadir of 1996, (before lottery funding) when we were 36th in the medal table, but I worry that 2016 could be the other end of the scale.

“The obsession to stay at second place in the medal table has become so blinkered that we’re at the point it tips over again. Whether that happens in four years, eight years, whenever, they will wake up and realise that it happened on their watch.

“Second place (in Rio) was brilliant but maybe we should be asking how do we sustain that so we’re always a top five or top six nation? Saying we have to be second is a very dangerous mindset.”