In reply to Bergvagabunden:
> (In reply to DingBat) Surely mountaineering and rock climbing are pastimes , not sports ?
So as I understand it, Sport England has two basic goals: firstly, to make people healthier and happier by increasing general participation in sport, and secondly to demonstrate to the world the innate superiority of the British Way Of Life while simultaneously making us all Proud To Be British, by achieving high-profile sporting successes on the world stage.
"Mountaineering", in the broadest sense, is clearly a fairly decent way to achieve the first of these. It gets people out doing exercise, and it also tends to be popular with people who aren't interested in a lot of other sports.
Arguably it'd be a good way to achieve the second, too, albeit probably more through high altitude mountaineering than competition climbing - I think that stuff like Hillary and Tenzing summitting Everest on coronation day or a plumber from Manchester conquering Kangchenjunga or the big expeditions of the 70's genuinely capture people's imagination in a way that an Olympic bronze in badminton doesn't. But I think in that area, Sport England have a slightly narrowed remit and are basically interested in running factories to churn out Olympic medallists as efficiently as possible.
Hence of the £3m that mountaineering does get, £2.7m goes on "participation" and only £0.3m on "talent".