UKC

With the recent good news around the additional funding that the sport of Climbing will be receiving to support team GB athletes at the Tokyo olympics, I was wondering how this money is to be distributed. I understand that Climbing was awarded £630,000 by UK Sport (whoever they may be) and this was to be distributed to 'key athletes' through the 'medal support plan', obviously Shauna is a prime candidate for this funding but which other athletes have benefited from this funding and what are the qualifying criteria, is any of this funding making it to the 'grass roots' as they love to say in football ?

Having re-read the article about the funding from the Aspiration Fund it states that "Shauna Coxsey was named by UK Sport as the athlete with the highest medal potential in the GB Climbing Team and is the only climber to benefit from this initial investment stream", does this mean that the entire £630,000 has been given to Shauna ?  I am assuming that I am incorrect here, so what exactly are the criteria  to receive Olympic funding from either Sport UK or the Aspiration Fund ?

I don't know the answers to any of your questions, but given that a medal at London 2012 cost an average of £4.5 million investment, I suspect that uk sport would feel that £636k would be money well spent even if that's only for Shauna.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/datablog/2012/aug/13/olympics-2012-cost-p...
 

Grass routes funding comes from Sport England. Renewed now after a brief gap.

It was 'up to' £630k with approval of a plan and budget, so it may not be anywhere near that amount I guess. https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2018/02/uk_sport_announce_olympic_climbing_...

You may well be correct the BMC statement says, "an award of £630,000 is to be set aside for the remainder of the Tokyo cycle" (whatever that means).

We are now eighteen months out from the Tokyo Olympics, you would have thought that any athlete who is to be a beneficiary of UK Sport funding would now be in receipt of the money or it will be of little benefit to them with the remaining time frame. Would it be inappropriate to ask which athletes are to be funded and what criteria was used to select them ..... or is this another #bmcconspiracy

Does anyone have any idea on how hard the Paralympic climbers climb? Tried to find out but failed miserably. 

The ward to Shauna was made some 18 months ago (at least.....), so the funding cycle is well underway. Its all administered / managed by UKsport and the English Institute for Sport, rather than the BMC, and is based on the likelihood of winning a medal. The only person with "form" for that at a world level at that time was Shauna.

Your little "bmc conspiracy" dig is unneccessary and childish. The BMC (especially Nick Colton and Rob Adie) spent a lot of time behind the scenes, preparing bid documents, attending meetings, understanding the requirements of UKS / EIS funding and getting to the position of any money being available to anybody. That any climber was awarded any funding when normally none would be available given its a new sport in olympic circles is testament to the work that went in. The additional funds recently announced show (pleasingly) that UK Sport think the recipient sports are serious players worthy of extra investment.

I realise the BMC is not everyones cup of tea, but assuming / insinuation / thinking of conspiracies is just stupid.

This guy http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php?option=com_ifsc&view=athlete&... was climbing 8a over 5 years ago.

This guy http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php?option=com_ifsc&view=athlete&... apparently climbs 8c/8c+

There is a document floating around that outlines the criteria. I don't have it to hand but it includes such things as:

- being Top 10 ranked for a period of 3 (or maybe 6) months

- getting to a final in 1 discipline and a semi in another (lead and boulder only I think)

- getting on a podium

So clearly defined criteria.

Thanks Graeme. Wow that's pretty hard. Better than me president. Cheers.