GB Climbing awarded £450K UK Sport Progression Funding
UK Sport has announced plans to invest £352 million in Olympic and Paralympic sport, including progression funding for seven sports - one of which is climbing.
The BMC successfully bid for UK Sport's 'Progression and Podium Athlete' funding to help GB Climbing's Performance Pathway. During 2020, developing GB climbing has been a priority for the BMC and the new funding will help in the following key areas:
- Evolving and transforming the GB Climbing Performance Pathway
- Developing, aligning and embedding elite coaches at pivotal stages in the pathway
- Delivering a world-class domestic competition structure
In total, UK Sport will invest £450,000 in GB Climbing over the next 12 months. The funding will be used to continue support for Tokyo medal hopeful Shauna Coxsey up to the games and beyond, amongst other things.
On hearing the news about the new funding, Shauna Coxsey said: '"I am so happy that despite the twists and turns of the Olympic journey so far that UK Sport is continuing to support me and the wider team all the way through to Tokyo in 2021."
The announcement is the third batch of funding from UK Sport, which builds upon the Aspiration funding, which recently enabled Molly Thompson-Smith and Will Bosi to prepare for and compete in the Moscow European Championships, and the Continuity funding allowing GB Climbing to deliver Covid-secure training for the Home Nation and National Talent squads and several Covid-secure competition opportunities.
The Guardian report that the UK Sport plans to invest in a more diverse range of sports will mean that so-called 'posh sports' such as rowing, sailing and equestrianism miss out. UK Sport's chief executive told the Guardian that the organisation wanted the teams at the Olympics to represent the diversity in society and not just traditional public school sports.