Should national sports funding reward participation growth as much as medal results?

Follow the money to its source and the medal-only formula looks indefensible. UK Sport runs on National Lottery and taxpayer funding, which means the cleaner who buys a lottery ticket on Friday is financing the system. She will never be an Olympian. Her kids might play community football. A funding model that directs her money exclusively toward sports that might win medals, while the facilities her family uses crumble, is a transfer from the many to the few dressed up as national pride. Equal weight for participation growth is the least the funders are owed: public money should buy public benefit, measured in the communities that paid for it. Medals are lovely, but they are not a sufficient return on the public's investment. UK Sport