Funding boost for UK Olympic hopefuls
Programmes to groom Britain's Olympic stars of the future, in time for London's hosting of the Games in 2012, will be given an extra £1m (€1.4m) a year, it was announced today.
The Lottery money will help fund more than 130 promising young stars - some of whom are being specifically targeted at the 2012 Olympics in London.
The announcement of the extra money for the TASS (talented athlete scholarship scheme) was made as the second reading of the Olympic Bill was taking place in parliament.
Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said: “Today, we are giving a big boost to a generation of future Olympians.
"This new Lottery investment will create more bursaries and scholarships for the TASS programme. It will also enable more scholarships for TASS 2012 aimed specifically at those youngsters who are our summer and winter Olympic hopefuls.
“Since we launched TASS last year we have given scholarships and bursaries to over 1,000 talented young men and women across the country, representing over 30 sports.
"And I am certain that many of our young TASS and TASS 2012 athletes will go on to represent Great Britain in the London Olympic and Paralympic games.”
The TASS scheme – currently for 1,100 athletes aged 18 to 25 – gets £3m (€4.3m) a year from the British government, and the TASS 2012 – for 120 teenagers aged 12 to 18 - £1m (€1.4m) annually.
The Lottery money will be split with £500,000 (€717,600) for the TASS programme to provide over 100 more athletes with awards, £300,000 (€430,600) for TASS 2012 scholarships to support up to 30 more teenage athletes, and £200,000 (€287,100) to developing the ’talent pathway’ and identifying future medal hopefuls.
Roger Draper, chief executive of Sport England, the body that distributes Lottery money to sport, said: “This investment boost for TASS is great news for our up-and-coming athletes and will play a vital role in helping us all create the most active and successful sporting nation in the world.
“We very much look forward to seeing a growth in the number of talented athletes we have who will hopefully go on to represent the nation at international levels.”
