Olympic Archery Funding

No Compounds beyond this point!

With the Paris Olympics now just a distant, if extremely fond, memory for those of us who watched the Koreans outlast everything the entire world could throw at them including an insect 5th column - Its time to start thinking about LA2028. Why? Because this can affect the humble club archer and their wallet.

Too obscure? Need more info? Lets take a step back for a moment for a wider view. A key feature of Archery GB's drive to Los Angeles will be funding. You may not know them but UK Sport is the UK government agency behind our hunt for medals and fame. They are responsible for investing money, sourced from the National Lottery and the government, into Olympic and Paralympic sport. In other words they are the bureaucratic money men who pick which UK sports have the best chances at the Olympics. Here's how...

UK Sport's delivery of funding to Olympic sports has been a great success over the last couple of decades. However, the money comes with a catch .. Its all about "success" in a very Darwinesque way. The logic is simple. Be successful, get more money, be more successful. Fail or underperform and you lose some, most or all your funding depending on the degree. When this philosophy was implemented there were cries of "its not fair" but up to this point, UK performances at the Olympics weren't winning medals and were getting increasingly mediocre. A harsh take, but in the crucible of Olympic competition, this was painfully obvious. The UK sucked and was getting suckier. By reinforcing success not propping up failure, performances in successful sports improved and medals become far more numerous. However, those less successful sports got the trauma of their funding cut or even removed entirely banishing them to international oblivion .. and this brings us to Archery.

Archery has not always got a fair shake of the long rod when it comes to funding. As you can see from the numbers to the left, at Athens it appears that the team was handed a tent and told to camp out on the beach.  However, in subsequent years funding has been reasonably robust. Performance in London was a bit of a disappointment resulting in a million pound cut for the Brazilian games. Rio, given all the problems that event suffered, resulted in even more financial misery but Tokyo got Team GB back in the funding and it showed at Paris.

Brits Megan Havers and Tom Hall made it through the last 16 in Paris and although they were knocked out in the last 8 ... it was a performance worthy of a nod and that nod pretty much secured the wonga for another Olympic cycle. This was confirmed when the new round of funding for British teams was announced in December 2024*. For archery, the Paris award (period 2021- April 2025) was £2,632,674. This was increased to £2,800,000 for 2025-2028 .. a tidy little 7.1% increase. Don't think that's a lot what with inflation? .. Athletics got a 8% CUT in their funding dropping £1.8m. No, the runners, jumpers and throwers were not happy.

So why is this a relief to us common or garden archers? Archery GB looks after the Olympic team. Its been said that's their only interest as the club archer does not get a great deal of attention or love from AGB. You can be thoroughly unimpressed with our "benefits"** on the AGB Benefits page. So what's the point we alluded to earlier about wallets? With the hike in funding, AGB have cash. That means they don't have to find monies for their Olympic program from elsewhere. Where would they find money? From us! Had there been a cut in funding, you can bet your last fletch we would have seen our fees slide up at least a tenner, mibi two. (£10 on our memberships is roughly £1m over 3 years).

Now with funds in the bank, AGB will be up to its butt in Panda pelt team jackets and Black Rhino skin quivers. They'll forget about us for a few years so our fees will remain the same and we can get on with our shootie in peace. At least till LA2028 passes and AGB wants to "engage" with us once again. Shudder!

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* Total funds from UK Sport for this Olympic cycle = £330m.
** Whats wrong with negotiating a 5% discount at Merlin ... Geo, John and Oksana would be about a grand better off between them .. every year!
If you want see the story behind the no compounds at the Olympics joke ... check out this insightful article (written by us obviously ;o)