Yachting receives funding boost of over $1million for Rio Olympics

by Richard Gladwell on 18 Dec 2012
High Performance Sport NZ has announced a that Yachting New Zealand's High Performance Program has received a funding boost of $1.1million for the period 2013-2016.

Previously Yachting was one of the 'Top Six' sports funded by HPSNZ (previously known as SPARC), in the new funding round the sport has been lifted to one of three 'Tier 1' sports, largely on the back of the 2012 Olympic performance.

The other two sports are Rowing and Bike (Cycling).

All three Tier 1 sports have won medals at both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, with Bike winning a total of five medals in 2008 and 2012, Rowing eight medals and Yachting three medals.

The other two sports have also seen their funding increased with Bike getting a boost of $300,000 over the four year period, their funding is only guaranteed for two years.

Yachting received a boost of $1.1million lifting from $10.2million to $11.2million, and with the funding guaranteed for four years.

Rowing received a boost of $2.4million going from $16.010million to $18.4million, also with a four year guarantee on funding.

SPARC/HPSNZ had an original target of 10 medals for the 2012 Olympics, with New Zealand athletes winning 13 medals. For the 2016 Olympics, the target has been revised to 14 medals.

No targets have been set for individual sports, however in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic cycle yachting was on a points system where a Bronze equated to 1 pt and and a Gold 3pts. the 2012 target was 4pts, which was exceeded with the Gold medal in the Women 470 and the Silver in the Mens 49er. The 2016 target is expected to be similar to 2012.

Given that the existing medal winners continue for Rio de Janerio in 2016, the Olympic medal count could increase to five, with very strong performances expected in the Womens 470, the Mens 49er, Mens Laser, Womens 49erFX and Mens 470.

Yachting is expected to put together a strong program for the 2016 Olympics, with sailors capable of being selected in all ten events. Criteria for selection in the NZ Olympic Yachting team in 2008 and 2012 has been on the basis of being capable of winning a medal in their chosen event.

Sport UK have also announced their funding allocations for the 2013-2016 Olympic cycle with Yachting receiving UKP24.5million or NZD 47.3million and with a further UKP2.8million (NZD5.3million) for Paralympic Sailing. The British medla targets are not known, but are expected to be similar to 2012 where they won five medals.

On this basis the British are spending NZD9.46million per medal compared to New Zealand's NZD5.6million per medal (assuming targets of five medals for GBR and two medals for NZL in 2016) .