 Davies puts Britain's medal chances down to the advent of Lottery funding |
Olympic gold medallist Lynn Davies has backed UK Sport's call for the British squad to bring home 35 medals from this summer's Beijing games. The president of UK Athletics governing body says the medal haul target, set by UK Sport on Thursday, is achievable. "When you go across the 28 sports all of them have got these medal contenders," he said. "It's a big ask but we're now better prepared than ever to as competitive as Australia, or America, or Russia." UK Sport, which distributes Lottery funding to elite sport, has set the British Olympic squad a target of finishing eighth in the medal table. It has targeted 41 medals in all but and realistically expects Britain's Olympians to bring home 35 in all, including 10 to 12 golds.  | 606: DEBATE |
If the goal is met it would result in Britain's best medal performance at an unboycotted Games since 1920. Davies, famously an Olympic long-jump champion in Tokyo 1964, said the situation was a huge turnaround from recent years when British teams were sent to the Olympics wondering whether they would return with any medals at all. He put the improvement down to the advent of Lottery funding in the mid-1990s which he said had helped transform sport in Britain. "When that came in it enabled our athletes to get the kind of support that we'd always looked enviously at other countries like the Americans and the Europeans," explained Davies. "Now our athletes are full-time athletes. They get the best facilities, they get the best medical treatment, physiotherapy, coaching - no stone is left unturned - and I think that will be reflected in the number of medals out in Beijing.
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