Olympics: Hunt warns that cash will limit Team GB size

Published on Wednesday 21 October 2009 09:47

BRITISH Olympic Association chief executive Andy Hunt has told sporting bodies that the size of Team GB at the London 2012 Games depends on how much money can be raised.

The BOA told a meeting of national governing bodies yesterday that the original plan of having 550 athletes in Team GB depended on being able to raise 8million. So far around half that figure is available, which would mean a team of around 350 – still bigger than the 311 who went to Beijing.

Hunt said: "We would like to have the broadest, most competitive team across all the sports we can but we need to figure out what the cost is of doing so. This was the start of that consultation process and what we did was set out a number of different scenarios from having a completely full team taking every home nation place, down to an option where we go for an incredibly competitive team with a reduced number of athletes."

Hunt said having the Olympics on home soil did not make it cheaper if Team GB was going to be that much bigger. "If you have 550 athletes you probably have 1,100 in the team including officials and the cost of kitting out 1,100 people is enormous," he added.