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Never before has a country that hosted the Games won more medals four years later than at home. Great Britain needs just two medals to match the level of London 2012
GB's women hockey players celebrate gold against the Netherlands. The sport is one of many to benefit from increased funding (Photo: Getty Images/Mark Kolbe)
As the Rio 2016 Olympic Games draw to a close, Great Britain is on the verge of a historic record: no country before has ever hosted the Games and then gone on to win more medals four years later.
As of the afternoon of Saturday (20 August), Team GB had won 63 medals, compared to the total of 65 that they won on home soil at London 2012.
That's way in excess of the country's 48 medal target for Rio and by some distance the country's best ever performance away from home. It's a start contrast to the desperate situation just 20 years ago, when the GB finished in 36th place at Atlanta 1996 with one solitary gold, won by rowing duo Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent.
Since that nadir, Great Britain has become only the second country to increase its medal total at five successive summer Olympic Games. Azerbaijan also achieved this feat in Rio.
Furthermore, Great Britain is now sitting second in the medal table, behind the USA but ahead of China.
Mo Farah of Great Britain is the day's dominant long-distance runner (Photo: Getty Images/Cameron Spencer)
Team GB's improvement since Atlanta is no accident. It is the result of years of sustained investment into high-performance sport: in the last four years alone, the government and the national lottery have awarded UK Sport, the nation’s high performance sports agency, £274 million of funds to channel into summer Olympic sports and athletes. A further £72 million has gone towards summer Paralympic sports.
About three quarters of UK Sport's funds come from the lottery. As Liz Nicholl, CEO of UK Sport, said in the annual report on the legacy of London 2012: “National Lottery players have helped transform the prospects of talented athletes in this country, which has taken our Olympic and Paralympic teams from strength to strength, seen them soar up the medal table and made the nation proud.”
UK Sport has been ruthless in allocating most funding to those sports which produce most medal-winning athletes. That strategy has largely underpinned the country's success at the elite level in recent years.
For example, gymnastics was rewarded for beating its medal target at London 2012 with a 36 per cent increase in funding. The results at Rio 2016 speak volumes about the correlation between funding and medals: Team GB won seven medals in Rio, up from four in London, with Max Whitlock becoming the country's first ever Olympic gold medallist in gymnastics.
Double Olympic champion Max Whitlock has benefited from UK Sport's investment (Photo: Getty Images/Alex Livesey)
"These results would not have been possible without the valued support of UK Sport and the National Lottery," Jane Allen, CEO of British Gymnastics said in a statement.
Conversely, sports which do not produce medals have their funding cut. Sports such as wrestling, table tennis, water polo, synchronised swimming and basketball have seen their funding slashed or even eliminated. Unsurprisingly, British athletes in these disciplines were not been among the medals in Rio.
Following the debacle of Atlanta 1996, it was then UK Prime Minister John Major who decided to use the national lottery to fund high-performance sport.
A controversial decision at the time, few would argue with it now.
The success of Olympic medallists over the years has helped to raise national morale and encouraged more people to take up sport. Since the inspiration of Team GB's performance at London 2012, the British government estimates that 1.75 million more adults now regularly participate in sport.
In a statement this week celebrating Team GB's success Rod Carr, chair of UK sport, said: “Our vision is to inspire the nation through Olympic and Paralympic success.
"Team GB is doing that, not just through their performances but through their incredible stories of commitment, team work and determination that have seen them reach the pinnacle of their sports, showing how ordinary people can achieve exceptional things.”
And the country has every intention of continuing its golden Olympic run well into the future. At the end of 2015, the government said it was increasing the amount of funding it grants UK Sport by 27 per cent.
Carr said the increase in funds would enable "our athletes to continue to inspire future generations and make the nation proud."
Who knows, at Tokyo 2020 Team GB may even be challenging the USA at the top of the medal table.
