This morning UK Sport informed British Fencing of the outcome of the UK Sport Board Representation process. As part of this process British Fencing had the opportunity to present to the UK Sport Board any new information which could change the position of Fencing in the meritocratic table, based on funding sports by bands, top down.

The UK Sport Board decided that Fencing’s position in Band 4 remains unchanged. This is below the threshold for receipt of investment for the Tokyo cycle. This means that UK Sport confirmed it will not be investing in the British Fencing World Class Programme (WCP) for the Tokyo 2020 cycle. 

Alex Newton, Performance Director said “Our World Class Programme is recognised as one that has made a transformational change and is delivering consistent and improving international results and our athletes are recognised as having medal winning potential for Tokyo.  Therefore, this decision is extremely disappointing for the Programme, its staff and especially the individual athletes concerned who we believe could have delivered a medal in 2020.”

Georgina Usher, CEO commented “This has been an incredibly difficult period for the athletes and programme staff. Our staff, coaches and athletes have worked incredibly hard to have got to the point where we are absolutely good enough to target an Olympic medal. Having to explain to them why the programme funding will be coming to an end is extremely tough. We will be appealing this decision as we owe it to our athletes to pursue every avenue open to us to challenge this funding decision process. In the meantime we will be reaching out to the wider fencing community to help publicise our upcoming fundraising activities to support our Team and back our campaign to #FundFencing.”

On Wednesday 22^nd February British Fencing will be launching a crowdfunding campaign to #FundFencing. For more details of how to get involved with the launch please contact [email protected].