PARIS 2024
MEDIA
GUIDE
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the media guide for UK Sport and the UK Sports Institute, together, we support British athletes in reaching their full potential on the global stage. This guide offers insights into the Paris 2024 cycle, who we and our leaders are, and the stats surrounding the remarkable high-performance community.
WELCOME
Dame Katherine Grainger (video)
Chair, UK Sport
Matt Archibald (video)
CEO, UK Sports Institute
UK SPORT
EXPLAINER
UK Sport is the UK’s trusted high-performance experts, powering our greatest athletes, teams, sports and events to achieve positive success.
Established in 1997, UK Sport has transformed the high-performance sporting community in the UK – through strategic leadership and investment of National Lottery and Government funds – winning more Olympic and Paralympic medals than ever before and is recognised as one of the top nations in the world for event hosting capabilities.
UK Sport’s purpose is to lead high-performance sport to enable extraordinary moments that enrich lives and aims to work collaboratively with partners to deliver the greatest decade of extraordinary moments; reaching, inspiring and uniting the nation.
A decade where winning and being competitive at the highest level remains the priority, but where we also recognise the powerful platform sporting success has to inspire and effect lasting positive change for individuals and society. Ensuring we create that inspiration relies on winning with integrity and through a broader range of sports and champions, as well as growing a thriving sporting system with collaboration at its heart.
OUR PURPOSE
To lead high-performance sports to enable extraordinary moments that enrich lives.
OUR MISSION
To create the greatest decade of extraordinary sporting moments, reaching, inspiring and uniting the nation.
UK SPORTS INSTITUTE EXPLAINER
The UK Sports Institute (UKSI) delivers outstanding support that enables sports and athletes to excel. The UKSI is the largest single provider of world-class performance support such as science, medicine, technology, data and engineering services within the sport sector to Olympic and Paralympic sports in the UK.
Established in 2002 and grant funded by The National Lottery and Exchequer (via UK Sport) since 2006, the support services the UKSI offers has expanded, from more traditional sports support such as medicine, physiotherapy and strength and conditioning, into services such as biomechanics, performance innovation and performance data.
Just as importantly, the UKSI operates as a network, connecting all these outstanding support services into one delivery system. By sharing challenges, information and breakthroughs across the UKSI network, sports benefit from the cumulative knowledge of all the people in the UKSI network and community and solutions and practice can be shared across multiple sports.
The UKSI currently has more than 400 employees, operating out of eight official sites across the country, with more than 50% of staff embedded within over 50 World Class Programmes of Olympic and Paralympic summer and winter sports.
Values = We Care. We Collaborate. We Innovate. We Excel.
The UKSI has five objectives:
People - World class people enabled to be the best version of themselves
Environment - Centres of excellence where people can excel and drive a hyperconnected system
Health - Enable athletes to be physically and mentally well by reducing the risk of injury & illness
Performance - A culture of excellence, in planning, innovation and support which shapes the future of human performance
Governance - Professional and ethical standards for Performance and Health Support
THE PARIS 2024 CYCLE IN NUMBERS
Explore our Paris summer Olympic and Paralympic funding awards by sport.
In March 2024 we published Making Live Sport Matter, a new major events strategic framework for the UK.
Scroll further to read about how Olympic and Paralympic athletes are preparing to make a difference in communities post-Paris 2024 through the ChangeMakers programme.
GB currently boasts 41 current World Champions in Olympic disciplines and a further 61 in Paralympic disciplines, highlighting the immense talent across our sports.
Since 2002, and over the last four Olympic and Paralympic cycles, the UK Sports Institute has evolved into an organisation consistently performing at a world-leading level, contributing to over 1,000 British Olympic and Paralympic medals.
PARIS 2024 MEDAL RANGES
Our ambition remains for Team GB and ParalympicsGB to secure a top-five position in the medal table at both Games, harnessing the power and platform that this success provides to drive positive impact in society. After breaking into the top five of the Olympic medal table for the first time in The National Lottery era1 at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Team GB has won 51 (Beijing 2008), 65 (London 2012), 67 (Rio 2016) and 64 (Tokyo 2020) medals. ParalympicsGB has never been outside the top five of the medal table since the inaugural Games in Rome in 1960 and has been a top three nation since the National Lottery funding was introduced ahead of the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games.
This breadth of investment supports our commitment to continue the UK’s track record of winning in an almost unrivalled breadth of sports. In Tokyo, British athletes won medals in 18 Olympic sports and 18 Paralympic sports, the most of any nation ever. We also won Paralympic gold medals in 12 different sports, which was more than any other nation. Over the course of the Paris cycle, UK Sport has invested £315 million of government and National Lottery funds across 53 Olympic and Paralympic sports, with a further £70 million channelled directly to 1,100 athletes in the form of Athlete Performance Awards.
1 Olympic and Paralympic sport started receiving funds from The National Lottery Good Causes in 1997
Dr Kate Baker, speaks about the performance aspirations for Paris 2024 and her excitement for an inspirational Games.
FUNDING FIGURES
£314,500,070
Total amount invested in 53 summer Olympic and Paralympic sports for the Paris 2024 cycle
CHANGEMAKERS
Olympic and Paralympic athletes returning from the Paris 2024 Games are set to be supported to get out into their communities and make a difference to the causes they care about.
The ‘ChangeMakers’ initiative is a partnership between The National Lottery’s operator, Allwyn, Team GB, ParalympicsGB and UK Sport to help athletes maximise their impact upon their return from the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and give back to the communities that have supported them.
Read more about the ChangeMakers initiative by clicking the button below.
UK SPORT: WHO'S WHO
Dame Katherine Grainger
Chair
Sally Munday
CEO
Dr Kate Baker
Director of Performance and People
Simon Morton
Deputy CEO and Director of Events & Sporting System
UKSI: WHO'S WHO
Matt Archibald
Chief Executive
Diana Benham
Co-Head of Operations
Dr Pippa Bennett
Director of Clinical Governance and Paralympic Chief Medical Officer
Tash Carpenter
Director of Communications and Partnerships
Dr Kevin Currell
Director of Performance Support and Science
Claire Hague
Co-Head of Operations
Matt Parker
Director of Performance Innovation
Jaqui Perryer
People Director
Dr Craig Ranson
Director of Athlete Health and Performance Data
Jamie Skiggs
Director of Finance and Business Operations
UK SPORT CONTACTS
Rob Arnott
Media Lead
Attending Paris Olympic Games
(24th July - 12th August)
UK-based for Paralympic Games
+44 (0)7787 841604
Beth Moorley
Media Manager
Attending Paris Paralympic Games (27th August - 9th September)
UK-based for Olympic Games
+44 (0)7826 891188
UKSI CONTACTS
John Reeves
Senior Communications Officer
BEAA CONTACTS
About the British Elite Athletes Association (BEAA)
The BEAA is the independent representative body for Britain’s elite athletes, providing support, representation and community to the c.1,200-strong World Class Programme and those within progression sports.
They provide confidential, direct support to their members on issues such as mental health, selection, classification, welfare and legal concerns.
Led by CEO Anna Watkins, a London 2012 Olympic champion, and chaired by double Olympian Dominic Mahony, they also elevate the athlete voice and work to represent athletes’ viewpoints within the system.
PARIS 2024 STORIES
Powered By Purpose
Find out about how UK Sport is supporting athletes to use their platform as prominent sportspeople to make a difference to society while they are still competing.
Motherhood
During her pregnancy, GB and England Hockey player Jo Pinner and the UKSI’s Dr Kate Hutchings came up with the idea to start an ‘athlete mums’ WhatsApp group, a support network and a space to ask questions and share advice. Discover how a range of Olympic and Paralympic athletes have been supporting each other.
Social impact: Tully Kearney
Tully Kearney, a GB para-swimmer and Tokyo 2020 Paralympic gold medallist, is using her platform to increase participation opportunities for children with disabilities.
Team of Tomorrow
Learn how UK Sport are supporting the Team of Tomorrow through a commitment to improving environmental sustainability across Olympic and Paralympic sport and major events.
Female athlete health and performance
UKSI has been dedicated to improving education, research and support for female Olympic and Paralympic athletes for almost 10 years. What started as a series of educational, athlete roadshows, has grown into a multi-disciplinary team of experts operating at sites across the country and innovative partnerships with global brands.
Social impact: Dan Powell
Dan Powell, a Great Britain VI (visually impaired) Judo athlete and World silver medallist, is on a mission to make sport accessible having experienced first-hand how it can transform lives and provide a positive impact.
Women in coaching
Through several proactive and collaborative programmes to support British coaches, the number of women coaching in Olympic and Paralympic sports in the UK has almost doubled since the Tokyo 2020 Games.
British Cycling and the UKSI reduce lower back pain in female sprinters
Find out more about the collaboration that has reduced training days lost to back pain in the women’s sprint squad from 458 to just one over the past four years.
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