Why changing into an Olympic athlete is so costly

The Atlanta Olympic Video games have been a low level for British sport.

Nice Britain returned from the 1996 Summer time Video games with only one gold medal in hand — and 15 general.

“There was a direct overhaul,” mentioned Ben Bloom, a sports activities journalist who has coated the Olympics for greater than a decade.

UK Sport, a authorities company answerable for investing cash into Olympic and Paralympic sports activities, was based only one 12 months later. The cash, sourced by means of the federal government and the Nationwide Lottery, was transformative for the nation’s Olympic program.

“Individuals purchase a lottery ticket, and the great causes could be sport and tradition and heritage and charities,” mentioned Katherine Grainger, chair of UK Sport and Britain’s most embellished feminine rower.

“It helps athletes individually, but it surely places an enormous sum of money into each nationwide governing physique for the Olympic and Paralympic sports activities,” she added.

“Britain has gone from the mid-30s within the medal desk … [to] the highest 5 each single time,” Bloom mentioned. “It is modified every part.”

Group GB’s transformation has made one factor clear: cash issues in sport.

Nevertheless, not like in additional profitable sports activities like soccer, only a few Olympians see a return on funding for the money and time they spend through the years.

An athlete fortunate sufficient to land UK Sport’s Athlete Efficiency Award will safe £28,000 ($36,000) a 12 months, whereas the typical English Premier League participant’s annual wage quantities to just about £3.1 million, based on Capology.com.

“UK Sport have a really troublesome dilemma in that they might like to financially assist an unlimited vary of individuals throughout an unlimited vary of sports activities. They only cannot try this as a result of there is not sufficient cash,” Bloom mentioned.

So how do you encourage the subsequent era of Olympic athletes with out enormous sums of cash?

Within the first installment of CNBC Sport’s “The Enterprise of Elite Athletes,” we meet a number of the younger folks vying for an Olympic medal earlier than the tip of the last decade, together with BMX rider Emily Hutt and pace skaters Willem Murray and Freddie Polak.

Watch because the athletes, their coaches and oldsters grapple with the value of a dream by clicking the video above.