In December 1997, British Cycling appointed Peter Keen as its Performance Director, with initial responsibility for £900,000 of funding granted by the UK Sports Council on the basis of a one-year interim World Class Performance Plan. He was chosen ahead of Steve Paulding and Paul Sherwen. Keen immediately outlined the focus of the Plan, emphasising that it would mainly be aimed at targeting track cycling due to the large number of Olympic medals on offer. He spent much of the next year developing an eight-year plan to secure longer-term funding: in January 1999 it was announced that British Cycling had secured lottery funding for six years, with an award of £2.5 million for the first year. Later that year, the GB team sprint squad took the first British sprint medal at a World Championship for 40 years at the Berlin Track Worlds.