The Guardian Steve Redgrave has become the latest athlete to plead with with the government not to cut national lottery funding for Britain's top performers. If that does happen it would be a big mistake.
Funding needs to be long-term.
If we can do this well here, we can do better in the future. There is no reason why we can't go on and compete for medals with the likes of Australia, Italy and Romania. As a sport, rowing has done very well out of lottery funding and in my view the men's eight wouldn't have won gold if they hadn't been funded by it. Redgrave is not the only Olympian to have expressed concern over the rumoured lottery cuts. Denise Lewis, who won gold in the heptathlon, spoke of her worries earlier in the week, adding that she felt lottery funding had been crucial to her recent success.