British Olympic chiefs confident of winning

Britain is confident of bettering their record-breaking success at the London Olympics following a commitment by their government to maintain funding levels through to the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to invest £508 million ($797 million) of government and National Lottery into Olympic sports over the next four years, boosting Britain’s hopes of building on the 65 medals the country won at its home games. “It is an exceptional position to be in,” said UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl, who works for the body that distributes cash to Olympic sports. “For most countries who have had an uplift in funding for a home games, that’s not been sustained. “To have that confirmation now, six months before the funding ends, we are in a good place to keep up the momentum . As for winning more medals (in Rio), we think it’s entirely possible.” Roared on by passionate home crowds, Britain won 29 golds to finish third in the overall medals table at the London Games its best performance at an Olympics in the modern era. That bumped Russia into fourth place, with only United States and China finishing higher. But there are fears that the post-Olympic feelgood factor will soon fizzle out, leaving a lost legacy. “It’s about how bad do we want it and putting in the work,” said Peter Keen, the performance advisor to UK Sport. “I hope people have got longer memories and remember just how good it was, and how much we valued it. It’s absolutely game on.” Olympians hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday congratulated the country’s Olympic athletes and their coaches and expressed his gratitude for their excellent work. “On behalf of all Russian fans I thank you for your performance, for our country’s success at the Olympics Games” Putin said at a special ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow. “This achievement has filled the hearts of the country’s millions of supporters with pride for our country.” Putin, a judo black belt who watched some of the competition in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron, said he was satisfied the Russian team won more medals than at the previous Games. “Though we finished in the fourth place in the medal table in London we won more medals than we did in Beijing,” he said. “This year we received 10 more medals than in 2008, this is an unconditional success.” In London the Russian team earned 82 medals overall — 24 gold, 26 silver and 32 bronze. Putin awarded five members of the country’s victorious synchronised swimming team the Order of Merit. from:gulftoday