John and Sinead Kerr – Ice Dancing

Saturday 7 February 2004

Quote from Alastair Dempster, Chairman, sportscotland:

“We would like to warmly congratulate John and Sinead Kerr on their 10th place at the European Championships this week, which is a marvellous achievement and we hope that their future performances continue to reflect their current form.

“At the time of their original application to the Talented Athlete Programme for 2003/04 and their subsequent appeal, the Kerr’s performance record did not demonstrate the level required to justify funding and we stand by our decision making process. Their world ranking was low and they did not have any results from major international competitions or championships to back up their claims.

“However this latest result which shows an exceptional improvement clearly alters that position. We are always prepared to review our decisions based on significant new information and we will be making contact with the Kerrs on their return from Budapest.”

Unfortunately sportscotland will never be able to support all applications for funding, particularly in a climate of diminishing lottery income.

• We constantly receive applications for four times more funding than we have budget available e.g. 2002-2003 we received £9m of applications for a budget of £2m.
• To help us make these difficult decisions the Achieving Excellence team have developed a range of criteria which includes:

Success: sports in which Scottish athletes and teams have a realistic opportunity to succeed and remain at the highest possible level. (Success is to be measured in terms of number of medallists on the world stage at key events.)

Value: sports which the Scottish people value (Ice Skating received a low rating in the latest system 3 survey).

Impact: sports on which the AE team and the Institute Network could make a significant impact in terms of performance.

Health: those sports in which recreational participation leads to significant physical health benefits for the participant.

• Using this criteria, sports are then divided into four categories:
  1. Those in which we will invest significantly with the governing body in all aspects of achieving excellence.
  2. Those sports in which we will invest to a lesser extent through the governing body.
  3. Those sports in which we will invest in individual athletes who are clearly demonstrating the ability to perform at world level in identified key events.
  4. Those sports we will not invest in at all through Achieving Excellence, but who may be eligible for support from Widening Opportunities and/or Developing Potential.
• Ice skating falls into the third category where will only invest in those athletes who are clearly demonstrating the potential to be successful at world level competitions e.g. Winter Olympic Games, World Championships, European Championships. This differs from Sport England, which has carried out a similar prioritisation exercise and has decided not to support ice skating at elite level. UK Sport are not currently running a world class performance programme in ice skating as there are currently no British skaters close to achieving a top 10 world ranking.
• sportscotland has allocated a budget of £5k to Ice Dancing from the Talented Athlete Programme. For this year 2003/4 it was decided to allocate the budget to Scot Pamela O’Connor, as based on the results of the 2002/2003 season she, along with her Welsh partner Jonathan O’Dougherty met their targets of winning the British Championship and finished 16th at the European Championships and 19th at the World Championships. As the Kerrs did not win the 2002 British Championships they were unable to compete at the Europeans and Worlds and were unable to meet their targets of a top 18 and top 20 finish respectively.
• When making awards to athletes from the Talented Athlete Programme a set of performance targets are agreed between sportscotland and the athletes concerned. Funding decisions for future years therefore can only be based on the results of the previous year and whether or not they achieved the targets set. It is always made clear to the athlete that failure to meet these targets may result in a reduction or withdrawal of funding.
• As Sport England do not currently support Ice dancing, moving to England would not enhance the Kerr’s chances of receiving funding, in fact the opposite is true.
• Funding any athlete is no guarantee of medal success and equally not funding an athlete does not mean we will never be proved wrong. However, despite budgetary constraints we have never rejected an athlete where there is clear performance evidence, backed up by governing body support to indicate a strong chance of success on the international stage.
• On the occasions where we do get it wrong we are always happy for athletes to appeal and put forward new evidence.