Chancellor George Osborne (pictured top) last week announced there would be no cuts to elite sport in the run up to the Rio 2016 Olympics, something Robertson says puts sport in a "privileged position", as he gave details of how the Government will spend taxpayers' money.

"At the end of the Olympics the Prime Minister [David Cameron] made a commitment to back elite and high performance sport through the Rio cycle," he told insidethegames.

"We have now firmed that into a cast iron commitment to deliver £125 million ($190 million/€146 million) of combined exchequer and national lottery funding each year for all the four years of the Rio cycle.

"So UK Sport will have half-a-billion pounds available to it for the Rio cycle.

"Almost everybody I spoke to in the run up to London said, 'As soon as this is over investment will tail off, it always does, you're going to be no different'.

"Actually, we are different and as a really strong powerful legacy from London 2012 they will have the same amount of money available.

"That means the amount of money going to Olympic sport for the Rio cycle gone up by 12 per cent and for Paralympic sport it's gone up by 43 per cent.

"That is an extraordinary achievement and it puts sport in a very privileged position."


The announcement was followed by news of a £443,200 ($675,000/€520,000) funding boost for British winter sport ahead of the Sochi 2014 Games after the nation's athletes secured 10 medals at major events in both Olympic and Paralympic disciplines during the 2012-2013 season.

While the successful performances bode well for Britain's chances of claiming medals in Russia next year, Robertson warned of a potential "investment headache" in the future as athletes require more backing - but added that this would be a nice problem to have.

"British winter sport is starting to do what British summer sport did some cycles ago," he explained to insidethegames.

"I suspect that may give us a very good investment headache in years to come as winter athletes start doing well.

"And winter sport tends to be more expensive than summer sport to back so we are going to have some challenges in the future but those are good challenges to have."

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