Education Secretary Michael Gove revealed last month that the Department for Education is axing the huge sum from school sport from next year, which includes funding for a network of School Sport Partnerships across the country.

Gove has repeatedly defended the decision saying that "School Sport Partnerships is neither affordable nor likely to be the best way to help schools achieve their potential in improving competitive sport".

But despite his comments, the move continues to face heavy criticism, leading to Gail Emms, the badminton silver medallist from the Athens 2004 Olympics, drafting a letter to Cameron and getting 75 top athletes to sign it.

They include Olympic champions, such as boxer James Degale and canoeist Tim Brabants, world champions, such as diver Tom Daley, and Paralympics champions such as swimmer Sascha Kindred.

The letter states: "Dear Prime Minister, as past and present Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European athletes, we cannot stand by and watch as your Government threatens to destroy any hopes this country has of delivering a genuine London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic legacy.

"With less than two years until the Games, your plan to axe the £162million funding for 450 School Sport Partnerships, which exist solely to provide sporting opportunities for millions of young people, needs to be reconsidered before it is too late.

"We urge you to act now please Prime Minister and look again at the permanent withdrawal of funding for School Sport Partnerships before you condemn millions of children to a lack of sporting opportunities and therefore a bleak future of lethargy, obesity and unhappiness.

"Would you be prepared to meet a delegation of athletes who have signed this letter to discuss this urgent matter?

"Yours faithfully, Gail Emms, supported by Olympians, Paralympians and elite athletes."

Emms, a School Sport Ambassador for the Youth Sport Trust, said she came up with the idea of sending the letter after speaking to top sportsmen who said they too "got really angry and annoyed that sport and its legacy are in jeopardy".

The letter comes shortly after the issue came up in the political agenda when Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband clashed during last week's Prime Minister's questions.

Labour stated that ending the annual ring-fenced funding for the partnerships, set up in 2006 to encourage sport and PE in schools, will completely undermine progress in boosting participation in recent years.

Shadow Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell has been particularly vocal on the subject saying to Sport and Olympic Minister Hugh Robertson in the House of Commons: "Will you now stand with the coaches, the teachers, the young people and the volunteers who are bewildered and outraged at the decision to dismantle the partnerships which have seen nine out often children play sport regularly, in the spirit not of party politics, but respecting that this second Olympic promise is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for those young people?"

Robertson responded: "You have to recognise the scale of the financial problem we face.

"The amount of debt interest we pay out every day [£120 million] is larger than the entire Exchequer contribution to Sport England in a year.

"That is the scale of the challenge we face."

However, it remains clear that the Government remains under intense pressure over the school sport cuts despite Downing Street responding to the letter by saying that it would "refocus" efforts on promoting competitive sport in schools.

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