By Tom Degun in London

December 10 - UK Sport today announced their revised investment figures for all funded sports following a thorough Annual Review process which gave a huge boost to the so-called minor sports ahead of their London 2012 preparations.

The biggest winners of the announcement are water-polo, weightlifting, wrestling, fencing, shooting, handball and volleyball who have all seen their original funding award for 2009–2013 almost double.

The money which has provided the increase in funding will be made available by Visa who is sponsoring Team 2012 to a total of £10 million.

The Visa sponsorship has helped to ease a £50 million funding gap left after the Government failed to find private investment during troubled economic times.

The shortfall originally meant that the seven Olympic sports (as well as table tennis) had to share a minimum funding package of just £12.5 million between them.

UK Sport awards money based on realistic medal prospects, meaning that the less successful disciplines missed out and John Steele, the chief executive of UK sport told insidethegames that the outcome of the review will allow the majority of sports to focus on the 2012 Games without the worry of funding.

Steele said: "We've had some very clear target from 2012 for both Olympic and Paralympic sport and today is a really positive foundation where we have got real certainty around what is expected of sports but also real certainty over the resources that they need to deliver on that."

Other big winners of the review were boxing -  who received a funding boost of over £900,000 due to the introduction women’s boxing as an Olympic Sport - and Intellectual Disability (ID) athletes who have "ring-fenced" funding in place pending on what disciplines they are involved in during the London 2012 Paralympics.

Badminton were one of the biggest losers as their funding was cut from £8,631,7000 million to £7,970,600 - reflecting the performance profile of current senior players - while table tennis was the only "basic" funded sport to receive no increase in their existing funding, although there was no cut to the sport’s funding either.

Rowing, cycling, athletics, swimming and sailing are the best-funded Olympic sports with all five receiving in excess of £23 million over four years from 2009.

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