The governing body has formally requested the opportunity to make representations to the UK Sport board, in line with the accepted process.

Should these representations prove unsuccessful, it will consider a formal appeal.

David Sparkes, British Swimming chief executive, said it was "vital we have the opportunity to engage with UK Sport once again as we look to save these team sports from simply becoming a chapter in a history book rather than a lasting, Olympic legacy.

"Both sports have not only demonstrated real performance improvements leading up to 2012, which was reflected by UK Sport last year through increased funding, they have both made further progress in 2013 as acknowledged by UK Sport.

"They have also driven interest and participation, with clubs across the country having to adjust to much greater demand for places."

UK Sport's decision has thrown into doubt the water polo team's appearance at this year's European Championship in Budapest for which it qualified last month.

An appeal is set to be made against UK Sport's decision to withdraw funding for Britain's water polo team ©Getty Images


The sport appears to have been penalised mainly for missing its performance target at last year's World Championship in Barcelona.

This target called for a top-12 finish, whereas the team placed 13th.

There were, however, no play-offs for ninth to 16th places, which might have enabled Britain to improve its placing and hence hit its target.

At London 2012, the team lost 9-7 in the quarter-finals to Spain, the eventual silver medallists and current world champions.

UK Sport allotted the sport £2.9 million ($4.7 million/€3.5 million) of funding over the London 2012 Olympic cycle.

While funding for men's water polo was cut when the focus moved to Rio, the women's team was initially - in December 2012 - awarded a hefty increase for the four years to the 2016 Games to more than £4.5 million ($7.4 million/€5.4 million).

Synchronised swimming was awarded £4.3 million ($7.1 million/€5.2 million). at the same time, up from £3.3 million ($5.4 million/€4 million) over the London 2012 cycle.

Sparkes said: "Synchro has consistently achieved all of its key performance indicators and, because of this, UK Sport has regularly regarded its strong, effective leadership as having real medal winning potential.

"Some of our higher profile athletes retired last summer and that was always going to be difficult but we are very confident the cohort of young up-and-coming athletes have real medal potential for Tokyo."

UK Sport announced last week that a total of seven Olympic and Paralympic sports - basketball, synchronised swimming, water polo, weightlifting, five-a-side football, goalball and wheelchair fencing - had had funding withdrawn and reinvested in other programmes after "failing to demonstrate realistic medal potential by Tokyo 2020".