UK Sport unveiled their budget for the next four years today here at their headquarters in London as archery, badminton, fencing and weightlifting all had their financial support taken away.

A total investment of £345 million ($434 million/€411 million) will be made to 31 Olympic and Paralympic sports for the next Games - £2 million ($2.5 million/€2.3 million) less than a record £347 million ($436 million/€413 million) allocated in the run-up to Rio.

When announcing the investment, UK Sport set the Great British team a target of winning between 51 to 85 Olympic medals, and 115 to 162 Paralympic medals in Tokyo.

Liz Nicholls, chief executive officer of UK Sport, admitted they would have liked to invest in more sports, but priorities had to be made.

"We know what it takes to win and what it costs to win and believe these investments will deliver medal winning success to inspire the nation once again in Tokyo," she said.

"We have not taken these decisions lightly and we know that this impacts on the hopes and dreams of athletes, coaches and support teams that miss out. 

"We are committed to managing this with appropriate care and will be working with those affected by these decisions to help them in their transition.”

Badminton was a surprising omission after Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge claimed bronze in the men's doubles at Rio 2016.

Adrian Christy, Badminton England chief executive, claimed the decision will be "catastrophic on the impact of the sport" in a statement released this afternoon.

"How can you return from the best Games for more than a decade, in a year where our players have demonstrated world class performances and where we can demonstrate the journey to Tokyo is on track, only to have every penny of investment withdrawn," said Christy.

Athens 2004 mixed doubles silver medallist Gail Emms also expressed her frustration at the decision on social media.

"UK sport obviously had known about this decision to cut funding to nothing. How about courtesy to make this aware to the sport," she posted.

Erm... Win an Olympic medal and get funding taken away??!! #badminton #uksport

— Gail Emms (@gailemms) 9 December 2016

"We could have done no more on court, to over-deliver against Rio targets with a bronze medal," added Jon Austin, performance director at Great Britain Badminton.

Another blow for badminton will be that judo, a sport given the same target as badminton and one which also claimed one bronze medal at Rio, has had its funding increased slightly.

"We would like to invest in every sport but the reality is that we have to prioritise within agreed resources to produce and enhance the medal potential within the system," said Liz Nicholl, the chief executive of UK Sport.

"We have not taken these decisions lightly and we know that this impacts on the hopes and dreams of athletes, coaches and support teams that miss out. 

"We are committed to managing this with appropriate care and will be working with those affected by these decisions to help them in their transition."

Another significant casualty in the budget is cycling's loss of £4 million ($5 million/€4.7 million) to £25.98 million ($32.6 million/€30.9 million).

Chair of UK Sport, Rod Carr, expressed that these cuts to cycling, which won 12 medals in Rio, has nothing to do with the current issues surrounding British governance in the sport and the Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) debate.

"It [the loss of funding] is not because of British cycling's current issues," Carr insisted.

"It is because of the amount of money they actually bid for was different to last time and they have a big commercial deal so we are expecting them to put more of that money into high performance and grassroots cycling."

Gymnastics has received an increase in their financial support following their seven medals across all three disciplines in Rio, making it their most successful Games to date.

As a result of their success in the Brazilian city, funding has risen from £14.6 million ($18.3 million/€17.4 million) to £16.6 million ($20.8 million/€19.8 million).

"British Gymnastics believes our allocation is a very fair one that rewards our historic results in the last Olympic cycle culminating in our best ever Olympic Games," said chief executive of British Gymnastics, Jane Allen.

Hockey was also a beneficiary of the new investment schedule after the Great British women's team defeated The Netherlands in the final to win the gold medal.

Their funding rose from £16.1 million ($20.2 million/€19.2 million) to £18 million ($22.6 million/€21.4 million).

“I would like to thank UK Sport, the National Lottery and the Government for their continued funding of sport in this country and specifically hockey, Rio was a shining example of how the model creates success," said England Hockey chief executive Sally Munday.

"For hockey, we are very pleased with the opportunity that our funding affords us, and with 80 athletes on our programme we have a real chance to make a difference, both on the pitch and in terms of visibility for our fantastic sport."

Archery was one of the four sports to lose their funding and the decision was met with very little surprise by the national governing body.

"Archery GB is committed to implementing long term plans to achieve international medal performances and encourage developing archers at the grassroots of our sport," said Archery GB.

"Rio this year was the most successful games to date for Team GB and Paralympics GB, winning a combined 214 medals across a record 34 sports, with a finite budget to go around, it has made the application process for funding even more competitive."

British Handball meanwhile claimed that despite holding very little hope for funding prior to today, the decision is still tough to take.

"We did not expect to receive performance funding from UK Sport but the decision is never-the-less disappointing," a statement read.

"We find ourselves in a ‘chicken and egg’ situation that our sport is expected to become an Olympic medal contender with zero funding, before it can be considered for funding.

"There is a misconception that team sports are expensive to fund.

"The reality is that British Handball could put together a programme that would get us started on the path to future success with as little as one-third of a percent of UK Sport’s current NGB Performance budget.

View UK Sport's full investment plan for Tokyo 2020 here.