In contrast, athletics, Britain's most successful ever Olympic sport, was happy despite having their funding cut by £1.4 million.

 

Judo received £7.6 million in the awards announced today.

 

They received £6.4 million to prepare for Beijing, where they failed to win a medal.

 

Scott McCarthy, the chief executive of the British Judo Association (BJA) said: “We have mixed reactions about the funding news received today. 

 

"We are disappointed that our funding has not increased but we are realistic enough to accept that we did not deliver our target of two medals in Beijing and in sport you must deliver to expect greater rewards.

 

"That said, we have serious reservations about the veracity of the model that greatly rewarded a number of sports who set targets of zero medals and delivered exactly that and somehow received huge increases in their grant funding.

 

"There is also at least one sport that received a huge increase in funding and in reality this sport has no realistic medal prospects at all.

 

"We expect a level playing field, both on the mat and in the corridors of power – and I am not sure we have seen that here today.

 

"We will be hoping to meet with UK Sport in the very near future to get some answers to these questions to ensure we are doing everything within our power to give our fighters the support they need to produce medals in London – and I am confident they will."

 

Athletics also failed to meet its medal target in Beijing, winning only four when they had hoped to claim five.

 

Along with badminton, they are one of only two sports to have their funding cut for London 2012, from £26.5 million to £25.1 million.

 

But Niels de Vos, the chief executive of UK Athletics, claimed he was satisfied with the award.

 

He said: "It's absolutely as expected, there's no surprises for me there.

 

"We've already made a lot of the changes to our programme, both in terms of tightening up the management of it and the numbers of athletes that we fund.

 

"We dropped that by some 20 per cent a couple of weeks back so no surprises.

 

"The bottom line is I guess I'm grateful to UK Sport for supporting us because there were changes that needed to be made.

 

"I've been discussing those with them since pre-Beijing.

 

"I made the changes and they've backed me and given me the money I need to make it happen, so overall, I'm pretty pleased."

 

One high-profile change saw the appointment of Dutchman Charles van Commenee as head coach after performance director Dave Collins' contract was terminated following the Beijing Games.

 

De Vos said: "They've [UK Sport] backed my plans, so from that point of view, had we not made the changes or had they not backed my plans, I guess it [the cut] could have been a bit more severe.

 

"I don't think there are going to be many things I can't buy that I would have been able to, it's just a funding package in a different landscape.

 

"Charles is a 2012 appointment and he and I are working closely with UK Sport to make sure we get as many Brits into finals as possible and from that as many medals as possible."

 

Britain has won 188 medals in athletcs since the start of the Modern Olympics in 1896, 49 of them gold - more than twice as many as its nearest rivals, rowing and sailing.

 

De Vos said: "Athletics will be the showcase sport of 2012.

 

"I think the key thing is Britain's performance within that showcase and all the changes I've made have been geared towards 2012."

 

We're pretty lucky, my commercial team have worked very hard to get us some good commercial sponsorship, which is tied through to 2012.

 

"We're pushing on all fronts and I'm very determined that we have a good show in London, both in terms of the number of finalists and the number of medals.

 

"Athletics is never going to be a sport that delivers an avalanche of gold medals because no country does.

 

"Even the mighty America only delivered six in Beijing and China delivered not one finalist, or maybe one.

 

"I think athletics will be brilliant and we'll play our part in it.

 

"We've got a good package that matches what I needed to put together the programme that Charles and I have agreed with UK Sport we're going to deliver."

 

De Vos believes Britain can aim for six medals at next summer's World Championships in Berlin but refused to set a target for London.

 

He said: "We've got challenges before London, we've got Berlin... and that's the first and that kind of number is about right for Berlin.

 

"I think we will surprise people between now and London but I'm clearly going to keep my powder dry and I'm not going to hang myself by giving an aspirational figure now."