Rio Olympic Medal Targets Set for British Athletes

(ATR) Great Britain’s Olympic team has been challenged to win at least 48 Olympic and 121 Paralympic medals at the Rio Games.

UK Sport, the nation’s high performance sports agency, released its medal targets Thursday at a briefing in London.

The target ranges agreed with the sports in which Britain will compete for medals are 47-79 in the Olympics and 113-165 in the Paralympics. British cycling is tipped to bag the most Olympic medals, at least eight. Team GB’s athletics team is expected to win seven and rowing six.

For Britain’s Paralympians, swimming and athletics will bring the most medals – athletes are tasked with winning a minimum 35 medals in the pool and 28 in track and field.

Team GB won 65 medals at the London Olympics and 47 at the Beijing 2008 Games.

Beating the Beijing total would make Rio the best ever away Games for Great Britain. UK Sport’s targets follow investment of $466 million from government and the National Lottery into Olympic and Paralympic sports over the past four years.

UK sport said that the medal targets underlined the ambition to become the first host nation to win more Olympic and Paralympic medals at the next Games after hosting was "within range", although a best away Olympics was "more probable".

"We know these inspirational medal moments live long in the public’s memory and their impact is significant for the whole nation for years to come; uniting us, inspiring us and ultimately making us proud as a nation," said Rod Carr, chair of UK Sport.

Liz Nicholl, CEO of UK Sport, the goal of a record-breaking away Olympic Games and a Paralympic medal haul surpassing London 2012’s collection of medals "shows the ambition and talent within our high performance system".

"We have a greater number of sports targeting medals that we did in Beijing in 2008, which shows a high performance system that is growing stronger and more sustainable Games after Games," she said.

Sports minister Tracey Crouch predicted that the whole country would be right behind Team GB and Paralympics GB in Rio. "While competition in Rio will be strong I know that our athletes are ready to give it their all and make our country proud," she said.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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