“Everyone who works in sport is always immensely troubled and saddened when there are negative stories of athletes, especially anyone having a bad experience in sport, and everyone felt very strongly that it didn’t need to be that way,” she said.
“It was an immense collective effort across all sports, who felt that regardless of results, sport should be a positive environment to be in. Always tough and always challenging, because it’s high performance, but always healthy and supportive.
“People flourish in positive environments. I’m thrilled that we are in a better place now and we haven’t seen any drop off in performance. If anyone was unconvinced before, hopefully they will be now. I’m very pleased, I’m not surprised. I always felt it was the right thing to do.”
Spreading the medals
One of the criticisms leveled at Team GB in previous Olympics was a belief that the organisation has targeted medals in so-called “posh sports” that are not reflective of wider society.
When UK Sport announced its new funding structure for the Paris 2024 cycle, Grainger pointed to a desire for “broader diversity and broader engagement”.
While that has resulted in traditional sports seeing a reduction in funding, greater resources have been allocated to sports deemed more “urban” and relevant to a larger proportion of the population – including the likes of climbing, skateboarding and basketball.
The benefits were expected to be seen in Paris but, fortunately for Team GB, a number of unfunded athletes took it upon themselves to exceed expectations in Tokyo despite a lack of financial support.
Emily Campbell’s silver was Britain’s first ever female weightlifting medal, earned despite receiving no central funding and relying on the financial goodwill of local companies.