The kick for the line, the push for victory, teeth gritted and pain etched over the athletes’ faces. Our eyes glued to the television in anticipation as we chewed our nails and leapt out of our seats, then the emotions; joy and jubilation or despair. Almost four months on from London 2012, the memories of the great Olympics remain with us, be it Mo Farah’s long distance double, the rowing victories at Eton Dorney or the likes of Sir Chris Hoy in the Velodrome. Yet part of the Olympics was about raising the profile of sports such as handball, but has that part of the legacy been achieved?
For two weeks these sports were plucked from obscurity and placed in front of the public eye, exposing them to valuable publicity and hopefully inspiring a generation to lift such sports to a new level in this country. Yet as quickly as they emerged, they faded back into the depths of the sporting abyss, consigned to the back of our minds with only the fleeting mention in the press. London 2012 was supposed to leave a legacy; the question is whether that will extend to the outer reaches of our sporting culture.
Handball was one of the phenomenal success stories of the Olympics, even though GB lost all of their group games, as the nation seemed to become attached to and fascinated with a sport which few knew anything about. It was suggested that one of the legacies of London would be the substantial development of the sport in Britain, yet four months on that seems like a distant dream. The men’s side endured a 43-14 defeat against Greece in their only competitive fixture since the Olympics. However, more worryingly, financial implications almost put paid to the contest before it even begun.
To simply make the trip to Greece, GB’s players had to embark on fundraising activities, due to concerns regarding the sport’s financing. To make matters worse, no replacement has yet been found following head coach Dragan Djukic’s departure for the Israeli national team. Due to the limitations in funding and lack of a competitive domestic league in the UK, which means the nation’s top players are forced to play abroad, it’s no surprise that handball struggles to compete with other sports in attracting youngsters.
The chance of GB’s handball team qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics is minimal, and any hopes there were have been dashed by the absence of financial backing from UK Sport’s 2016 Olympics funding programme. For London handball were granted £2.92 million, whereas for Rio they have been bestowed nothing, the same fate that has beset basketball, table tennis and wrestling. The reasoning behind the move is that Team GB stand no chance of winning medals in these sports, but in reality it’s a catch-22 situation; only by increasing funding will significant progression in competitive terms occur. The future for the sport looks uncertain, and you have to question whether we’ll see Team GB represented in handball again in the Olympics, at least for the foreseeable future.
However the recent funding announcement from Sport England could well be the first step in rectifying these financial limitations. As a result of the surge of interest and participation in the sport following the Olympics, Sport England has doubled its funding for handball from £600,000 to £1.2 million. Handball is a sport where it is hard to gauge whether progress is made, due to the lack of publicity and media interest. The sport won the public’s hearts during the Olympics, and the simple fact that more people of all ages are taking up and showing an interest in the sport is a major step forward.
Now is the time to capitalise on the potential for development in sports, such as handball, incited by the Olympics. But the mixed messages provided by the funding announcements over the past week cast have casted a doubt on whether substantial progress can be achieved. Of course, changes were never going to happen overnight; we aren’t all of a sudden going to turn into world-beaters in such sports. Four months after the Olympics it’s too early to judge the long term impact of London 2012, even four years will probably be too early. The question is whether the next generation will be inspired by the legacy of the Olympics to pursue interest in participating in emerging sports such as handball, or whether London will turn out to be a flash in a pan and the sport will fade back into obscurity. Without financial support the latter is likely to happen, and the sport really does need a hand if it is to truly profit from the brilliance of London 2012.