Great Britain set ambitious Rio 2016 target as performance declines

France's Pervis and GBR's Kenny fight it to the line at the 2015 Track Cycling Worlds

Great Britain's Olympic team has been set the target of bringing home more medals from Rio 2016 than their London 2012 haul.The targeted improvement isn't great - 66 vs 65 medals - but it would be the first time that a host country has done better at the following Olympics. Can Team GB make history and meet its target?

 
The first thing to note is that, as the table below shows, 2012 was an extraordinary year for British sport. Spearheaded by their Olympic performance, Great Britain was the third best sporting country in the world in 2012. Little old Great Britain with its 60 odd million inhabitants beat countries such as China, Germany, France and Brazil.
 
The second thing to note is that it didn't happen overnight. Great Britain made steady progress from 2008, when they came 8th, to 2012, with improvements each year along the way (with the exception of 2010).
 
In other words, while Great Britain's 2012 Olympic performance was outstanding, it wasn't entirely unexpected given their performances in GSN's Global Cup - especially when you factor in the benefits of being the host nation.
 
GBR GLOBAL CUP PERFORMANCE
year
rank
pts %
2014
7th
3.6
2013
6th
3.4
2012
3rd
5.2
2011
5th
4.3
2010
7th
3.5
2009
6th
4.0
2008
8th
3.4
 
 
So what do Great Britain's performances since 2012 tell us about their prospects for Rio 2016? The early signs aren't particularly encouraging.
 
In 2013, Great Britain fell back to 6th best in the world. To be fair, that's the same position they achieved in 2009 at the same stage in the previous Olympic cycle. However, in 2009, they scored 4.0% of the available points versus 3.4% in 2013.
 
In 2014, Great Britain slipped a further place to 7th with 3.6%. On the plus side this is almost identical to their 2010 performance when they also finished 7th with 3.5%.
 
However, the picture gets more worrying when one looks at Great Britain's recent performance in world championships in the three sports that gave them the most medals in at London 2012: Cycling (12 medals - 9 on the track and 3 on the road); Rowing (9 medals) and Athletics (6 medals).
 
 
Sport Olympics World World World
  London 2012 Chp 2013 Chp 2014 Chp 2015
Road Cycling 1st 7th 3rd   Sept.
         
Track Cycling 1st 2nd 3rd 7th
         
Rowing 1st 4th  3rd Sept.
         
Athletics 6th 6th  NC August

 

 
Apart from Athletics, results have slumped since 2012 with a particularly worrying result in the 2015 Track Cycling World Championships where Team GB only finished 7th.
 
We’ll be keeping track of GB’s performance and, with 18 months to go to the 2016 Olympics, it’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions. However, it’s hard not to be concerned that Team GB, without the benefits of hosting, has its work cut out to reach its 2016 target.