Cost of each Team GB Olympic cycling medal compared to other sports

Team GB won a huge number of medals in cycling at the Olympics. Now the monetary cost of each one has been calculate and compared against other sports. Bradley Wiggins was part of the men's team pursuit gold medal-winning line-up.

The cost of each medal won by Team GB cyclists at the Rio Olympics has been calculated at £2,522,318.

That’s €2,833,929 or $3,157,563 based on exchange rates on the date of publication.

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Underlining the level of investment in high performance sport in the UK – and indeed the sheer number of sports Britain won Olympic medals in – while the monetary cost of each medal may seem expensive; cycling proved one of the cheapest to gain success in.

Of the 16 sports that UK Sport funded and which won medals in Rio, the cost of the cycling ranked 12th on the list. It means in 11 of the sports medals were more expensive to achieve and were cheaper in four sports.

There were 20 sports with athletes at the Games that UK Sport funded with only four not bringing home medals; modern pentathlon, fencing, archery and weightlifting.

And there were three Olympic sports in which medals were won by British athletes that were not funded for the Games; golf, tennis and rugby.

The average cost of a medal won by Team GB has been calculated – in a study by Sports Management magazine – at £4.29 million; that’s €4.75m or $5.25m.

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Gymnastics and shooting proved the most cost effect with hockey and sailing the most expensive.

The figures were arrived at when the magazine totalled UK Sport funding for each sport of the Olympic cycle leading to Rio; the period from 2013 and dividing the totals in each sport by the number of medals won in each – gold, silver or bronze.

Shooting was most cost effective as it received a relatively most (for Britain – Ed) £3.95 million of public funding during the Olympic cycle yet won two medals – both of them bronze. That mean the cost of those medals was €1.98million; that’s €2.19m or $2.42m.

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Gymnastics far exceed the target medals – of between three and five – and instead took home seven meaning the cost per medal as £2.09 million after it received £14.6million during the period.

The calculations are obviously crude and the example of gymnastics underlines that. The sport involves nations a competing as teams and the individual gymnasts compete for an overall title.

There are also medals available to individuals in each piece of apparatus meaning one funded gymnast can win a number of medals, as some of the British gymnasts did in Rio.

This would have the effect of driving down the average cost of a medal even though one or two could bring home all or the majority of the medals.

In total, Team GB amassed 67 medals at Rio and of the 366 British athletes at the Games; more than a third (130) came back with a medal.

The women’s hockey team gold medal was the most expensive, at £16,141,393. But while it is a team sport the victory only counts as one medal in the calculations and as all of the players must be individually funded, it is perhaps no surprise it comes out on top.

Sailing is next at £8,501,351; mainly because it is a very expensive sport and because it fell short of expectations with two medals – a gold and a silver.

Interesting to note is that while Britain has been hugely successful at recent Olympics, investment in sport for the Games is now at runaway levels.

For example, total spending was £235.1m for Beijing in 2008 and £264.1 for London 2012. But between 2012 and Rio, the spend only increased by £10m – a reflection of the more challenging economic conditions.

But it also suggests the approach is based on securing quality from the investment rather than throwing money at success already achieve.