It reduces the overall deficit in funding from £79 million to £50 million.

 

The extra cash was announced by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham to UK Sport's board, who are meeting to decide what 24 of Britain's 26 Olympic sports will receive in the build-up to London.

 

Football and tennis do not receive any funding from UK Sport.

 

Burnham said: "This is a good result for British Olympic and Paralympic sport, but
one that is realistic in a tough economic climate.

"It represents a record investment in elite sport - more than the Beijing cycle - and keeps our medal ambitions for London 2012 in place.

"But I have made it clear that we have reached the very limit of public investment in Olympic sport.

 

"The challenge now is for all sports to pull together behind our medal hopes scheme to achieve our overall funding ambition.

 

"Today's announcement puts that within our reach.

"I accept that raising private funds is challenging in the current economic conditions.

 

"But British business has a great track record of investing in sport.

 

"I urge them to rally round the British athletes as we prepare for this historic moment of our first home Olympics in generations."

 

Then Chancellor Gordon Brown had said in April 2006 that the Government would provide £500 million to help Britain's athletes get ready for London 2012 but an additional £100 million had to be raised by the private sector.

 

But, so far, no funding from that source has been raised, despite Alan Pascoe's Fast Track being appointed to spearhead a sponsorship drive.

 

That led to speculation that, under UK Sport's "no compromise" approach, sports like basketball, handall and volleyball, which have no record of international success in Britain, would have their funding for 2012 cut.

 

Both the British Olympic Association chairman Colin Moynihan and the Shadow Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson have called on the Government to honour their original commitment to £100 million a year for Olympic sports up to 2012.

 

The extra £29 million means that  £40million more will be spent overall up to London than was done in the run-up to Beijing, where the British team finished fourth in the medals table, which was originally their target for London.

 

Sue Campbell, the chair of UK Sport, said: "This is welcome news and we greatly appreciate the efforts of the Secretary of State in securing this funding package in what is a very tough economic climate.

 

"We see this as a significant further investment in high performance sport which will allow us to build on the superb performances of our athletes in Beijing .

 

"This means that all Olympic and Paralympic sports will receive some funding ahead of the Games, and that we are able to confirm the full funding figures for those sports most likely to deliver medals at London 2012.”

 

More details of funding figures for individual sports will be announced by UK Sport tomorrow at 2.30pm.