12 Jun 2010

Government to boost high performance sport funding

1:12 am on 12 June 2010

There's to be a major reshaping and expansion of high performance sport in New Zealand with an $80 million funding boost by 2013.

Total funding in three years will be more than $60 million a year, compared with the current annual allocation of $42 million.

There'll be $10 million in new budget funding rising to $15 million by 2012 and $20 million a year after that.

The government's also announced its sporting funding body SPARC will have a new high performance institute with a $40 million expansion of the Millennium institute on the North Shore, with the government contributing $15 million.

A new series of satellite facilities at QE2 Park in Christchurch, Lake Karapiro and Takapuna will also be established, as well as a second cycling velodrome at a venue that's yet to be decided.

The outgoing New Zealand Olympic committee secretary general Barry Maister says for a change there's funding certainty.