British Surfing, the British national federation, received $240.000 from the government to be used in preparation for Tokyo 2020, the team said in a post on Facebook last Friday.

According to the publication, the money “will be used to support elite athletes in their qualification for the games and the delivery of a social impact plan to maximise the benefit of the games in Great Britain.”

Nick Hounsfield, the spokesman for British Surfing, explained to the local publication Carve Magazine“This aspiration fund is geared towards supporting athletes who have Olympic qualification potential, but we also need to demonstrate how this funding can be used to create a clear and demonstrable social impact through surfing. As this funding comes from UK Sport, there is very clear guidance on who receives funding and how it is spent to produce the greatest positive impact. Our role now is to show our ability to manage the process, manage the funding and measure the impact it has. There is a mountain of work ahead and it is all done on a voluntary basis within the federations.”

British Surfing includes the team selected by all home nation federations as part of the BSURF partnership agreement. Home federations include Scotland, England, Wales and the Channel Islands.

A few months ago the surfing federation was on the table because all support had been denied as government authorities indicated that they did not see surfers with a chance of qualifying for Tokyo 2020. The situation seems to have reversed.

Comparatively, there are Latin American countries that win by far in these government contributions. According to a study carried out by DUKE months ago, Peru, for example, receives more than 600.000 dollars annually.