Eight 2012 sports their funding slashed because of a £50m budget black hole.

The moves could blow a hole in Team GB's effort of fielding a team in every sport for the Olympics.

Instead for fielding 46 shooters, only 10 will now be funded after its spending was slashed by £3.84m.

John Leighton-Dyson, performance director of British Shooting called the situation "particularly galling" Adding:

"We have a track record of winning medals and sports that do not have been given significant funding increases while we suffer the biggest cut."

Team may have to pull out

Water polo will lose half its budget to £1.45m - its bosses say they may now have to pull its 2012 team altogether. Water polo performance director Nick Hume told the BBC:

"It's pretty bleak, we think the absolute cheapest you could do it on would be about £2.5m.

"That would get two decent teams to London - on a real shoestring - but anything less than that and you would be really cobbling something together"

The £50m shortfall is effectively the result of the governments failure to bring any private sector money in.

Private sector

UK Sport, in charge of allocating the monies hopes to raise addition finance through the private sector, a thought call in the economic downturn.

They have attempted to soften the blow of the budget costs by announcing the sports will be allowed to have all the cash up front rather than split annually during the four-year cycle up to 2013. 

UK Sport chair Sue Campbell said:

"The past few months have not been easy for anyone, and the decisions we have taken have been tough.

"But I firmly believe we have done the best we can to deliver for all sports whilst remaining true to our core responsibility of driving medal success."