Table Tennis England and British Table Tennis are considering further options after an appeal against UK Sport’s decision not to award the sport funding was rejected.

UK Sport today announced it was standing by its decision not to fund table tennis for the 2020 Olympic cycle.

The governing body had appealed against the decision not to award any elite funding to the table tennis performance programme, despite the sport featuring in the group identified as capable of winning a medal in Tokyo and the progress made on the international stage, including last year’s World Team Championships bronze medals and best-ever Olympics results.

An appeal to Sport Resolutions is one possible course of action for the governing body.

Table Tennis England Chief Executive Sara Sutcliffe said: “We are naturally disappointed, having made what we believe was a very strong case for a relatively small amount of funding.

“We overachieved on everything we were asked to do in the 2016 cycle, and did so without funding. We were left without funding because, effectively, the goalposts were moved.

“We will now take time to absorb this decision before we decide on the best course of action from this point.

“We remain committed to finding a way to fund our performance programme through to Tokyo and to build on the amazing progress made by our athletes and coaching staff in recent years.”