Revealed: The real cost of Team GB’s Olympic haul – one medal in one sport cost UK Sport a whopping £12 MILLION!

The true cost of Team GB’s Olympic medals has been revealed following a huge success for British athletes in Paris.

The country improved its medal tally in Tokyo from three years ago by one: Emily Campbell’s latest bronze medal in the 81kg weightlifting event, which the 30-year-old won on the final day of the Games on Sunday.

With a target of 50 to 70 medals for the two weeks in the French capital, Team GB more than proved their worth by finishing seventh overall, with a total of 65 medals: 14 gold, 22 silver and 29 bronze.

But some sports prove far more profitable than others. A look at UK Sport’s funding of Olympic disciplines shows that some medals cost more than three times as much as others.

According to Telegraph Sport, the most expensive medal won by Team GB in the past two weeks was Lewis Richardson’s welterweight bronze medal.

Team GB brought home 65 medals, surpassing the Tokyo total and equalling the third best medal tally

Keely Hodgkinson triumphed on the track last week with her gold medal in the 800 meters

Weightlifter Emily Campbell won the final medal of the games with her bronze medal

Richardson was the only one of Team GB’s six boxers to reach the podium. UK Sport invested a total of more than £12 million in the sport during the Paris Olympics.

The agency, which uses government National Lottery money to support Team GB athletes, invested a total of £245,837,685 over the cycle, making each medal cost an average of £3,782,118.

But the sports that receive the largest amounts of funding are also the sports with the highest returns on stage.

Cycling receives a whopping £29.3 million from the British sports fund and Team GB athletes won a staggering 11 medals, including Emma Finucane’s hat-trick on the track and Tom Pidcock’s miraculous gold in the cross-country early in the Games. Each medal cost £2.7 million.

Rowing is the second most expensive item of national funding, with the sport receiving £23.8 million at the Paris Tour, or £2.98 million for each of the eight medals won by Team GB athletes.

Lewis Richardson’s sole bronze boxing medal was the most expensive British medal of the Games

Tom Pidcock’s cross-country victory was one of many places of honour for Team GB cyclists in Paris

Only athletics, which receives £22.8m in funding from UK Sport, had a more efficient medal cost, with each of Team GB’s 10 medals – including Keely Hodgkinson’s defining gold medal in the 800m – worth £2.23m.

Another sport that requires a lot of investment is sailing. This sport has produced two medals worth £11.4 million each, considering the investment of £22.8 million.

After boxing and sailing, Team GB’s most expensive medal was the silver, which was awarded to taekwondo star Caden Cunningham.

The Briton failed to win the gold medal against Iranian Arian Salimi on Saturday, but his second place cost him £8.3 million.

Both Team GB men’s and women’s 100m relay teams have won medals in the past two weeks

But hockey has failed to show a medal for its £13.6 million British Sport funding this year

The sport with the highest funding that failed to earn Team GB a medal was hockey, with a sum of £13,689,907.

Both British teams were eliminated in the quarter finals, the men’s team being defeated by India and the women’s team by the Netherlands.

But there was one medal for Team GB that cost exactly zero pounds.

Tommy Fleetwood’s silver golf medal was the only gift to Great Britain, as golf is not a sport funded by UK Sport.