UK Sport, the nation's high performance sports agency, today confirmed the outcome of its Annual Investment Review with 19 Olympic and 17 Paralympic sports continuing to receive significant funding for the Rio cycle.

UK Sport will strategically invest around £350million of National Lottery and Exchequer funds into preparing Great Britain's best athletes for Rio 2016 and beyond to build on the outstanding success of London 2012.

Liz Nicholl, Chief Executive of UK Sport, said: "This is a very significant point on our journey to Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. The high level goal of winning more Olympic and Paralympic medals at the next Summer Games is very challenging. We know that if we continue to focus our energy and resources we can deliver our commitment to Government, build on that success in London, and make this nation proud again.

"I would like to thank all the sports that engaged with us so openly through this Annual Review. While there is a clear understanding now that our investment is based on merit and must be aligned behind our best medal prospects, it doesn't make the decisions any easier and I recognise it is a difficult time for the sports and athletes who have been withdrawn from funding. To continue funding sports where the evidence is telling us they cannot win a medal by 2020 would be a high risk strategy that compromises opportunities elsewhere.

"It is testament to the strength of our high performance system that 36 sports have been identified through this process as being capable of winning medals within the next two Summer Olympic and Paralympic cycles and it is UK Sport's job to do everything it can to ensure they get all the support necessary to achieve that goal."

Minister for Sport, Helen Grant, said: "The ambition to win more medals in Rio than we did in London is huge and will not be easy to achieve. UK Sport's strategy has shown through the incredible results at the Beijing and London Games that it works. I am pleased that 36 sports have strong talent pathways in place that could result in medals for Britain in either Rio 2016 or Tokyo 2020.

"I know today's decisions from UK Sport will be hard to take for some sports but funding is still available through Sport England for talent development and to grow their sport. UK Sport's door will not be shut permanently to any sport but public investment has to be focussed on delivering results."

The Annual Investment Review has been the most thorough ever undertaken and focuses on the entire performance programme with sports given the opportunity to present their case to a UK Sport panel, which included independent scrutiny.

The rigorous 'Mission 2016' process, developed by UK Sport in consultation with Performance Directors and senior NGB staff provided an independently facilitated and, peer reviewed evaluation of best practice in world class programme delivery.

Mission 2016's 16 elements across three dimensions of Athlete, System and Climate provide objectively defined standards against which evidence of programme effectiveness and impact are self-appraised by the sport and peer reviewed. Athlete performance and development, science and medicine delivery, programme strategy and operations are among the elements considered.

In addition, the performance of each sport against its agreed 2013 milestone target in major international events was assessed alongside performance analytics provided by UK Sports' new Mission, Analysis and Strategy Function. This provided precedent, situation and/or trajectory analyses on some sports' prospects for Rio and Tokyo.

As a result 18 sports have received additional funding to protect or enhance their medal potential with four identifying additional medal opportunities for the Olympic or Paralympic Games.

Simon Timson, Director of Performance at UK Sport, said: "We have undertaken a thorough, evidence-based review of all the funded sports to arrive at these tough yet important decisions.

"By its very nature elite sport is intensely competitive and the cost of success in the Rio environment means it is vital that every pound we invest has a real benefit in terms of medal performance.

"Through this review we have been able to respond to the requests from sports for additional support where they have made a compelling case that it will have a significant impact on their medal success.

"By refocusing some of our investment I am convinced we are making the best possible use of the money we have available to stay on track to deliver the historic targets we have set for Rio whilst also enabling these sports to continue building strong, sustainable and successful talent pathways for Tokyo."

The first Mission 2016 process revealed that 40 per cent of the 36 funded sports were rated overall Green and on track for Rio