Sport England today announced a £493 million four-year investment to keep the inspiration of London 2012 alive.

Sport England today (17 December) announced a £493 million four-year investment to keep the inspiration of London 2012 alive and help fulfil Lord Coe's pledge that the Games would get more people – young and old, women and men – playing sport, a feat that no other host nation has ever managed to achieve.

All Olympic and Paralympic sports are among the 46 sports who will benefit from the investment and 31 sports will be receiving their largest ever investment in grassroots sports including cycling, netball, wheelchair basketball and triathlon all receiving increases of over 30% reflecting their strong plans and excellent progress on grassroots sport.

Recognising that more needs to be done to make sport a practical lifestyle choice for disabled people, 40 sports have now developed detailed plans to tackle this challenge.

At least 60% of the investment announced today will support young people aged between 14 and 25 and more than £83 million will be used to support the development of talented young athletes in 43 sports, ensuring those with podium dreams receive the best possible coaching and support in high-quality facilities.

Getting the most from our investment

The announcement followed a robust and challenging process to assess the quality of the plans of the sports and their ability to deliver for community sport and talent development.

Each sport will be subject to tough performance management through a 'payment for results' approach that will see Sport England rewarding success and penalising failure.

£40 million of the total funding package has been set aside in a Reward and Incentive Fund, enabling Sport England to move swiftly to help high-performing sports achieve even more. And any governing body that fails to achieve its annual targets for increasing participation faces losing 20% of its remaining investment, with the money immediately available to bids from the open market.

Sport England's Chief Executive, Jennie Price, said "This investment represents Years 5 to 8 of our long term plan to get more people playing sport. We've learned a lot over the last four years and with a record 15.5 million people already playing sport once a week, we are on track to deliver. We have worked very hard, with the governing bodies of sport, to make these decisions, and I believe they are right."