The UK sporting landscape has been awash with emotion and apprehension in the last few days, but Scotland’s most successful Olympic sports in 2008 – cycling, rowing and canoeing – can all breathe easy.

Scots Chris Hoy, Ross Edgar, David Florence and Katherine Grainger all won medals in Beijing, and their sports have been awarded with significant funding increases as preparations for London 2012 begin.

However, while our cyclists seem to be pedalling in the right direction, our track and field athletes will probably not be jumping for joy.

In a nutshell, the economic downturn in Britain has triggered a scramble after a £50m hole appeared in the £600m budget earmarked to support Olympic sports through to London 2012.

So, for different reasons, the big winners from the budgetary announcement are cycling, (thanks to Hoy and Edgar in no small dose) rowing, (good news for Grainger, who is making one final push for gold in London) and basketball.

The ultra-successful GB cycling team saw their budget increased from £22.15 to £26.92m, a rise of 21.5%, which can only spell good news for the future.  Sweet payback for Hoy, Pendelton, Wiggins, Romero and co, who notched up 14 medals at the Laoshan Velodrome in China.

Rowing has seen its budget increased to £27.47m, a small percentage rise from Beijing (5.5%) but making it the best funded of all British Olympic sports.  The British rowers bagged six medals in Beijing, making them the joint second most successful sports alongside swimming and sailing, which will also be heavily backed in the build up to London.

However it is basketball, as well as taekwondo, synchronised swimming, archery, boxing and hockey, that will be feeling the most chipper amidst the winter gloom and financial crisis.

GB Basketball, who have been performing well in the European circuit this year, have seen their funding increased by an incredible 136.9% from £3.7m to £8.7m.  All considered, the GB team didn’t even make it to Beijing, so there has been considerable outcry from other sports where funding wasn’t quite so generous.

The British Basketball Association were obviously delighted, calling the announcement  “fantastic news” and “recognition of what’s been going on [in British basketball]”.  Scottish Rocks captain Gareth Murray, one of the stars of the BBL, is one of the players who may see their Olympics dreams recognised in spectacular fashion.

Elsewhere, hockey received an unexpected 43% funding increase.  In Beijing neither the men’s nor women’s teams won medals, but both performed above and beyond their expected level.  Also, in 2007 at the Youth Olympics, GB women won gold while the men took silver in a field that contained some of the best hockey nations in the world, which bodes well for the future.

Glasgow hockey stars Kenny Bain and Laura Bartlett are two young Scottish stars tipped for big futures in the sport, so the announcement has been positively received by both Scottish and British Hockey.

Some sports, however, have felt the wielding of the axe by UK sport.  The underperforming GB Athletics team saw their funding cut by 5%.  Badminton also suffered a slight slash, of 1.5%.

However, until the remaining sports of volleyball, handball, shooting, water-polo, fencing, table tennis, wrestling and weightlifting hear how the budget will affect them, no concrete conclusions can be made from UK Sport’s carve up of the sporting landscape.

Full breakdown (to date) of UK Sport’s funding in the lead up to 2012:

ARCHERY £4.5m (£2.8m)INCREASE
ATHLETICS £25.1m (£26.5m)CUT
BADMINTON £8.6m (£8.8m)CUT
BASKETBALL £8.7m (£3.7m)INCREASE
BOXING £8m (£5m)INCREASE
CANOEING £16.3m (£13.6m)INCREASE
CYCLING £26.9m (£22.2m)INCREASE
DIVING £6.6m (£5.9m)INCREASE
EQUESTRIAN £13.6m (£11.7m)INCREASE
FENCING unconfirmed (£3.1m)LIKELY CUT
GYMNASTICS £10.3m (£9m)INCREASE
HANDBALL unconfirmed (£3m)LIKELY CUT
HOCKEY £14.1m (£9.9m)INCREASE
JUDO £7.6m (£6.9m)INCREASE
MODERN PENTATHLON £6.4m (£5.9m)INCREASE
ROWING £27.4m (£26m)INCREASE
SAILING £23.4m (£22.3m)INCREASE
SHOOTING unconfirmed (£5.1m)LIKELY CUT
SWIMMING £25.6m (£20.7m)Increase
SYNCH SWIMMING £3.5m (£1.6m)Increase
TABLE TENNIS unconfirmed (£2.5m)LIKELY CUT
TAEKWONDO £4.5m (£2.7m)INCREASE
TRIATHLON £5.4m (£5.1m)INCREASE
VOLLEYBALL unconfirmed (£4.1m)LIKELY CUT
WATER POLO unconfirmed (£3.1m)LIKELY CUT
WEIGHTLIFTING unconfirmed (£1.7m)LIKELY CUT
WRESTLING unconfirmed (£2.1m)LIKELY CUT
PARALYMPICS £45.6m (£29.5m)INCREASE

TOTAL £304.4m* (£264.6m)INCREASE

*includes £12million from sports where funding is not confirmed