UK SPORT has caused fury after sticking to its decision to withdraw funding from the Olympics sports of basketball, synchronised swimming and women’s water polo.

The funding body has also refused to budge from its decision to cut all funds from Paralympics sports goalball, visually- impaired football and wheelchair fencing.

UK Sport insists its funding system has been proven to work in terms of winning medals. It did however reinstate money totalling £894,000 for women’s weightlifting in the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympics, while badminton has been awarded an extra £250,000.

British Swimming called it ‘‘a very dark day for British sport’’ while basketball called for a change in the funding system to treat team sports differently.

British Swimming chief executive David Sparkes called on sports minister Helen Grant to intervene, but there was no response from her office.

Sparkes said: ‘‘This is a very dark and sad day for British sport – especially for women’s sport.

‘‘On behalf of water polo, synchro and other Olympic sports that face the real possibility of dying out as a result of today’s announcement, we call on the sports minister to show leadership in this area by looking at the entire funding system for elite sport.’’ Sparkes said the decision on synchronised swimming ‘‘beggars belief’’ and ‘‘highlights a fundamental flaw in the UK Sport funding system’’.

British Basketball will also consider making a formal appeal and it too called for political leadership to find a solution to an apparent funding gap affecting team sports.

Countries such as Canada have adopted different funding systems for team sports and individual sports.

UK Sport chairman Rod Carr said to fund basketball would see £33million being spent on the sport between 2006 and its first likely medal chance in 2024.

He added: ‘‘To invest £33million at that rate is frankly not a good use of public money.

‘‘Basketball is 22nd in the world at the moment that is a long way from its target of sixth to eighth at Rio.

Carr said made a differentiation between team sports and other sports was ‘‘a difficult area’’ and said the ’no compromise’ approach targeting funding to medals had been proven again to work at the Sochi winter Olympics and Paralympics.

He added: ‘‘We can’t actually see why there should be that criteria. We would be saying team sports are more important than other sports.

‘‘I accept that by its very nature ‘no compromise’ is not universally popular but there’s one thing we are sure of – it works.’’ UK Sport also pointed out that basketball received £10.5million from Sport England for its grass-roots programmes and that providing money to help its development would affect medal chances in other sports.