16 Winning Securing a place among the top ten sporting nations means winning more medals in more branches of sport. The Dutch NOC and the sports federations continue to aspire to the highest possible achievements. To compete at that highest level means constantly raising the bar, as global competition is increasing all the time. At the 2012 London Games, the Netherlands just missed out on that coveted place in the top ten of the medal table, by a mere 0.64 of a second – the difference in the swimming relay match (4x100 m) between the Netherlands (silver) and Australia (gold). With its seven gold medals, Australia made it to tenth place while the Netherlands, with six gold medals, ended up in thirteenth place. The Sports Agenda 2017+ picks up the line that was mapped out in the previous Sports Agenda. There are no major changes in the policy surrounding the structure of elite sport. Certain choices had to be made after London 2012, and the Dutch NOC reduced the number of elite sports programmes it supported from 180 to 68. That boosted the available funding for the sports with the best opportunities, and performances improved in a growing number of disciplines in the years that followed. A clear downside to the reduction in overall financial resources is the increased pressure on programmes to develop new talent, geared towards shaping champions for the 2020 Tokyo Games and thereafter. To be awarded funding, elite sports or talent programmes now have to satisfy certain criteria. No programme has an automatic entitlement to funding. In the Sports Agenda 2017+, the bar is raised higher still: the aim is to win a place among the best eight countries in the world. We want to support talented athletes on their way to the podium and beyond as well as possible. This includes among others helping them to start a new career when leaving elite sport. Besides improving sporting achievements, the support for Dutch top athletes also focuses increasingly on other factors that contribute to a longer, more successful career, such as a dual career.
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