From just £5m per year before the 1996 Games in Atlanta, where GB won one gold and 15 medals in total, UK Sport’s Olympic spending rose to £54m by the 2000 Games in Sydney, where Britain won 11 golds and 28 medals in total to leap to 10th on the medal table.
By the 2012 Games in London, where Britain came third in the medal table with 65, that amount had climbed to £264m.
Between 2013 and 2017, almost £350m in public funds will have been spent on Olympic and Paralympic sports.
Gymnastics, given nothing at all before Atlanta, received £5.9m for Sydney and £14.6m in the last cycle.
In Rio, Max Whitlock became Britain’s first Olympic champion, winning two gold medals; his team-mates delivered another silver and three bronzes.
However, the men’s and women’s handball teams, who finished last in their groups in 2012, had their £2.92m funding to support elite athletes cut completely.
Sporting governing bodies have also been warned by UK Sport and Sport England they must bring in more women or lose public funding.
Under the new ‘Code for Sports Governance’, organisations must adhere to “gold standards” of transparency, accountability and financial integrity.
The code sets out a target of at least 30% gender diversity on boards.
The new code applies to governing bodies who ask for UK government and National Lottery funding from April 2017.