Life couldn’t have got any better for Huddersfield’s Marcus Ellis five months ago. After all, the badminton star had an Olympic bronze medal hanging from his neck.

But come December, and his sporting world was turned upside down when badminton saw all of its UK Sport funding withdrawn, and with an appeal set to be heard in a matter of weeks, Ellis is currently in disarray as to where his sport’s future lies.

After London 2012, badminton had its investment cut from £7.4m to £5.9m, and will currently not receive a penny of the £345m of National Lottery and government funding that UK Sport will invest in Olympic sports during the next cycle.

That comes despite GB Badminton believing more medals are on the agenda in four years’ time, as well as at upcoming World Championships and Superseries Finals.

Great Britain's Marcus Ellis (left) and Chris Langridge with their bronze medals in Rio

Ellis and Chris Langridge became Team GB’s first badminton medallists since 2004 when they triumphed in Rio, and having seen first-hand how the sport has improved in this country in recent years, he is only too confident that trajectory remains upward-bound over the coming cycle.

“Winning an Olympic medal was a lifelong ambition that I’ve been working towards since I came down to the international centre when I was about 17,” he said. “It’s been ten years of commitment in the making for me and Chris.

“We hoped it would be huge for badminton as a sport as well, we were quite excited going forward.

“In the last five years, the Badminton England programme has come on leaps and bounds, because I think we’ve got fantastic group from age 17 all the way up to around the 30 mark.

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“I don’t think we’ve had that for quite a long time, and we’ve got a really good, consistent group of players now.

“That’s all down to the UK Sport funding, which has allowed us to do that, but also to our coaching staff, who have worked so hard, sometimes evenings and weekends, to put this programme in place.”

On February 6, GB Badminton will put forward its case for the reinstatement of funding when they present their evidence to UK Sport, with a response expected by early March.

And while a loss of funding will have an impact on all involved in badminton, Ellis insists there is plenty still to come from him on court.

Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge of Great Britain react to losing a point against Fu Haifeng and Zhang Nan of China

“Chris and I are still not at the top. We have more goals, we’re still not top ten in the world, we want to be number one in the world, and we’re nowhere near finished,” he said. “We want to be there in Tokyo again.

“Once that feeling of winning settled in, we want to do that again, Tokyo seems like a long time but it will be here before we know it.

“We’re a resilient bunch of athletes and we will carry on no matter what happens, but the younger ones need the support we got.”

To show your support, visit www.badmintonengland.co.uk/backbadminton .