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British Handball performance director Lorraine Brown said the sport has to adapt eight months after it saw its funding slashed.

Great Britain are guaranteed their first ever place at an Olympic Games at London 2012 - provided they can prove to be competitive.

But their hopes were dashed when handball was one of eight sports to feel the brunt of UK Sport's funding cuts in January.

Instead of the £2.99 million received in the lead-up to Beijing, handball has only £1.4m to spend in the build-up to London.

And Brown revealed it has left the athletes burdened by the weight of expectation.

"I would be lying if I said the funding cut hasn't affected the set-up," she said. "We've gone from a centralised programme to a decentralised programme, so we've had to accelerate our original plan.

"Our original plan was to keep everyone centralised for 12 months, especially those athletes who had come through the talent identification programme.

"The idea was that graduates from that system would then have the foundations - the nuts and bolts - to attract contracts.

"But we want players to be playing at the top club level so we've had to accelerate that process. It's affected us in that sense and perhaps we've had to push athletes into something that they're not quite ready for.

"We've had to work with some clubs to try to make them understand that they're great athletes but they need a lot of support around their handball.

"In terms of the overall funding, the contact time between our head coach and the athletes has been reduced. But what we're trying to do is maximise the time the athletes do have with the coaches."

British Handball has set an ambitious target of a top eight finish for both the men's and women's teams in London - and Brown insists they are still on target.

"We're confident that come 2012 we can achieve the targets that have been set," added Brown.

"They're stretched targets but, from our point of view, we wouldn't set a target which is not achievable.

"They're achievable because we've got the right strategy in place to take us forward to 2012.

"The determination and motivation of our players means they won't leave any stone unturned to get there.

"The fact that a lot of them have moved from the UK to live abroad our captain Lynn McCafferty has moved four times shows they're absolutely determined to maintain their performance and move forward."

More than the Games / Eurosport