There are certain sports we are not competing in a high level and definitely can’t qualify for the Olympics, I have just prepared a quick list for sports which may/can/should be developed in the next years IMO:
Handball: I put it first as this is my sport and I was playing for Reading Lions HC (unfortunately it has been dissolved after COVID), the sport has a huge potential in the country it also matches the British mentality which like both Football and Rugby (handball has goal scoring techniques like football and it’s physical contact sport close to rugby to some extent), England Handball Association had a very optimistic plan to get more youngers to the sport and myself went to schools and universities and picked up some great talented (very proud that the captain of U18 now I have picked him myself and was playing for our team before moving to Denmark now), the development of the sport had a huge delay during COVID and following Brexit specially when a lot of friends from different nationalities lost their jobs and return back home (our team dissolved for that reason), to conclude I think we have a lot of hidden talents can fit perfectly in this sport if we focus more to get youngsters on the field early.
Volleyball and beach volleyball: despite the conventional volleyball is a nice sport to practice but from observation we are far away from achieving professional level, people are mostly practicing it in a friendly non-competitive way compared to handball. Saying that the beach volleyball is much easier to get to professional level, when we were playing the beach handball British championship at Poole each summer and just before COVID the tournament organisers added beach volleyball as a side activity for entertainment but it turned to be more competitive and interesting tournament gripped a lot of teams with great fun and quality, my suggestion is to start focus more on beach volleyball which can be adopted anywhere not just near the beaches.
Basketball and 3X3 basketball: since London Olympics and the huge potential basketball got more and more development and we have qualified for Eurobasket in the last two editions (not great results I know) the team is on its way in my opinion suffering defeats from stronger teams but in a very competitive and close results most of the time (last edition wasn’t the greatest) I hope we keep it up for upcoming challenges. Looking at this huge potential in conventional basketball I would say 3X3 is a version we should focus more in future, it needs more fitness and physical efforts and a good selection of the team members then any country can compete in a higher level (with proper training of course)
Those are the sports I hope they got developed more, would like to see if there are more in your opinions.