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Ohuruogu: Stellar performance
I'm pleased to see that percentage of the team hitting a season's best but disappointed with the lack of that final step, final execution.
Dave Collins
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UK Athletics chief Dave Collins has hailed Team GB's success on the track at Beijing.
Collins, the UK Athletics' performance director, described the state of British athletics after the Olympics as "a supertanker sailing into better waters".
Britain's athletes won four medals in Beijing; gold for Christine Ohuruogu in the 400 metres, silver for Phillips Idowu and Germaine Mason in the triple jump and high jump respectively and bronze for Tasha Danvers in the 400m hurdles.
That is the same number, albeit different colours, as in Athens four years ago, but one below the pre-Games target set by UK Sport, which distributes lottery funding to elite sport.
That performance has been put in the shade by sports such as cycling, rowing and sailing and led to speculation over Collins' own future, but the 54-year-old insists he is steering the ship in the right direction.
The supertanker analogy is one Collins has used before. Ahead of the World Championships in Osaka last year, the former marine said it was a case of "trying to turn around".
He added: "This is a supertanker, I think we've turned it, I think we're sailing into better waters but we've just got to keep that effort going."
Progress
Aside from the four medals, that effort also produced 13 4th-8th place finishes, three British records, 50 per cent of athletes at or over a season's best and eighth place in the athletics medals table.
And it was the fourth place finishes which were the greatest cause of frustration for Collins; Lisa Dobriskey getting her tactics wrong to just miss out on a medal in the women's 1,500m, the men's 4x400m relay team suffering from a lack of strength in depth, Goldie Sayers's British record in the javelin not quite enough and Kelly Sotherton moving up from fifth to fourth in the heptathlon after silver medallist Lyudmila Blonska was expelled for failing a drugs test.
"I'm satisfied that we're making progress, I'm disappointed though because it's like the ones that got away, medal chances we could have converted," Collins added. "You can't get four 4ths for example and not be disappointed.
"I'm pleased to see that percentage of the team hitting a season's best but disappointed with the lack of that final step, final execution. We were always going to have some of those, they are just disappointing to see, especially when you see people get so close.
"The 4x400m men's and women's teams (struggled) for the want of one other athlete running at that level to be able to rest people, that gives us the chance to be competitive. As it is, they did very very well with what they had, it's just we know we need more strength in depth."
Cycling comparison
The success of other sports, and cycling in particular, has prompted unfavourable comparisons with athletics but Collins has been quick to dismiss those claims.
"I don't think it's possible to compare between sports," Collins added. "If we're world champions at rugby it doesn't mean we are at football.
"Athletics is an immensely competitive sport, over 200 nations here, over 40 winning medals from China down to the Dutch Antilles. This is a genuine world sport and my concern is entirely and utterly with what I see when I look at my team.
"Have we got everything right? Absolutely not and I don't think I've ever suggested that. We're getting things better and better but as I keep saying it's a challenge, there is a long way to go.
"It's a very challenging role, I've given it the best shot I possibly can. I'm very very satisfied, and I think the statistics support, that I've made a difference. There was a lot wrong and there is a lot more right today, by gosh there is a lot more to get right for the next Games but that's progress."
