Niels de Vos 'proud' of Britain's performance at World Championships in London

UK Athletics chief executive Niels de Vos says the nation 'should be proud' of Great Britain's performance at the World Championships in London.

The event concluded on Sunday and Great Britain met their medal target of six, after a weekend in which they won four relay medals.

However, critics have pointed out that the success of the relay squads should not be allowed to mask the fact that Sir Mo Farah was the only athlete to win individual medals (10,000m gold and 5,000m silver).

But De Vos thinks the overall performance was impressive and that there is more to come in the future.

He told Sky Sports News: "The medals target is the medals target and I have always said it will take care of itself if the team do well and it did.

"But what excites me as the head of British athletics is actually to look slightly below that and see that we got more finalists than we have ever had in any edition of the World Championships.

"Seventy five per cent of our team, who were in Rio (at the Olympics) , did better this time and, if you look at the points table, which is essentially the best measure of how you are doing as a nation, we are third in the world.

"I am pretty proud of that and I think the nation should be proud of it.

"And in the medals table we are fourth in the world so we are a sport doing very well but, really importantly, if you look just below that, we are a sport with a great future as well."

Farah is now retiring from the track while heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill quit last year but 2012 long jump gold medallist Greg Rutherford, who missed the worlds with an ankle injury, says there is no need to panic.

"After Kelly Holmes retired and that era I think we thought 'where are the medals going to come from?'" he said.

"It was a big thing when we got the London Olympics and then, all of a sudden, we came through in London and we had a great time.

"We're in a situation where that's the same as it was before. We may have a couple of down years as the youngsters establish themselves but - especially in the sprints where we've taken a lot of flak - we are incredibly lucky to have a lot of strength in depth.

"We have had a lot of people making finals and being on the cusp of it happening. I'm still excited about the youngsters coming through."