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After the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Britain failed to move up from tenth position in the medal table at the Athens games in 2004. Increasingly reliant on a generation of ageing champions, it was time for our younger hopes to step up and deliver. And to ensure that funding delivered results, UK Sport introduced a no compromise approach, meaning that all funded athletes needed to start winning medals.

The pressure was on for youngster Tom Daley to step up to the big time, but as a nine-year-old away from home, it was the nights alone that were the hardest. Christine Ohuruogu, the potential face of the 2012 games, describes her dramatic fall from grace after missing three drugs tests, and her subsequent return to the track. And after no male gymnasts were even fielded in Athens, Louis Smith became the first British man to win an individual gymnastics medal in a hundred years at the Beijing games in 2008. His win finally achieved funding for his beloved sport.

With a haul of 51 medals achieved at the epic Beijing games, Britain was finally showing its mettle, but could we continue to fund sport at the increasing rates needed, and would we succumb to the critics and embarrass ourselves on home turf four years later?