Cash injection has ensured British results are no longer a lottery

Britain's renaissance at the Olympics is being likened to the Chariots of Fire Paris Games of 1924. But the athletes who are redeeming so spectacularly the dismal showing at Atlanta four years ago tell a less romantic story.

It is, they say, all about the flow of lottery money that is at last giving Britain's Olympic contenders the chance to concentrate on the challenge of meeting world-class standards rather than paying the mortgage and grocery bills.

Despite the eight gold medals so far – a huge leap from the solitary one gleaned by rowers Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent in Atlanta – Britain still trails the comparably sized and wealthy France and Italy in the table.

But on a day when two more golds came in the yachting, boxer Audley Harrison best expressed the buoyant mood.

After a convincing win over Paulo Vidoz of Italy – Harrison fights for gold tomorrow afternoon – he said: "There is still a vast amount of work to be done in British sport. We need a much better structure. But at least we have been given a decent chance to show what we can do. And just look at the results.

"For so long people might have got the idea that somehow British sportsmen and women were inferior. That was always nonsense.

"It's very hard thinking about beating the world when you are worrying about paying your way. What they want is just the means to really compete... When they are given it, you see what happens."

But this is merely the beginning, he says, of what will be a massive reclamation task after decades of neglect of sports facilities. In France, Italy and Holland almost every provincial town has an Olympic-size pool and multi-purpose sports grounds.

"Now we have it partly right, with the athletes able to work on their own development. But the structure is still weak. That's where the work needs to be done now."

Across the spectrum of UK sport here at the Olympics the message is the same; give us the tools, the athletes are saying, and we'll do the job.

Paul Ratcliffe, silver medalist in the kayak slalom, said: "Lottery funding meant I could plan a real training programme. It meant I could be really competitive."

Jason Queally, who won gold on the cycling track, told of how he had to "sponge" off his girlfriend's parents after giving up his job as a lab technician at Lancaster University. Two years ago lottery funding came through, and he was on his course for gold.

James Cracknell, member of the rowing four with Redgrave that produced gold and one of British sport's great moments, said he no longer had to convince the Jobcentre he really was trying to find work as an accountant; he could devote his attention to being a world-beating oarsmen.

So the story goes among the athletes who, to some degree, changed the mood of a Britain caught up in a petrol crisis and panic supermarket buying.

It is a mood of regained pride, and the encouragement of being able to compete on a reasonably level field.

The empire may have been won on the playing fields of England, but Olympic glory is coming from the lottery machine in the corner shop.

- INDEPENDENT