History tells us that no nation has ever improved their performance after a home Games, but this has happened. Team GB has produced its best ever performance (in the modern Games era) against all the odds. 

There will be much analysis of why and how this has occurred and while the pundits scratch their heads, the high performance system will have turned its focus to Tokyo where our planning is already well advanced. Before that there remains a job half done. We still have the challenge of improving performance at the Paralympics in September. Who can forget the incredible buzz across the nation at London 2012 when our Paralympic athletes showed they were capable of such amazing performances.

But before we turn away from the 2016 Olympic Games, I would like to give a few of my Rio reflections.

Amongst the Team GB family there was a distinctly different vibe to previous Games I have been involved with. There are a number of key partners including the National Governing Bodies (NGBs), the British Olympic Association (BOA), UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport (EIS) alongside the other Home Country Sports Institutes. 

Success in Rio has been built around everyone contributing under one banner - we are all Team GB, sometimes challenging each other but united under one very challenging ambitious goal. Long may this culture of cooperation continue.

The need for a “burning platform” has always been there and a new equally challenging target should be shaped for the next cycle.

You will also have heard many athletes reference and thank the National Lottery for giving them an opportunity to achieve their dreams. If the coming together and cooperation of sports stakeholders has been an important evolution then the National Lottery has been the lifeblood and has given it the resource and strength needed. 

We should also give credit to a number of politicians since the Athens 2004 Games, who through tough economic times have kept faith in the investment into UK Sport and the high performance system. We have watched other nations suffer from a short term cycle of “boom-bust” and irregular investment. The success we have just experienced in Rio has been built on the lessons, investment and experience of three previous cycles. A long term view and consistent resource has been essential.

During my time at the Games I felt there was something different about the younger athletes we were seeing perform, but for a while struggled to pinpoint what it was. It is only on reflection that I realise that we were watching a new generation of assured athletes whose formative years had not been spent watching and emulating the great British “plucky loser” but had been wrapped in a new environment where British sport was throwing up more and more heroes as role models. 

It is only 15 years ago that we never expected to win the Ashes, winning Wimbledon was a far off dream and top three in the Olympics….well you were mad to even mention it. But there is now a new generation of athletes that do not just dream of medal success but expect it.

At crucial moments of pressure in the cauldron of competition in Rio our athletes delivered with assured precision based, not on doubt or previous experience of “nearly but not quite”, but on belief in their and Team GB’s ability.

So what of the future? Of course NGB performance directors and coaches will now be moving up the talent pathway the next cohort of athletes and building on the experience of Rio. We witnessed a large number of fourth places, many of which were not athletes just failing but athletes on the ascendancy and reaching a level above their ranking.

The success of Rio also throws up some challenges for investment in the next cycle, and despite all the achievements we must collectively stick to the uncompromising approach that has got us to where we are. Our athletes have a right to compete on a level playing field against other athletes, and the war on drug cheats must continue. But there is no automatic right to funding. That has to be earned and as collective success increases the competition for funding grows.

For the EIS, we can look back with great satisfaction on the role the support team has played. Ninety-three per cent of Team GB medal winning athletes were supported by the EIS in the Rio cycle. Our challenge moving forward will be to avoid broadening our focus on too many demands and ideas, but ensuring that we remain focused on what really makes a difference to our athletes’ success, and impacts the most on “what it takes to win".