A year that began with a history-making golden moment in the mountains of British Columbia has been crucial in setting the stage for continued success for British athletes in 2011, 2012 and beyond.

Skeleton athlete Amy Williams thrilled Great Britain with her gold medal performance at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, becoming the first British athlete in 30 years to win Olympic gold in an individual event.

That performance was just the first of many that saw British athletes, winter and summer, achieve personal-bests and podium finishes in major international events such as the Olympic Winter Games, the Commonwealth Games and the inaugural Youth Olympic Games.

For the British Olympic Association (BOA) and its member National Governing Bodies for Olympic sport, 2010 has been a year of growth and strong progress, both nationally and internationally.  British governing bodies are some of the most respected in the world and our influence on the international sporting landscape is ever increasing thanks to the commitment and expertise within our sports.

At the BOA we recognise the need to play our part for British sport internationally and have embraced involvement in the wide programme of work across the Olympic Movement.  In particular, we play a significant role in two European Olympic Committee Commissions and Sir Clive Woodward has been active on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Entourage Commission.

I will chair the newly formed Association of National Olympic Committees Commission, which covers relations between the 205 National Olympic Committees and Governments around the world.

The autonomy of the Olympic Movement is critical and with it the protection of the Olympic rights which has always been its lifeblood. In this context sports bodies need to be representative and 2010 will be remembered as the year in which the BOA regained its own Athletes' Commission – this time strengthened substantially. It is excellently chaired by Sarah Winckless (pictured) and in line with the recommendations of the 2009 Olympic Congress in Copenhagen, there is nothing we do at the BOA today which is not a matter of direct concern and has input from athletes. Yet the crowning achievement of the year was the election of Adam Pengilly as the first British winter-sport athlete to be elected to the IOC Athletes' Commission.

Jeremy Hunt, as the new Secretary of State, focused his attention in sport during 2010 on the England World Cup bid and the Government's central objective to introduce competitive school sport into every primary and secondary school in England.

The aim of the latter is that all schoolchildren, able-bodied and disabled, should compete within their schools with annual sports days to be proud of and the delivery of school leagues in a range of sports from this summer. If successful, this will transform school sport in England. Despite 13 years of lottery money we are still at the embarrassing and unacceptable position in which more than 50 per cent of our Olympic medallists come from just the seven per cent of our schoolchildren who attend private schools.

This welcome Central Government initiative must be about both participation and righting the wrong where tens of thousands of schoolchildren have neither their sporting talent identified in the state sector, nor are they provided with a performance pathway to take their talent through to local, regional and national representation.

There will be many lessons to learn from this new initiative. Regrettably, the new event will not have an Olympic association, as Government has designed it in a manner that fails to meet the IOC requirements to protect an Olympic association and the BOA will follow the advice of the IOC in protecting the Olympic Movement against ambush marketing.

The President of the IOC has emphasised that the use of the "Olympic brand" must not compromise neither the BOA's autonomy nor its ability to market the commercial rights for Team GB in the future, and we will work with the IOC to ensure their requests are met.

To demonstrate our enthusiasm for this initiative, the BOA will evaluate establishing its own Commission on Youth and Sport for All which could review progress on Britain's Competitive School Sport Policy, its organisation, governance and value for money and against this background consider whether to launch a British Olympic Association School Games in 2013 and beyond. We will continue to work both within and outside Parliament on this, which goes to the heart of our Olympic Charter mandate.

Our immediate priority this year will be the selection, management and leadership of the teams we will be taking to the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in the Czech Winter Resort of Liberec and the European Youth Olympic Festival in Trabzon, Turkey for the summer sports. We have strong prospects in both events and are particularly keen to work with the winter National Governing Bodies of Olympic sport to establish the British Olympic Winter Institute of Sport, aimed at providing our winter sports and athletes with a support network and commercial financial stability to allow us as a nation to fulfill our potential on the winter Olympic stage.

2011 will also be the most important of the seven year build-up to the 2012 Olympic Games for British Olympic Athletes, for the funding security of tomorrow's British Olympic Movement, for our organisation at the BOA and for the design and delivery of a much needed Olympic Sports Legacy for the future of Olympic sport in the United Kingdom.

Looking back at 2010, the Coalition Government faced difficult decisions regarding sport and recreation. During the challenging months of negotiation leading up to the Comprehensive Spending Round, the work undertaken by Hugh Robertson, as Minister for Sport and the Olympics, provided strong support for Team GB hopefuls and ensured the continuity of funding so critical for the preparation of Team GB. His expertise, enthusiasm and passion for sport is a major asset for all of us in the Olympic Movement.

Now, with funding in place, the role of Government and UK Sport will diminish as the focus over the next seventeen months will be on the athletes, the Governing Bodies and the coaches and experts who support our athletes in all Olympic disciplines. We will continue to select the British Olympic team for 2012 on merit; expecting at the very least credible performances from everyone we select, personal bests and where expected, medal success from our leading athletes. The BOA will further step-up its role of building close working relations with the athletes and Governing Bodies to ensure a seamless transition to success as Team GB enters the Olympic Village.

The work in 2011 has to be transformational if we are to deliver a true sports legacy and ensure the London 2012 Olympic Games become a Great Olympic Games. We need to make certain the welcome measures announced by Hugh Robertson (pictured) are substantially built upon. We must continue to protect playing fields. In England we must encourage politicians to match Scottish and Welsh legislation to require local authorities to provide for sport and recreational investment as mandatory and not discretionary spend.

We need to encourage Government to deliver a step change in health department support for active lifestyles in tackling the growing problem of child obesity and we need to see through the restructuring of British sport to empower Governing Bodies, clubs, schools and volunteers and move away from the centralised, micro-managed Government bureaucracy which has too often cramped initiative.

In closing I want to thank the management and staff at the BOA for their remarkable, highly professional contribution to the Olympic movement. It is not only some of our finest athletes who have been punching above their weight.

The BOA has been transformed in recent years. For the first time we have instituted best practice governance. We have implemented a step change in the strength of our commercial and financial expertise.

That process of transformation started the day Seb Coe, Tessa Jowell and Tony Blair came together to lead a team which delivered the handful of votes which swung the Games to London. Today we recognise that our role is more than taking teams of the Best of British athletes to an increasing number of Olympic-accredited Games.

Now, we work on every facet of our wide-ranging responsibilities embedded in the IOC's Olympic Charter and in 2011 we intend to build on this full agenda of work.

Colin Moynihan is the chairman of the British Olympic Association