Sailing
No sooner had Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson won their Star class gold medal, the fourth overall and the sixth medal in total at the Beijing Games, making it the most successful British Olympic sailing squad ever, than Stephen Park, the team manager, was casting his mind forward to London and predicting that there was a high probability of beating that total when the games come to Britain.
He has not deviated from this view. "That's got to be the target. At the Olympics on any given day 50% of your realistic medal opportunities will come good, so we need to be serious contenders in all 10 events." Or 11 if the Tornado catamaran class is reprieved later this year, as appears to be likely.
So the forecast has remained the same for Britain's sailors, though the sport, predictably, has moved on since Beijing. Giles Scott had been making big moves in the Finn class, where Ben Ainslie, three times a gold medal winner, and Britain's greatest ever sailor, has reigned supreme since the Athens Olympics in 2004, while Rick Peacock and John Pink are the new kids on the block in the 49ers, a class in which, like the Finn, Britain has immense strength in depth. Yngling, a class Britain won in Beijing and Athens – the "three blondes in a boat" – is no longer, though the Beijing gold medal winner Pippa Wilson has returned to the 470 where she has teamed up with Saskia Clark.
"You could always have more money but we are lucky that we are one of the few sports that, as a proven performer, has outline funding for four years, so we are not dependent on a two-year review like many. Our corporate programme has been a success too so our sponsors have been renewed until 2012," said Park. "We are right on track as a team, while the Weymouth facilities are pretty much complete or on schedule."
The ballpark figure for London 2012 funding is £23.4m plus sponsorship. "We get the same amount per head as all the other sports in the world-class programme and we top this up with sponsors, while the individual sailors also have their own sponsorship," added Park. "If we want to keep delivering medals we have got to keep investing. The Skandia GB team is one of the best supported but we try to deliver value."
September will see the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta take place at Weymouth, when some 800 competitors from 40 countries will sail the Olympic course. Steve Bierley
Medals in 2008 4 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze Projected 2012 6 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze
Shooting
Britain's shooters came away from the Beijing Olympics empty-handed but there are hopes of a better performance in 2012, despite funding of just £1.225m. Jonathan Hammond, James Huckle and Neil Stirton, who won silver at the 2008 World Cup in Munich, are the main hopes in the rifles. Georgina Geikie is a definite prospect in the 25m pistol. She finished seventh at the European Championships, despite competing with a gun that is banned in the UK, a fact that stops her from training more than a few times every year. Geikie will also compete with the air pistol, a gun that is legal in the UK.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 1 bronze
Swimming
By the time London won the 2012 bid in 2005, Rebecca Adlington was already the European junior champion at the 800m freestyle. Her friend Joanne Jackson had just achieved an impressive seventh-place finish in the 400m freestyle at the world championships proper. David Davies was also a stand-out talent at the time, having won bronze at the Athens Olympics in the 1500m freestyle aged just 19. Backstroke swimmer Liam Tancock, after a hugely successful junior career, had just won his first senior medal, a bronze at the world championships. Gemma Spofforth had also enjoyed a lot of success swimming backstroke at junior level, but was weighing up her future career because of a serious illness.
Those athletes are still, more or less, on target for 2012. Adlington shot to prominence with her two gold medals in Beijing, and her bronze against the odds at the world championships suggests the fame has not spoiled her hunger for more success. Jackson has emerged as a world-class talent since taking Olympic bronze behind Adlington in the 400m, and the two are now ranked second and third in world in both the 400m and the 800m.
Davies has increasingly started to focus on open water swimming. He took silver in the 10km marathon in Beijing. Spofforth, now 21, blossomed after moving to the US to recover from her illness and to study at Florida University. She finished fourth in the 100m backstroke in Beijing. Tancock's form has wavered slightly at the highest level. Though he did break the 50m world record in 2008, and has won world championship bronze and Commonwealth gold, he finished sixth in the 100m backstroke Beijing. Other swimmers have emerged in recent years. Hannah Miley, a 19-year-old from Swindon, broke the British record for the 200m individual medley in her first heat at the world championships, and is ranked No1 in the world for the 400m medley too, and 17-year-old Ellen Gandy, who lives in Australia, broke the European record for 200m butterfly earlier this year, and Francesca Halsall has emerged as world class freestyler.
Altogether, the future looks bright. The sport has funding of £25,606,000 for 2012, an increase of 24% on their budget for Beijing and the extra income and the development of world-class training facilities at Bath and Loughborough has added a strength in depth and sheer professionalism that was previously lacking. British athletes are currently ranked in the world's top five in 16 different events, though the women's team is far stronger than the men's. Andy Bull
Medals in 2008 2 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze Projected 2012 Eight, including three golds
Synchronised swimming
The last time Britain made an impact at the Olympics was in 1984 when they placed fourth in the duet event and by the time London won the bid in 2005 synchronised swimming was not seen as a medal prospect. Funding of £3.45m has seen an improvement in fortunes, though, and Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison in the duet have emerged as medal hopes. They finished 20th in the 2007 World Championships and put in a strong performance to finish 10th at this year's event in Rome. If the pair can continue to improve they should be set for a top-six finish in 2012 with an outside chance of a bronze medal.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 None
Table tennis
British table tennis was one of eight events to have its funding cut by UK Sport for London 2012, with over 50% being cut from a sport that is historically dominated by China. There was no Team GB representative in 2008, and you have to go back as far as Sydney 2000 for the last British qualifier, Matthew Syed. With Syed retired, Great Britain's hopes for 2012 rest on the young shoulders of Paul Drinkhall, below, and Darius Knight, both 19. Drinkhall has tasted success in the U-21 China Open and has a bright future in the sport and Knight, who has starred in a Wii Sport advert, is also highly rated for 2012.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 None
Taekwondo
Taekwondo is one of the younger Olympic sports and is quickly growing in popularity. Sarah Stevenson became Britain's first taekwondo medallist when she won bronze in the over-67kg discipline at Beijing. Having recognised the sport's potential, UK Sport, buoyed by the chance of more medals, has increased the budget to just under £4.5m. Aaron Cook, who narrowly missed out on bronze in Beijing, has since achieved silver in the Belgium Open and third place in the Korean Open and, along with Stevenson, represents Britain's best hope of winning one of eight available gold medals in 2012.
Medals in 2008 1 bronze
Projected 2012 1 silver, 1 bronze
Tennis
Questions of funding are hardly relevant in a sport awash with money via the annual Wimbledon profits, albeit that the LTA infrastructure and bureaucracy perennially defies all the best efforts to produce more than the occasional world-class player. Since Tim Henman and Neil Broad won the men's doubles silver medal in 1996, there has been little semblance of either ambition or desire among the handful of players who have competed at Olympic level. At least Andy Murray should, at 25 years old, be in prime form for the Games, while Laura Robson, who will be 18 in 2012, may also be a hope.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 1 bronze
Triathlon
Olly Freeman, right, and Will Clarke were identified as potential medal-winners when London won the bid, having finished second and third at the world junior championships a year earlier. Freeman won the European junior title that July but ended up a reserve in Beijing while Clarke made the team and finished 14th.
Both have since been overtaken by Alistair Brownlee who took part in his first junior race in 2005 but made the team for Beijing and finished 12th. Brownlee won the world Under-23 title last year and sits top of the senior world championship after winning the first three races of the season. His 18-year-old brother Jonny could make the 2012 team after finishing third in the junior world and European championships last year.
Helen Tucker and Hollie Avil are improving but not fast enough. The 19-year-old junior world champion Kirsty McWilliam may surpass both of them but British Triathlon, which will receive £5.4m from UK Sport, has launched a programme called trigold aimed at identifying athletes capable of winning in 2012.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 1 gold
Volleyball
Lucy Boulton and Denise Johns have risen rapidly up the beach volleyball world rankings, qualifying automatically for this year's world championships. The indoor teams' progress is harder to gauge although earlier this month the men sealed their first ever away win in the European Volleyball League, against Croatia. Funding was cut drastically at the start of 2009 but the British Volleyball Federation has front-loaded payments so it will receive the entire £1.75m within two years. The hope is that this will allow the teams to maintain current progress while buying time to find more funding.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 None
Water polo
Most of the current players were in their mid-teens when London won the 2012 bidbut and Chloe Wilcox, top scorer for the women with 21 goals in five games at the European Nations Trophy, has emerged as a talent. UK Sport cut water polo's funding by 50% to £1.45m in January, leading to fears that the men's team would have to be shelved. Instead they have been "decentralised" – with players training with European club sides – so that the women's team, considered more likely to challenge for a medal, can be made a priority.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 None
Weightlifting
Weightlifting will receive £680,000 from UK Sport over the next three years, but Britain entered just one athlete – Michaela Breeze – in Beijing and no likely medal winners have been identified. Breeze is already 30, as is the men's No1, Gurbinder Cheema. On the women's side there is cause for optimism inthe 15-year-old Zoe Smith, voted the sport's athlete of the year in 2008. Smith finished eighth at the World Youth Championships in May. The Hungarian weightlifting committee president Tamas Feher was appointed as Britain's lead performance coach in November, and his impact over the next three years will be crucial to Britain's hopes.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 None
Wrestling
No British athletes qualified for Beijing, so the target for 2012 is not to win medals but rather to qualify at least five wrestlers and have one or two achieve top-six finishes. That remains a realistic goal, despite the sport having its funding cut by 68% to less than £720,000. Three of the athletes identified in 2005 – Leon Rattigan, Philip Roberts and Miroslav Dykun – have shown solid, if unspectacular, progress and they should all qualify for 2012. With resources limited, the women's team has been somewhat neglected and it is unlikely that Britain will enter more than one female wrestler in 2012.
Medals in 2008 None
Projected 2012 None