British Olympic officials defend performances in Vancouver

From James Toney, Sportsbeat, in Vancouver

BRITISH Olympic Association officials have defended the performance of their team in Vancouver - after missing the three medal target set by UK Sport.

FLYING HIGH: With just a handful events remaining Amy Williams has won Great Britain's only Winter Olympic medal - a skeleton gold (Getty Images)

Chief executive Andy Hunt is keen to accentuate the positive, underlining his point with statistics.

But while skeleton gold for Amy Williams represents an improvement on Shelley Rudman's solitary silver in Turin, there have been only seven top ten performances in Vancouver.

That is two less than four years ago, with only short track speed skater Jon Eley likely to nudge the figure upwards in the final days before Sunday's closing ceremony.

In addition, two of these 'top tens' come in a curling - a sport with only ten teams entered.

However, Hunt is keen to point out that 69 per cent of his 52-strong team - the largest sent to a Winter Olympics since 1992 - are making their debuts, while 17 per cent are under 21. 

"We never set a medal target and we've be pretty consistent with that," he said.

"We understand why UK Sport set a medal target because they are funding agency and they need to measure a return on investment.

"We are delighted with the success in skeleton. One gold is an outstanding achievement for Amy and for British winter sports.

"We have achieved against our objectives. Of course we are hungry and ambitious and we'd love another medal before the end of the Games but we have achieved what we set out to do."

Five-time Olympic champion Sir Steve Redgrave, who has been a constant at Hunt's side throughout these Games, also denied Vancouver had failed to deliver.

"There is not a sense of disappointment," he said. 

"There were expectations put on of winning three medals but give me a gold medal over five bronzes any day of the week."

Winter sports received £6.5 million to fund the four-year campaign towards Vancouver, in comparison to the £400m received by summer sports to prepare for London 2012.

Hunt admits he does not expect that figure to rise in advance of Sochi but is looking for ways to spend it more wisely.

And skeleton slider Adam Pengilly - who was elected to the International Olympic Committee yesterday - believes the three medal target could have been unrealistic.

"The difference between our funding for Turin and Vancouver was £500,000 - to go from one to three medals on virtually the same level of funding was perhaps a difficult task," he said.