Graphic: Best of British

Lest the age of gold medals becomes too familiar, let us rewind a little and recall the way things were only 12 years ago in Atlanta when Great Britain's two dependables, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, won the nation's single gold medal, Linford Christie double false started and was disqualified from the 100metres final, Kelly Holmes - whose shin splints were so bad she had her leg put in plaster - had to fly home in economy class and athletes were generally so hard up that two of the diving team were caught on the city's main drag selling their Team GB freebie kit.

Team GB back then were a bit of a joke. A team of happy triers with the odd blip of excellence. On the eve of his event, one of the British race walkers got into conversation with one of the long-distance runners and was persuaded to try a new sport supplement he had never previously touched; the next day he just felt sick. Another second-rate British amateur.

Like a parting gift before the end of his term in Government, John Major then came up with the lottery and this past two weeks have seen its fruit. A sign of how far Great Britain has come is not just the medals table, but the reaction of other nations: the French, the Russians, the Germans and, of course, the Australians have not enjoyed the sight of the British transformation.

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BACKGROUND

• How the Brits became world beaters

• London double-decker arrives in Beijing

• Olympics proves capacity for greatness

• New dawn for British sport as Olympic sun sets

Multimedia

• Simon Barnes in Beijing

• Bring back the tug-of-war

• Top 100 Olympic athletes of all time

Times Archive: Olympic closing ceremonies: how they used to do them

From Berlin, 1936, to Los Angeles, 1984, we've dug into The Times Archive to revisit some of the high points and the hubris

Related Links

• Back to reality for golden generation

• Pendleton plea to give women chance to inspire

• The appliance of science

The stories below give an idea of where our athletes were in 1996 and where they are now, of what lottery funding can do and how it has transformed the British amateurs into some of the most professionally drilled sportspeople in the world.

Tim Brabants (canoeing; gold medal in the K1 1,000metres and bronze in the K1 500metres)

“I was 18 so the Atlanta Games were slightly beyond me but in my club there were guys who did go and who were in jobs working full-time - training early morning before work and then again after work. It was hard. They'd go to the Games and get knocked out in the semis and that was seen as a good result.

“Back then, I was at medical school and training the same way. And my attitude was, I've got to fly through medical school and then find a job. The paddling was always a distant second. I had no alternative because I had to earn enough to live. When the lottery came in, it opened new doors.

“An example of what we can do now that we could never before is the Paddle Project: to develop better paddles. Because of funding, we had the facilities to use testing tanks to measure the force on the blades. We worked on both shape and material. Before that, you would just pick up a set of paddles and say, 'That feels nice'.

“It's also a psychological advantage to know you have something that others don't. And in the 500-metre race on Saturday I was third by about two centimetres. Maybe it was the Paddle Project that made the difference.”

Ben Ainslie (sailing; gold in Finn class)

“My first Olympics was Atlanta in 1996 and back then we had virtually no funding at all. People like me were going to sailing events living in the back of cars, selling or remortgaging houses just to compete. Back then I relied on my parents. They basically sold the family home to get me to the Olympics - that's a massive sacrifice. There were local council grants, but nowhere near to what it cost.