Olympics: 48 medals in Rio? Can Team GB really achieve their greatest haul at an overseas Olympics?

48 at Rio would be extraordinary for Britain, considering the last Games to take place in the Americas - Atlanta 1996 - delivered us a humiliating one gold and overall 36th place

Team GB celebrate their medal haul in 2012 (Getty)

The golden number 29 really looked like a one-in-a-lifetime. It was Britain’s haul of gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics: a figure unmatched by British athletes at any other Games since the capital played host in 1908 and even in a different stratosphere to the Beijing Olympiad which saw Team GB bring 19 circles of that particularly precious metal back to these shores.

That was until this week - when UK Sport, whose predictions of how we might fair is very accurate if 2012 was anything to go by, raised the suggestion that the London bar night be cleared once again. It was overall medals the organisation predicted, but the idea of taking one more podium than Britain managed four years ago was “within range”, according to UK Sport. Even the lower end of UK Sport’s forecasts would leave us better than the Beijing haul, which saw Britain finish third in the medal table. The race for 29, or better, is clearly on.

This is some serious ambition. No nation has ever increased a haul of medals in the Games following its host event. Australia’s 58 medals at Sydney in 2000 dropped to 50 at Athens in 2004. The 16 claimed by Greece – hardly world-beaters - at Athens in 2004 dropped catastrophically to four in Beijing, where China’s monumental 100 fell to 88 in 2012.

Even UK Sport’s prediction of 48 medals of all descriptions at Rio would be extraordinary for Britain, considering the last Games to take place in the Americas - Atlanta 1996 - delivered us a humiliating one gold and overall 36th place. Until Beijing delivered 19 golds and fourth place overall, the top of a podium was alien territory. Only once between 1924 and 2000 had Britain ever managed more than five golds. It will certainly help the push to repeat London’s third place finish that the Russian athletes will be almost entirely absent. Finishing ahead of the Russians was almost unheard of before London.

What drives the expectation that around 50 medals are achievable, though, is a highly focussed – and, let it be said, highly controversial - British funding system, which is based around the idea that it’s not the taking part that counts, but the winning.

Those who flourished in London – taekwondo, rowing, sailing – saw their funding grow. Those who bombed – basketball, volleyball, synchronised swimming– saw their funding crash. So while advocates of British basketball will spit at the mention of the funding body, those who love taekwondo can boast a beautiful, state-of-the-art facility in Manchester.

Bill Furniss continues to work wonders for swimming (Getty)

There’s a little more to it than money though, because it’s not just London’s winners who are expected to flourish in Rio. The swimmers (UK Sport Rio budget: £20.7m) took one silver and two bronzes in 2012 and subsequently had their budget cut. But the reason to look to the pool for a big oncoming success story is the change in approach brought by British head coach Bill Furniss. He became head of British Swimming in 2013 and with Chris Spice, the new performance director, has worked on the mindset of a squad which it is said was mollycoddled in 2012. Ross Murdoch, the Commonwealth champion, missed out on selection in his specialist 200 metres breaststroke on the basis of single bad swim in the British Olympic trials. "People are entitled to their opinions but I have to make the call," Furniss said.

James Guy goes in the 200m and 400m freestyle, with the 200m potentially the race of the Games, while it feels as if the breaststroke specialist Adam Peaty is those three short weeks away from smashing into the British public consciousness.

Sailing (UK Sport budget: £25.5m) looked to the uninitiated like a field where performance would drop in Rio, without the serial gold medal winner Sir Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy, the late Andrew Simpson and Paul Goodison. But remember the name Giles Scott. With the one-sailor-per-class stipulation, Scot always missed out to Ainslie but is now on clear course to near certainly gold. Sailing’s shrewd performance director, Stephen Park, has assembled other potential gold winners, including Alison Young, Nick Thompson in the Laser or windsurfers Nick Dempsey and Bryony Shaw. They talk of self-regulation and light touch management under Park’s leadership.

The great rowing generation Rio (budget: £32.6m) is almost entirely intact. The men's eight have won successive World Championship triumphs in 2013 and 2015 since their bronze medal in London. The new name Constantine Louloudis is an oarsman bracketed with Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent for natural talent.

Tom Daley is only 22 and yet he is already considered at his peak (Getty Images)

Also very much still around is Tom Daley. He’s been competing for so long – it is his third Olympics – that it’s easy to forget how Rio was always identified as the Games which would see him at his peak. He’s only 22. Daley and the new star, 19-year-old Daniel Goodfellow are likely to at least match their World Cup bronze-medal winning partnership in the synchronised 10m dive.

Athletics (budget: £26.8m) is, with swimming, one of two areas genuinely promising more medals than 2012. Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford all still hope to retain their titles, Ennis-Hill with Katarina Johnson-Thompson for company. Dina Asher-Smith, Adam Gemili and Chijindu Ujah create hopes of both sprint relay teams winning a medal. Russia, missing from Brazil, are always a threat in the 4x100m. Asher-Smith was carrying kit for competitors at London 2012. In Rio, she will line up as the fastest British woman over 100m and 200m in history.

For cycling, (budget: £30.5m) expect less success than London, after the disastrous World Championships in 2014 and 2015 and director Shane Sutton’s ignominious departure. But the roster of British competitors telegraphs the consecutive years of hevy funding: Chris Froome, Lizzie Armitstead, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Laura Trott, Mark Cavendish and Jason Kenny might all win gold.

Other would-be champions wait. Boxer Nicole Adams, equestrianism’s Charlotte Dijardin and canoe slalom’s David Florence. So, too, the new legends waiting to write their names and women might feature most often on that list. Nathan Bailey (trampoline), Emily Scarratt (rugby sevens), Lily Owsley (hockey), Sally Conway (judo), Rebekah Tyler (weightlifting).

Their performances-of-a-lifetime are needed more than they know. The Government funding that has given them all a fighting chance of gold was awarded in the post-Games glow of 2012. But it is as the memory of the London event recedes and post-Brexit economic difficulties mount that Government enthusiasm will decline. British sports have been hearing for several years that there will be less money, post Rio. That was before the Referendum.It’s not gone unnoticed that while London 2012 left elite sport in a good place, it has failed to fulfil a promise of mass participation. The money needed to get people playing puts more pressure on the Olympic pot.

There is a trend, here. It was in 2012 – eight years on from the Sydney Games – that Australia’s performance levels crashed, as they turned in their worst performance for 20 years. In a sense, the 2020 Games are a far bigger test of the 2012 legacy. But for now it is to athletes to soar, inspire and build foundations for leaner times ahead. Settle back for the ride. The race for the 29 golds begins 20 days from now.