The Beijing Olympics are over, Britain has a record haul of medals and London is flying the Olympic flag ready for 2012. So now what?

London organisers, led by Lord Coe, will return home this week exhausted by the first-hand experience of running the world’s largest sports event. It will seem very real for the team of more than 100 observers who witnessed the unprecedented scale of the Beijing Games.

They could not have asked for a better springboard to 2012 than the Britain team turning in the best performance since the London Games of 1908. The goodwill of the public is on their side and that is as good a start as is possible after the griping over why Britain was interested in hosting the Games in the first place.

Almost everyone must be willing them on to stage a great Games. Even the curmudgeons will admit that Britain was a better place to be in the past fortnight than it has been for a very long time. Chris Hoy and the cyclists, Ben Ainslie and the sailors, Christine Ohuruogu and Germaine Mason in the athletics stadium and Rebecca Adlington in the pool were welcome distractions from the depressing talk of falling house prices and another non-existent British summer.

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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

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• Bring back the tug-of-war

• Top 100 Olympic athletes of all time

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But how long will it last? British Olympic chiefs and Government ministers need the answer to be, at the very least, four years. They cannot afford for this to be a flash-in-the-pan response such as followed the men’s hockey team’s gold in Seoul in 1988 when the nation was briefly obsessed, only for the game to disappear from television screens as the team failed to qualify for the next Games.

Britain’s performance this time around was so compelling that it will be too hard to forget, but sports administrators will have to push their message until, in the words of Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor, they are tired of hearing it. Only then will it have got through.

The London Games are about taking sport to a “whole new level”, as Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, says. It is not only about two weeks of competition, but a lifetime of increased participation at all levels.

But, first things first. The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has to build the venues. Construction is under way, three months ahead of schedule, and the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, is starting to take shape. But there are some big flies in the ointment of a £9.3 billion blueprint, the main objective of which is to regenerate the neglected East End, leaving it with world-class sporting facilities and improved transport links. The first issue is the Athletes’ Village. The one in Beijing was the best anyone has seen, so London has a tough act to follow.

Meanwhile, the ODA is struggling to agree the commercial contribution to London’s Village after Lend Lease, the Australian constructor, admitted it was struggling to raise the money as a result of the credit crunch. As it tweaks its designs to stay within the declared budget, the danger is that the quality of the facility is compromised.

This problem should be resolved by Christmas or the wheels will start to come off the construction timetable. Any question mark over the Village would worry the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which up until now has given London organisers glowing reports after regular inspections. For IOC members, the athletes’ comfort, security and general well-being is non-negotiable.

The second problem is funding for athletes. There is a £100 million hole in UK Sport’s budget, of which £79 million will have to be filled by companies looking to associate with the preparation of top athletes. Lottery funds should cover the first £21 million.

The key time is October, when UK Sport draws up its preliminary funding strategy for the next four years before allocating money to individual sports in December.

New issues will arise during the run-up to the opening ceremony on July 27, 2012. These will range from security and transport to political bickering. There may be a different party in power when the date rolls round.

So enjoy the feel-good factor. It is bound to fade along the way to 2012. But, with any luck, the memories of Beijing will return at the right time to push London over the finish line.

Road to Stratford

Sept 6-17 Paralympics in Beijing.
Oct 16, 2008 open-top bus parade for British medal-winners.
Nov 2008 Beijing debrief with IOC.
Dec 2008 deadline to secure funding for £1 billion Athletes’ Village.
April 2009 UK Sport awards grants to 2012 athletes.
July 27, 2009 foundations of Olympic stadium complete.
Oct 2009 IOC selects 2016 host city; Jacques Rogge, the president, up for re-election.
Jan 2011 9.2 million tickets to Olympics and Paralympics go on sale.
Summer 2011 Stadium and aquatics centre complete for year of test events.
July 27, 2012 The Games begin.