Britain failed to move up from tenth position in the medal table at Athens in 2004. Increasingly reliant on a generation of ageing champions, it was time for our younger hopes. To ensure that funding delivered results, UK Sport introduced a no compromise approach. All funded athletes needed to start winning medals. The pressure was on for the 9-year-old Tom Daley to step up to the big time. Christine Ohuruogu, the potential face of the 2012 games, describes her dramatic fall from grace and her subsequent return to the track. And after no male gymnasts were even fielded in Athens, Louis Smith became the first British man to win an individual gymnastics medal in a hundred years at the Beijing games in 2008. His win finally achieved funding for his beloved sport. With a haul of 51 medals at the epic Beijing games, Britain was finally showing its mettle, but could we continue to fund sport at the increasing rates needed, or would we embarrass ourselves on home turf four years later?