As befitting someone who once worked on a fruit-and-veg stall in an Amsterdam market, Charles van Commenee knows his onions. It is why he can say his aim is to lead British athletes to their most successful Olympics yet, while simultaneously being mystified by the national obsession with targets. “In this country you can go from a gold-plate hero to a sink-plate zero in no time,” he said.

Van Commenee is the kingpin of an attempt to revive elite athletics. He is the head coach who proved his sagacity as the chef de mission of the Netherlands Olympic team and before that in his work with Kelly Sotherton and Denise Lewis, the British heptathletes. He branded the former “a wimp” after the latter labelled him “the Volcano”. Four months into his job, he is “not pessimistic”, but weary of the former professionals who damn the class of 2012 with 20-20 hindsight.

Take the view that Lottery funding has bred a legion of athletes who are too comfortable and bereft of desire. “Lottery is a blessing for the sport,” he said as he prepared for next weekend's European Team Championships in Leiria, Portugal. “Its reputation is tainted because one or two individuals in the past did not take their sport seriously.

“The fact is, 90 per cent of those comments come from ex-athletes who had no funding. It's the classic generational thing where the next generation always has it too easy. In our time the men were made of iron and the boats were wood; now the men are wood and the boats are iron.

“I'm fed up with it. It's easy to have superficial views from a distance.”

Van Commenee, 50, is engaging, erudite and blunt. He says his intention is to remain in the job after 2012, when his contract runs out, but knows results will decide his fate. Niels de Vos, the chief executive of UK Athletics, has said the goal is to be the most successful British sport at the Olympics, but Van Commenee has a different take: “He said that before I came. I think we have our hands full with our rivals in other sports.”

His own view on targets is not designed for kneejerk judgments. He explained: “The best performance of a British team at an Olympics, dismissing the boycotted ones, was 1988 - eight medals, no gold. If we are discussing what success is then it has to be at least eight medals and one gold. Better than ever before. I never aim unrealistically because that's setting yourself up for failure and is like giving the sport a mortgage you can't pay off.”

But would six medals and a deluge of fourth places be failure? “Joe Bloggs might say it's not good enough and I would take the consequences, but I'd be very happy because, as an expert, that tells me about the depth of the sport,” he said. “There are more shades than black and white. That's why I hate targets, but it's a national obsession, almost an industry.”

Van Commenee's reputation as a hard taskmaster precedes him and he admits that he was a rebel until five years ago and can still be volcanic. “I have my moments,” he said. “I'd rather have that image than one of being useless. Fear can be a great motivator. The classic example is the mother who lifts a car because her child is trapped beneath it. In normal life you would not be able to find that strength. It's fear and also an alertness. When you walk in the jungle all your senses are alert - that's what you need when you enter the arena.”

As a young man, Van Commenee was far-sighted enough to feed off successful coaches. His progress through the ranks was studied and long, not aided by the streak that led him to be ejected from the Olympic village in Barcelona in 1992. “I was there as a personal coach and reliant on day passes to get to training venues,” he said. “Then I found out that grandmothers and fiancées and cats and dogs were in the village. I went to the chef de mission and said, ‘How is this possible?' The volume was turned to ten and I was not using polite words. Given my fiery nature it got out of hand.”

Before that he had endured an unhappy 14 months of National Service in the Dutch Army. “I had difficulty accepting authority,” he admitted. So much so that he was denied numerous weekend passes. “I was too much of a rebel,” he said. “I was sharing a room with 11 guys who had no education and came from the north. I felt terribly isolated. Did I learn anything? No.”

He learnt more from the great American sports coaches and from his spell on the market. “You become a better coach when you sell fish for a week or work in the mines,” he said. “It teaches you what hard work is. It's good to get your hands dirty.”

He will be judged by what happens in London, but cites the Dutch belief that there is more to football than winning as evidence of the nuances of success. “It has to be enjoyable and beautiful and then you have to win,” he said. That method might be new to the myopic world of medal tables, but Van Commenee's way has been bearing fruit since his market days.

Van Commenee factfile
1958 Born on June 22 in Amsterdam
1980 Forced to retire as an athlete because of injury
1987 Appointed javelin coach for the Netherlands
1991 Appointed technical director for combined events and throws for the Netherlands
1997 Starts working with Denise Lewis
2000 Lewis wins gold at Sydney Olympics
2001 Success of Lewis sees him named Britain’s technical director for combined events and jumps
2004 In frame to become the national performance director for UK Athletics (UKA), but opts for role as chef de mission with Netherlands Olympic Committee
2008 Netherlands achieve second best medals tally in their Olympic history, with 16
2009 Takes up role as head coach of UKA

Explore More Sport

• Athletics

• Boxing

• Cycling

• Sailing

• US Sport