THE only sound louder than the cicadas in Beijing at the moment is the sweet sound of the Australians’ whingeing. They are whingeing about the Poms, which generally means that something highly unusual and very probably illegal has occurred, like stealing the Ashes for a year or two or, praise be, winning more gold medals at an Olympic Games.

Another gold on the cycling track (and world record), for the men’s pursuit team, had lifted Great Britain’s tally of gold medals to 12 by last night, one more than the Australians who had restored national pride with gold in the triathlon and the sailing earlier in the day. Rather more is riding on this than the bottle of champagne bet by the respective ministers of sport, Kate Ellis and Gerry Sutcliffe, before the Games. But the measure of the concern Down Under is that the Australians are getting vaguely patronising. Usually, they only get patronising when they win. “Not bad for a country with no swimming pools and very little soap,” said John Coates of Rebecca Adlington’s double gold in the pool.

This is good sport. The Australians have set standards for sporting success that Britain have secretly envied and, yes, traditionally patronised. Sport was far too important to Australians. It’s their lack of culture, you see. When GB won all of one gold in Atlanta, the Australians won nine. Not much culture, you see. In Sydney, Australia’s finest sporting hour, it was 16-11 – which was pretty good for GB – and in Athens 17-9, which was more like it. Now it’s 12-11, we are into the second week of the Games and the excuses are beginning to flow like the Yarra

Yesterday morning, Alan Thompson, head coach of the Australian swimming team, suggested that Britain spent more on their 10km open water programme than the funding for the entire Australian team. I’m not sure how he knows this, but he might well be right. The funding from UK Sport through the National Lottery increased from £70m for the Athens Games to £235m for these Olympics. Even sports like volleyball, water polo and basketball, for which at present there are no Olympic teams, were funded to the tune of £4.1m, £3.1m and £3.6m respectively in readiness for London 2012.

Back to reality for golden generation

Olympic heroes will discover if the last 17 days has been a life-changing experience or a glorious but brief interlude

• Team GB to be rewarded with gold for gold

• Hard work starts now as British sailors look towards London 2012

• Public support gained from success in Beijing needs to last four years

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

Related Links

• Day ten, live: no medal for Tweddle

Swimming received a total of £20.6m for the four year Olympic cycle, the return on investment being two golds and a bronze, with the two 10km open water events to come. There will be more in the kitty for London where Britain want to emulate the Australians in Sydney by finishing fourth in their own medal table..

No wonder that the Australians are getting twitchy and that Thompson, a highly respected coach who has kept his swimming team afloat against Michael Phelps, has lobbied the sports minister and Kevin Rudd, the new Australian Prime Minister, for more funding. “Just getting by” he called the current level of investment. “Some sports really suffered in the lead-up to these Games and we need to look at what we’re doing with sports funding in Australia,” he said. In other words, give us the money.

Nowhere has the shift in fortune been more marked than on the cycling track. Traditionally, one of Australia’s most prolific sources of gold, the current score is 9-0. It will be more by the end of play on Tuesday night. Australia have been annihilated on the track by a crack British squad and it will not help their peace of mind that one of the architects of the success is Shane Sutton, one of their own. Thompson, quite understandably, wants to put a stop to the drain of coaching talent.

Australia has forgotten that sport is not about standing still. After a disastrous Games in Montreal, they invested heavily in sport. Their Institute of Sport was deemed a model for other countries. In Sydney and Athens, the Australians finished fourth in the medal table behind the USA, China and Russia. And then they got careless. Coaches were lured away and the funding dried up. Steve Waugh, the nations’ sporting psychologist, began to be consulted more about coping with disappointment than preparing to win. The budget for the AIS was £18.1m for the year 2007/8; the amount allocated to the rest of Olympic sport by the Sports Commission in the same period was £35m. Meanwhile, the Brits were finally getting serious about their sport.

The race promises to be close for the rest of the week. If we win, prepare for the retaliation. No culture, you see.