Britain’s Olympic heroes will return to a political wrangle over a £100 million shortfall in sports funding that is threatening their preparations for the London Games in 2012.

Team GB faces budget cuts even though it has hit its target of 12 gold medals six days early, courtesy of the indoor track cyclists yesterday.

Sports in which Britain is deemed to have underperformed – such as athletics, judo, fencing and shooting – face the deepest cuts. But even sports such as swimming, which produced double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington, will not be immune.

When he was Chancellor, Gordon Brown announced in the 2006 Budget an unprecedented public investment of £500 million in sport for 2012.

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It came with the rider that a further £100 million – split into five annual tranches of £20 million – should be found from the private sector. But sports sponsorship specialists appointed by Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, to lead the fundraising effort have so far failed to make any progress. The credit crunch is partly to blame, and what money is available is going into the £650 million sponsorship pot for the Games itself because the potential returns are more evident.

Ministers have verbally agreed to honour £21 million because UK Sport, which distributes lottery funds to elite athletes, has already spent that. The money is expected to come from cost savings identified by Camelot, the lottery operator, which is already contributing £300 million; £200 million is coming from the taxpayer.

There remains a shortfall of £79 million – a big enough sum to have a negative impact on most of the 26 sports to be publicly funded for 2012, according to sources.

When Mr Brown arrives in Beijing later this week for the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, he will face pressure to resolve the row. Sports chiefs argue that the full £100 million needs to be underwritten in time for a UK Sport board meeting in October. Otherwise the board will have to initiate an emergency “shortfall plan”.

Athletes face months of financial uncertainty. Their 2012 grants are not due to be announced until April. Under UK Sport’s “no compromise” investment approach, underperforming sports face the deepest cuts. But even successful ones will be under financial pressure.

Hugh Robertson, the Shadow Sports Minister, said: “It is vital that UK Sport gets that money now or elite programmes will be cut in the run-up to London 2012, and that is ridiculous.”

Lord Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Committee, said that Mr Brown had to reassure athletes that their training would not suffer. “I am hoping he will confirm that there is no doubt that Team GB will be fully funded to the tune of the £600 million that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he announced in the Budget two and a half years ago,” he said.

The Government is banking on businesses coming on board following an extraordinary weekend in Beijing, with Britain winning eight gold medals in sailing, cycling and rowing, making it the country’s most successful modern Olympics. It was Britain’s target to come eighth in the medals table, but the team is due to do better than that. The latest gold medal was delivered yesterday by Bradley Wiggins, Ed Clancy, Paul Manning and Geraint Thomas in the men’s team pursuit. Breaking their own world record by nearly two seconds, they became the first British quartet to win the event since the London Games 100 years ago.

John Steele, UK Sport chief executive, said: “This sort of success cannot happen overnight and shows the value of sustained, targeted investment and a lot of hard graft from athletes and their support teams. Our cyclists, rowers and sailors are now the best in the world and with continued investment through UK Sport, there is no reason why our athletes in other sports cannot join them as we move towards London 2012.”