Full live coverage of Beijing 2008

Like the summer holidays of childhood, these Olympic Games bring one golden day after another. There were four more medals yesterday, and that’s just the golds, and the apologetic, excuse-me, pardon-us-for-living athletes of Great Britain continue to ride third in the medal table. Only China and the United States are higher: and they have a few more people to call on.

It seems that the Brits are punching way above their weight. And it may be amazing, but here’s the crucial point: it’s not really surprising. There is very little in the way of glorious fluke here. Just about every medal has been planned for and prepared for: the culmination of years of training and diet and lifestyle and psychology and everything else that makes up the life of a modern professional athlete.

Let’s savour those golds. Down at the Velodrome, the Brits rule the curves and the inclines as they once ruled the waves. Chris Hoy, the ineffable one, won yet another gold, his third here in Beijing, equalling the British record for gold medals at a single Olympic Games. He won the men’s sprint yesterday, and just to show that it’s not merely because the British are lucky to have a single exceptional talent, Jason Kenny picked up the silver.

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• Full live coverage of Beijing 2008

Still at the Velodrome, Victoria Pendleton, who is looking nearly as ineffable as Hoy, won the women’s sprint. Britain may be lucky to have her single exceptional talent: but it could also be something to do with the way that these talents are trained. British cycling tells the world the best way to maximise ability: the best possible way, if you like, to turn hard cash into real gold.

Is that way of looking at it a bit hard? Is it a bit mercenary, a bit grabby, a bit, sort of, well, serious? It’s certainly a change from the fuzzy way that the British have looked at sport for decades, believing that trying too hard and planning too deep were frightfully vulgar.

Meanwhile, out on the sea, the yachties, almost as effective as the cyclists when it comes to turning base metal into gold, won another gold medal, this one going to Paul Goodison in the Laser class. Let me emphasise this again: these are athletes who go there to win, who seriously expect to win, who are heartsick when they come second. Not terribly British, you’d have thought — but, you’d be wrong, because our sporting culture is changing before our eyes.

On, then, to Christine Ohuruogu in the 400 metres. There’ll always be an asterisk by her name: she was banned for one year for missing three drugs tests. Most agree that this was a matter of sloppy diary-keeping rather than drug-gobbling wickedness, but the ban most certainly had to be served. And she can run all right. Well down as they hit the final bend, she cut through the field like a knife and won by 0.07 seconds. Most will see this as a triumph over self-induced misfortune: a pleasant fable telling you that you can mess up, and then you can put things right.

But there was at least one surprise: an unearned medal, if you like, and that had a sweet, almost a traditional savour to it. Germaine Mason won silver in the high jump: a Jamaican turned Brit. That makes 33 medals that have been awarded in all: and it’s wonderful and remarkable.

What’s more, two British boxers have won their way through to the medal rounds. Tony Jeffries and David Price are both guaranteed a bronze at least. So Britain will win at least 35 medals at these Games, and that is the target UK Sport set itself. It will almost certainly be exceeded: by the time you are reading this, there might already be more, because Cassie Patten has a chance of something in the 10km open-water swim.

We have now gone past the British total at the Antwerp Games of 1920. This is Britain’s second most successful Games ever. Only another 40 medals and the total at the 1908 London Games will be overhauled. It has been a phenomenal Games for the British: for the planners, for the canny performance directors, but, above all, for the athletes, who have shown precisely what they can do when they are given every chance that money and intelligent, direct, focused thinking can bring them.

In the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Britain won a single gold medal, and people asked how a country with such deep sporting traditions, which could invent so many sports, could be so pitiful when it came to playing them.

Now they are asking how a small country can do so well, so often, day after day after day. Every Olympic Games is about maximising your talent, individually and nationally. The Brits are not only winning medals: they are setting the agenda for excellence.