IT IS the attention to detail that counts, from the prime location of the British pits in the centre of the Laoshan velodrome to the metronomic movement of the British team through a mesmerising schedule of events. The British cycling team have not just dominated on the track at these Olympics, they have dominated the inside of the track too, their uniformed crew as much slaves to the clock as the riders. There was little conversation, no idle chitchat. Everyone had a job and knew it to the letter.

As Chris Hoy’s bike was wheeled back down the ramp after the final of the sprint, a mechanic stepped forward with spirit and cloth. The meeting was over, the scoreboard showed the details: GB, seven gold, three silver, two bronze. Yet still the instinct to prepare overruled the desire to celebrate. Hoy’s tyres needed cleaning.

Dave Brailsford, head of the British cycling team and now likely to be in demand from other sporting organisations, sat a day or two later in the Olympic village and talked about the “compassionate ruthlessness” and the meticulous planning which has redefined Britain’s understanding of sporting excellence. It means, simply, that the team carries no passengers and has no room for sentiment. No jobs for the boys. One example of his ruthless management was the rewriting of the pit rules. “The pit was full of riders and staff who used to just hang around. In 2003, we said that only the riders who are competing on that day or that session could be in the pits and only the staff working with them. Everyone else had to go to the stands.”

If the track cyclists have set new standards for British success, the sailors and rowers are not far behind. Britain’s sporting credibility has risen dramatically through these Games, the result of increased funding via UK Sport and the National Lottery and the influence of foreign coaches. Now it’s our blueprint that will be copied and our coaches who will need protection. Brailsford believes some of his staff have already been tapped up at the track and is probably considering offers himself. “I’m not a charity,” he says. “So it’s up to the bosses of British cycling.” The three managers - David Tanner (rowing), Brailsford (cycling) and Steven Parks (sailing) - run their elite programmes with varying degrees of compassionate ruthlessness. “They will all have as many enemies as friends,” says Peter Keen, the former head of the elite cycling programme and now charged with maintaining Britain’s heady position in the medal table for London 2012. “None of them will back down on the fundamental principle of their elite programmes. They’re not selecting athletes to be okay.”

Sailing’s management team were reconnoitring the waters and winds off Qingdao several years before other teams. They compiled such detailed data from their quayside weather station that the Chinese confiscated it. The structure of the team in competition is as disciplined as that of the cyclists. The result was six medals, including four gold. The rowers too were first to reserve their hotel accommodation, close to the Shunyi Rowing Lake where the Chinese team also stayed.

Like rowing, sailing has the advantage of knowing its constituency. Most of the Olympic sailors have come to the sport through their parents. The best of them progress through the system run by the Royal Yachting Association and, in particular, through the care of Jim Saltonstall. One of the unsung geniuses of British sport, it is Saltonstall who is owed a huge debt by every one of Britain’s sailing gold medal-lists. His counterpart in cycling is Rod Ellingworth, who runs the academy in Tuscany where the British juniors learn their trade. The academy’s latest graduate is Mark Cavendish, four-time stage winner on the recent Tour de France, but the performances of Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Jason Kenny in Beijing augured well for the Olympic velodrome in London.

CYCLING’S GANG OF FOUR

Dave Brailsford, 44, Team Leader Former cyclist brought in to run business side of world-class programme in 1996. Promoted to head elite performance squad. Established his podium principles for success - trust, honesty, empowerment of athletes, meticulousness - and based progress on ‘compassionate ruthlessness’.

Shane Sutton, 52, Head coach Wizened Australian Tour de France professional who has become Brailsford’s right-hand man. ‘Has a natural guile for cycling,’ says Brailsford. The emotional thermometer of the team and the hard man. Sutton eats, lives and breathes the sport.

Dr Steve Peters, 55, team psychiatrist Not a sports pyschologist. Worked in Rampton High Security Hospital and brought in by police to profile Ian Huntley during the Soham murders investigation. Helped Victoria Pendleton to conquer nerves after she froze in Athens and Chris Hoy to control emotions before the kilo. A key member of the senior management team; a ‘genius’, says Brailsford.

Chris Boardman, 39, head of coaching and development 1992 Olympic champion who started the revival of British cycling. An unemotional, analytical thinker and keeper of the keys of the Secret Squirrel Club, the home of Team GB’s technological development.