Among the 77 Great Britain medal-winners returning home today to public acclaim, there is no shortage of girl power. It has been the most successful Games for British women, who collectively won seven gold medals, bettering the five won in London 1908. For the people trying to raise participation levels among young girls, there will be no better opportunity to rectify the gender imbalance in sport.

From the moment Nicole Cooke sprinted over the finish line in the cycling road race to start Britain's journey to a remarkable 19 gold medals, it was clear the female athletes were leading from the front.

The Yngling trio of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson on the seas, Rebecca Adlington, doing it twice in the pool, Rebecca Romero and Victoria Pendleton, with an Olympic victory each in the velodrome, and Christine Ohuruogu on the track, are all figures that will be seized upon by the politicians and administrators to represent their campaigns.

“We have seen some really powerful female role models emerging here. We need to see some progress in the next few years to break down some of the barriers and stereotypes that are the reason young girls do not take up sport,” Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, said.

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He has set up a commission to address the causes of significantly lower participation levels among girls during the vital teenage years compared with boys, and right up to the age of 25, when the gap is belatedly bridged.

The results in Beijing, where some of the defining images of the Games from a British perspective have been provided by female athletes, offer an unrivalled opportunity. “There was a lot of talk of girl power before the Games and it's fantastic for women's sport in the UK,” Simon Clegg, Team GB's chef de mission, said. “I don't like to distinguish between the men and women in the team, but we are putting role models back into society and that can only have a positive impact on the performance of girls in sport and show them how to win the ultimate accolade.”

The Great Britain women returning triumphant in their respective disciplines can provide the inspiration for young girls, but structural changes will still need to be addressed if the enthusiasm is to have any impact. The issues range from the relative lack of top-class female coaches and administrators in the system to the disproportionately low level of funding allocated to women's sport and some bias towards men's events.

Women could have done even better in Beijing had there been a fairer spread of events between the genders. Pendleton, for example, won a gold medal in the individual sprint but she believes she could have got more. Compared with seven events for the men, there were just three open to the women track cyclists at these Games. “Chris Hoy had three events to compete in and I only had one. At the World Championships, I had four,” she said. “I was in perhaps the best form of my life. It's unfair in any other sport there would not be that imbalance.”

There is a new-found steeliness in women's sport, epitomised by Pendleton and Romero, who have achieved success in one of the toughest set-ups around. Failure to build on the collective success of British women in Beijing would be to miss the best opportunity in a century.