Britain must guard against the poaching of its top coaches by rival countries keen to restore their national pride in London 2012, Olympic chiefs warned today.

Basking in the glory of the 19 gold medals, and 47 in total, the Great Britain team is aware that its record haul since 1908 has focused attention on the performance directors in the leading sports of cycling, sailing and rowing.

Colin Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), urged the government to waste no time in underwriting the full four years of funding so individual sports could plan to improve on their performances in London.

“A lot of our performance directors have really delivered so it’s not going to be surprising for their phones to be ringing. We have some of the best in the world - there will be many other countries who will want to poach them from us,” he said.

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“We have tasted success and now we must consolidate on that. A full four-year programme must be in place to give our top coaches the high market rate many of them should command. We cannot afford to lose any of them now. We need to hire the best come to Britain. We will never again have this opportunity in our lifetime.” Sports chiefs and politicians seem headed for confrontation over the coming months as UK Sport, the funding agency for top athletes, works out its budgets for each of the 23 sports it will fund for 2012.

The agency has raised the prospect of annual funding reviews but Lord Moynihan has been clear that approach will be no way to guarantee certainty of planning and may lead to the loss of coaching and administrative talent.

“We need four years of funding in place for the national governing bodies so they can negotiate contracts to sign them up now for 2012. It cannot be done on a year by year basis,” he said.

“We would like to hear the Prime Minister underwrite the four-year funding plan. I hope that in discussions over the next few months, the government will be in a position to be able to do that.” The danger of complacency was highlighted by Dave Brailsford’s admission that he would not commit to 2012 as British Cycling’s performance director until he had time to assess what resources would be provided.

For a man responsible for a revolution in the velodrome, that includes his own remuneration, which is modest compared with the money other countries would be prepared to offer him.

“I’m ambitious and it’s going to take something different and I would want to go on further in 2012,” he said. “I think we could do better than this and I can see where the gains can be made.” Revealing he had already had three book deals by email in the last few days, he said he was unlikely to leave the British team in favour of a rival nation. “The national pride would not allow me to do it, no matter what somebody paid me,” he said.

“It’s the greatest job in the world to take a British team into the London Games. The worst job would be to lead a foreign team in that Olympics. I do not think I could stomach that really.” But it is his burning ambition to run a professional team to the top of the Tour de France. If he gets a deal from UK Sport while also being able to pursue that dream, then British Cycling will probably keep him.

It will be hard for him to keep his backroom team together though as countries such as Australia will tempt some away.

As Britain finished above Australia for the first time since Seoul 1988, one of its sports chiefs made good on a bet he never thought he would lose. John Coates, president of the Australian Olympic Committee, is sending five magnums of champagne - one for every gold medal difference between the two nations - to Lord Moynihan.

But he warned the Australians would be back. “Great Britain isn’t going to stay ahead of us. If they beat us in the Ashes you want to go back and get them in the next series, don’t you? And that’s going to be our attitude in London. Top five will be the objective again, I’m sure, but personally I think our objective should be to beat the British.”