Great Britain's success in pool and lake at the Olympic Games in Beijing in August has sparked an aggressive recruitment of the London 2012 generation by American colleges at a time when five intensive training centres have opened in the UK with the purpose of nurturing home-grown talent.

Two of the first to be lost, to Auburn University in Alabama, are Adam Brown, the Olympic sprinter, and Chris Fox, one of his team-mates during his schooldays at Britain's offshore centre on the Australian Gold Coast. Signing up to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) programme in the United States means that the pair cannot accept funding from the National Lottery; amateur rules dictate that only college support is allowable and that is set at a relatively low level.

Dennis Pursley, Britain's new head coach, said: “Ironically, because of the success of Britain in Beijing, we have a situation where US college coaches are keen to recruit some of the kids just at a time when we have good reason to keep them home.”

Since arriving in Britain last month the American had been on a whirlwind tour of the five new intensive training centres in Loughborough, Bath, Stockport, Stirling and Swansea. This week the last few coaching appointments will be made. “I'm favourably impressed with what I've seen,” Pursley said. “Bill Sweetenham [the former performance director] has to take a lot of the credit for what has been set up and Michael [Scott] has taken that forward.”

Scott, the Britain performance director, said: “Having closed down the offshore centre, we're looking to build our home programme. There's no funding for the NCAA-based people and their focus is on 25-yard swimming. Our focus is on 50 metres racing and there's a college programme directly attached to four of the five centres.”

Pursley and Scott are finalising a four-year plan designed not only to deliver success at London 2012 but to provide Britain with a springboard for sustained success in the Olympic cycle after a home Games. At the World Cup in Berlin at the weekend, the London 2012 generation drew attention to itself with 14 places in finals and a rush of personal best times.

On Saturday Xavier Mohammed, 18, and Sophie Allen, 16, each won a silver medal. Mohammed set a personal best of 4min 15.88sec in the 400metres medley and Allen recorded 2:11.55 in the 200metres medley. On Sunday there were medals for Emma Smithurst, 17, who finished second in the 400metres medley in an English senior record of 4:34.11. Daniel Fogg, 21, won bronze in the 1,500 metres freestyle in 15:06.80. Lucy Worrall, 16, raced in two finals, setting personal best times of 1:57.89 in the 200metres freestyle and 59.43sec in the 100metres butterfly.