Britain risks losing its top coaches to rival countries keen to restore their national pride in London 2012, Olympic chiefs gave warning yesterday amid concerns over funding for elite sport.

Basking in the glory of 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. Yesterday Gordon Brown promised that everything would be done to ensure the medal success at Beijing was exceeded in London.

However, Lord Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), urged the Government to waste no time in underwriting the full four years of funding so that 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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“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 to come to Britain.”

Yesterday it emerged that Dave Brailsford, performance director of Britain’s successful cycling team, which won eight gold medals, has yet to commit his future to 2012.

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 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.”

After meeting cyclist Chris Hoy, Britain’s best Olympian for a century with three gold medals, Mr Brown announced additional funding for sport in schools, aimed at increasing the diversity of activities to include sports such as archery and martial arts.

A Downing Street summit this year will “learn the lessons” of Beijing. Mr Brown has asked Dame Kelly Holmes, the athlete, to head a task force that will consider ways of encouraging more girls to take up sport in school.

The danger of complacency, though, was highlighted by Mr 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. “I’m ambitious and it’s going to take something different and I would want to go on further in 2012,” he said. Revealing he had already had three book deals by e-mail in the past few days, he said he was unlikely to leave the British team in favour of a rival nation. But it is his burning ambition to run a professional team to a Tour de France win and his current remuneration is modest compared with what other countries would be prepared to offer. It will also be hard for Mr Brailsford to keep his back-room team together as countries such as Australia will tempt some away.

As Britain finished above Australia for the first time since Seoul in 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.