To build on this success British sport must go back to school

Evening Standard

There is no great mystery about the reasons for British success at this Olympics. Our cyclists do not have magic wheels that are larger than other nations and neither are we using home turf to get an unfair advantage.

The foreign scepticism is partly due to the fact there is always a tendency in this country to try and present success as something that just happens. So, at the height of British power, it was fashionable to say Britain had acquired its empire in a fit of absentmindedness. But then that is hardly surprising in a nation that prides itself on muddling through.