Articles | British team seeks medal haul boost

British team seeks medal haul boost

Published: Tuesday, 5 August 2008, 10:35PM

The British Olympic team is confident it can improve on its Athens medal haul at the Beijing Games.

But they are playing down predictions they could beat Australia to finish as the fourth-best nation in Beijing.

Britain finished in tenth place in Athens with nine gold medals and are targeting fourth place in London 2012, but the British Olympic Association (BOA) are refusing to set a specific target in Beijing.

BOA chairman Colin Moynihan said: "We do have a very strong team, better financed and better resourced than ever, and I believe this will deliver the goods and we will move significantly forward from tenth."

"For a number of sports we also want to see real progress towards 2012. We are confident we will move forward from tenth but it would be unwise to speculate how close we will get to fourth.

"At Athens, the combined margin of five British golds being silver medals was only 0.545sec, that shows how close it can be."

Meanwhile, the US team has already arrived in Beijing. Fans waited to catch a glimpse of the athletes, including swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals at the Athens Games four years ago.