The funding and the whole team approach to the Olympics is down to one man – Rod Carr OBE, chief executive of the RYA. Originally appointed as coach for the Olympic team, he led the squad at Los Angeles, Seoul and Barcelona before being appointed overall team manager for Atlanta in 1996.

He was also the architect of the RYA World Class Performance programme for sailing that has successfully attracted funds from the National Lottery that resulted in the successes at Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004 and now the Skandia Team GBR at Beijing.

We can only hope the level of funding Mr Carr was so successful at attracting remains in place for the 2012 games. It would be even nicer if the funding was to increase.

But on the subject of funding the Americans got a bit of a mouthful from the UK’s Bob Fisher, in his Sail World column when replying to an American who reckoned Ben Ainslie was a professional sailor. The inference was he didn’t deserve his Laser and Finn success.

‘Maybe US Sailing should take a leaf out of the RYA’s book and develop and Olympic squad,’ he writes. ‘OK. The British ream receives funding from the National Lottery, but there are many ways, in the land of the greenback, where funds can be raised for the support of sport. Just how many of the US basketball team are amateurs?’ Most, Mr Fisher points out, are multi-millionaires. ‘Stop moaning and start working towards a better team for 2012.’

Should the deck shoe be on the other foot, so to speak, one might possibly hear an American suggesting: ‘Way to go Fish…’