analysis Britain's relatively modest Daegu medal target looks out of reach, writes Doug Gillon

S IXTH on the Daegu medal table, and probably sinking with just two days of World Championship competition remaining, the head coach of British athletics has much to digest as he contemplates prospects for next year’s London Olympics.

Charles van Commenee knows 2012 will not simply define his own career, but the perception of athletics in Britain for generations. Losers do not inspire children and, almost as pertinently, UK Sport funders and sponsors. The stakes are far higher than the Dutchman’s future. They are no less than the future of the sport in Britain.

We are a nation weaned on the concept of glorious failure but, increasingly, that no longer cuts it in top-level sport. One must acknowledge that “losers” are not necessarily those who fail to win gold. They are those who under-perform – athletes capable of a certain level of performance, but who lack the bottle to deliver when the chips are down.

So they don’t include such as Mo Farah or Jessica Ennis, both of whom patently strained every sinew and fibre of their will before accepting silver in the 10,000 metres and heptathlon respectively. Sadly, they include the likes of Chris Tomlinson and Goldie Sayers.

Tomlinson has broken the British long jump record this year, but finished 11th yesterday with 7.87 metres – a distance he has bettered 20 times this year and last. His UK record is 8.35m, and silver went yesterday for 8.33m. Sayers, whose UK javelin record is 65.75m, managed only 58.18m. Yes, she has had injury problems, but that’s a distance she has achieved in 14 out of 16 contests in the past two years.

The medal table could change, of course, before Korean nightfall tomorrow. But the gold standard looks beyond Britain’s remaining contenders: Farah (5000m) and Phillips Idowu (triple jump).

Farah is up against men whose legs are fresher – men who have not already run to the brink of gold in the 10k, only to face crushing disappointment. No one should underestimate what Farah has done in establishing himself as a credible endurance threat against the might of Africa. But it is a huge ask for him to go back now and mount a serious challenge for gold at the shorter distance.

You can expect the pace to be hard from the start, as his opponents strive to plant early doubts in Farah’s head and draw the sting of his finish. So it would be a prodigious achievement were Farah even to medal again.

Idowu? The world triple jump champion does not have to face Frenchman Teddy Tamgho, but he does have to contend with the realisation that four of the field have jumped further than he has this year.

Other UK medal hopes over the concluding two days are minimal. We have nobody in the men’s 1500m final, nobody in the women’s 800m, and only remote prospects in relays.

The women’s 4 x 400m squad, with Glasgow’s Lee McConnell, is due to line up today. They go in ranked fourth, behind Russia, Jamaica and the USA. Titles are not decided on paper, which is why we have the contests in the arena, yet it is hard to see the GB women overturning that form, even with a fresh Christine Ohuruogu to draw on. The Olympic champion has a great deal to prove after the false start which prematurely ended her individual one-lap campaign, and certainly owes Britain a run. The men’s 4 x 100 quartet is not blessed with consistency in carrying the baton, never mind the ability to threaten Jamaica or the USA.

Dai Greene dug Van Commenee out of a hole with his 400m hurdles title, but Britain needs two more medals of any colour to match the coach’s Daegu target of seven (one of them gold). In London next year it is eight (one gold). These are, by any standards, modest.

But Van Commenee can console himself with a few anorak statistics. Of the 22 men who won world gold in 2007, only five won Olympic gold the following year, and fewer than half of the world champions won an Olympic medal of any colour.

Of the 21 women who won world gold in 2007, only six won in Beijing (including Ohuruogu), and just 12 champions won an Olympic medal. So there is some evidence to suggest scope for Daegu also-rans to step up to the podium. But what price silver medallists improving? These odds are poor. Just three of the 43 silver medallists from both sexes in Osaka became champions in Beijing.

Most disturbing of all is the poverty of Brits in finals. There are nine finals today, including two disability 800m races, which include Michael Bushell and Rochelle Woods. But unless US import Tiffany Porter delivers in the 100m hurdles, the UK has no other interest until Idowu and Farah try to plug the gaps.