Olympics

On a grey day in Beijing, the Great Britain Paralympic cycling team made it a "Tremendous Tuesday" with their six gold medals taking their total to nine, surpassing by one the Olympic team's standard.

Each of their five golds and one silver was loudly cheered on by the large group of British fans who made the long trip to the Laoshan Velodrome on a day when the weather was more Manchester than Mandarin.

As Darren Kenny, Rik Waddon, Mark Bristow, Jody Cundy, Simon Richardson and Aileen McGlynn and Ellen Hunter prepared for their turns on the track, their supporters were putting in their own final warm-ups in the stands of the humid arena, biting nails and frantically calculating split times and scenarios.

Once again, the impressive venue was full and the Chinese home crowd did their own bit to make their presence felt on an emotional and memorable day for British cycling.

I know a bloke who likes to say a little bit of him dies every time one of his friends has some measure of professional success. He works in the City so he probably means it.

It's an attitude many in the British Olympic family could sympathise with right now, because while Beijing was the very best of times for some, it remained the same old story for others. And with Team GB operating on a "use it or lose it" approach to funding, success has almost become a self-fulfilling prophesy, while failure, well, you just don't want to go there.

But "there" is exactly where British judo finds itself and the choices it is grappling with are the same choices all the other "under-performing" sports will have to address very soon.

So when judo debates the merits of centralised training bases, national head coaches and the link between the elite and grass-roots ends of the sport, you can guarantee archery, athletics, badminton, basketball and so on, are paying attention.