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The Olympic badminton silver medallist said she was lucky with her sport.

Medal successes had attracted lottery funding to her sport, helping to harness and groom talented youngsters. Others were not so lucky - and knowing funding depended on medal success only added to pressure on competitors.

"You need money to get results, but the lottery are saying you need medals to get money. It doesn't work like that.

Badminton tips from the top

"If we want to be one of the best sporting nations we have to put everything that we can into our athletes otherwise they can't do anything - they'll always be struggling.

"I know that if I don't produce any medals the funding will be lost for our 17, 18 and 19-year-old future 2012 hopefuls. Knowing your sport's future depends on you it shouldn't be like that."

Britain's athletes needed immediate support to prepare them for the 2012 games, she said.

"We've got five years to go until the 2012 Olympics and we need to do things right away. We need to get our athletes supported, we need to make them feel like they are special, we need to make sure that they have those training facilities.

"As a region we've got the athletes, we need to ensure we now support them, and be a part of the greatest sporting event ever."