By Mark Ashenden

In profile: London's plans

The pressure is on. Team GB's Olympic medal haul in Athens was 30 (nine golds) and 28 in Sydney (11 golds). How will the hosts improve on this performance in 2012?

British Olympic Association chief executive Simon Clegg talks of the huge challenge and the "need to deliver the return the British public and government expect and deserve".

We spoke to two people whose jobs are guiding their very different sports towards the London Olympics.

Cycling is geared up for more medal success, while basketball is hoping to somehow bounce onto the podium.

David Brailsford, performance director of British Cycling: I spend 99.9% of my waking hours thinking about how we can win medals and I leave no stone unturned.

It would be nice to think we can win Olympic medals and give the nation pride, and also showcase and motivate youngsters into sport - not just cycling - and become more of a sporting nation.

Trevor Pountain, secretary of British Basketball Federation: I would like to hope we get somewhere near getting a medal. That's a really wild dream.

But if we can't get our men's team into the A group in Europe we don't deserve to be playing in 2012. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to do this with a bit more money.

With our talent pool, we should at least be able to be competitive and hope for a medal.

DB: (Cycling): We need to keep pulling talent into our programmes.

Once we get hold of talented athletes who are motivated and committed and determined to work hard then we're pretty good at taking them all the way to the podium.

TP: (Basketball) We don't want teams going into 2012 and getting thumped by everybody, so we've got to get the male and female teams playing in Europe and being competitive.

I will live and die by how many medals we'll win in that velodrome David Brailsford, GB Cycling

We know we have the talent - we've got players in the NBA - we just haven't been able to do anything with this talent.

Funding has not tended to go with team sports - it has been a nightmare for us - and the sport hasn't been able to get focused and get itself together.

Certain basketball bodies have not seen eye to eye but hopefully this is the opportunity to bring everybody together and make the whole thing work.

DB: I am ruthless. If we have an athlete on our programme who is going to finish eighth I'd prefer to give that money back and give it to someone who's going to finish on the podium in another sport.

The low positions do not interest me. I am only interested in medals.

GB CYCLING: OLYMPIC HISTORY Gold: 12 Silver: 23 Bronze: 19 Sydney 2000: Yvonne McGregor is first female Briton to win Olympic cycling medal

We have all the athletes now in line for Beijing in 2008. To identify talent, you either look within your sport or you go outside and bring them into cycling.

We're doing both, but we hope to soon have the bottom of the pyramid wide enough where we don't need to look out of the sport.

The bottom line is all about the podium - it's our no-compromise approach and it's all about having a culture of excellence.

It's not a big squad of cyclists but you need to take away all other people who distract you and pull away the resources.

We just need to focus everything on everybody who can medal and put our money behind the crown jewels.

It's not huge numbers but we're in the business of quality not quantity.

BAKSETBALL: OLYMPIC HISTORY 1924: Introduced as demonstration sport at Paris Britain: No medals but won title in 1924 1936: Included at Games for first time - USA won 1976: Women's teams included for first time - USSR won Academy: Basketball section

TP: Over the next few months the whole of British basketball will get together to focus on the target. We can't affect what's out there. All the championships our age teams and senior teams play in are already mapped out up to 2012.

So we have to target the players we know who are around. We need to get the talent ID schemes right and target them for seven years. It's simply not enough time to get an Olympic pyramid.

We just need to be organised, we need a performance director and get the coaches in. We have really got to start from scratch and I think that's a good thing as well as bad.

DB: I am always fighting cycling's corner and at the end of the day I will live and die by how many medals we'll win in that velodrome.

I'm always optimistic. It does not get bigger than being a performance director for an Olympics - being under the scrutiny of the press and leading out your team in front of home supporters.

It has all the ingredients I have lived for - it's the biggest and best thing to happen to British sport.

When I walk into that velodrome on the first night of the London games I want to be able to stand there, look all the team in the eye, shake their hands and say this is the best prepared we could possibly be.

Win, lose or draw - we'll take whatever we get - but what I can't accept is to look back at that moment in time and think we could have done that little bit more.

TP: I believe we have the potential in this country to have a competitive team in London. I'm not interested in three years' funding - I just want to have two teams there in 2012.

The important thing is that sports like mine do get some funding. Even if it's just looked at to see if after four years they're worth more funding leading up to games.