By Sharron Davies BBC swimming presenter and former Olympic medallist

Tancock has improved since 2005 and won two bronze in Melbourne

Great Britain's performance at the World Championships was a little bit disappointing given the money that has been ploughed into the sport and the level of expectation.

The squad would have been hoping for more success than at the 2005 Worlds in Montreal, when we came back with three bronze medals

This time our haul improved to three bronze and two silvers, one collected in the open water.

I did speak to performance director Bill Sweetenham and I think he was disappointed after a successful European Championships and Commonwealth Games last year.

Why did Britain not meet expectations in Melbourne? Firstly, I think they suffer from a lack of high-level competition.

The Brits are as good as the others, they just do not seem to believe it

The United States team won over half the available gold medals in Melbourne and that is because they constantly test themselves at a very high level.

When they come to the Worlds they are not intimidated by anybody, whereas the British swimmers are. The Brits are as good as others but they just do not seem to believe it.

That in turn leads to them failing to produce their best swims when it matters. If all of our swimmers were producing personal bests then you couldn't criticise but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The British squad has 18 months to prepare for the Beijing Olympics and that is a reasonable amount of time.

It will not be possible to produce new talent before the Games but what the team can do is pinpoint individuals and I think that is what will happen now.

Britain does not have the massive depth of youngsters to draw on like America or Australia and so we have to work more with our star talent and groom them towards medals. It was a policy that Britain successfully followed in the past.

Britain's Balfour (left) could close in on supreme Australian Jones

Liam Tancock, who won 50m and 100m backstroke, has a lot of potential ahead of the Olympics and has worked on increasing his strength to successfully move up the 100m, which is the only event he can contest in Beijing.

Kirsty Balfour, the 200m breaststroke silver medallist, is our most talented swimmer.

David Davies is very, very consistent and has come back from a difficult training year blighted by injury to claim 1500m bronze. I'm sure he will be fighting for a medal next year.

Simon Burnett is very talented and he can do it but he just did not get it right at the Worlds. He will go home to his base in America, work on it and should do well at the Olympics

Britain will not set the world on fire in Beijing but the team had a lot of close races in Melbourne and that is where we have time to get it right.

Our swimmers struggle to make ends meet - and if it was not for lottery funding they would not at all - they struggle for recognition too and work very hard. I'm very much on their side.

All they need to do is raise the bar higher in Beijing and start turning the fourth and fifth places into medals.

I have to say I think it is preposterous the way the Ian Thorpe story has come about, for him to read about it in the papers and not to be given the right protocol is outrageous.

I do not believe Thorpe is a cheat but a phenomenal natural talent. He is built to be a swimmer and his attitude is amazing.

Thorpe is Australia's greatest Olympian with five golds - but his reputation is in danger

He always swam through and has been swimming at an incredible standard since he was about 12, and we have seen his progress along the way.

People who take drugs don't do that, they normally appear out of nowhere.

It is a real shame that there has been a slur on someone's reputation, who doesn't really deserve it. He has not produced a positive test, he has not been accused, yet he is being labelled as though he has.

The newspaper were after a bit of sensationalism but it has been at the expense of someone's reputation.

Thorpe has been a great ambassador of the sport and has always been very anti drugs. He was one of the first people to give his blood to be frozen so it could be re-tested in the future when new systems are developed.

He has always been a leader in finding new methods to try and catch cheats and I'm sure this whole scenario will be sorted out.

Thorpe was down in Melbourne with his team-mates - he still calls them his team-mates even though he is no longer a competing athlete.

He still feels connected to Australian swimming and I think he is at a bit of a loose end since retiring.

He is clever and has a business brain and he will go off and be successful in whatever he chooses to do but this saga does make it difficult for him to come back now.