The head of UK Sport has said Great Britain are on course to win more medals at the Rio Olympics in 2016 than at last year's London Games.
The chief executive, Liz Nicholl, revealed the organisation's performance analysis shows the sports are on track to deliver the ambitious target. UK Sport will invest £355m over the Rio cycle after the government confirmed during the London Games it would maintain funding for the next four years.
Nicholl said there was enough room for improvement – and enough signs that performance directors across a range of sports were working better together – to give her confidence that the ambitious target could be achieved.
"It was important to get the financial commitment to have another big, audacious goal. It is something worth doing and worth being part of," said Nicholl, who added that the success of the London Games had validated the decision to invest heavily in elite sport through the exchequer and the lottery.
"We have promised to do what no Olympic host has ever done and win more medals on foreign soil at the next Games. We need to turn that possibility into a probability and everything we're doing is focused on that."
She stated that guaranteed funding enabled British sport to avoid the brain drain that had hampered past host nations and said: "People know we're a well-resourced and a well-supported system. It's a good place to be to further develop their skills. There's a real confidence that the system can be improved. The talent pathways still need further development so that is exciting. If we can get that right as well, we'll be really flying."
UK Sport has vowed to beat the total of 65 medals achieved in London but Nicholl conceded that topping the 29 golds would be more challenging.
"As things stand, we're on track. The challenge in Rio is not going to be so much the medal count, though it will be challenging to beat 65 Olympic medals and 120 Paralympic medals when the rest of the world is investing as well and snapping at our heels," she said.
"The really big challenge will be the number of gold medals. We had an amazing conversion rate in London. I don't want to raise any expectations – a lot of the inspiration of London was fourth to thirds and second to firsts."
She said another key area for UK Sport would be to continue to focus on overhauling the governance of sports organisations "to get more independence and to get better balanced boards". Boxing recently became the latest funded sport to be riven by internal conflict.
"If we can move to the stage where we've got more independent chairs, better balanced boards, more non-execs, then sport will be in a better place," added Nicholl, who was cheered by the calibre of candidates coming into sport from business and other areas in the wake of the success of the London Games.
