Adlington the Star As British Swimming Floats on Sunshine

Not since the first Olympic swimming event was staged in the Mediterranean in 1896 has British swimming felt quite so buoyant. Rebecca Adlington, whatever the outcome of her 800m freestyle final, is already in line to become the most recognizable home-grown swimmer of either sex since Duncan Goodhew and her improvement is not an isolated blip. No longer do those trying to spot a GB cap automatically confine their search to the outside lanes.

By the time the final two days of action at the Water Cube are completed this weekend, even the likes of Australia may have to revise their long-range forecasts for London 2012. True, the current British tally of one gold medal and one bronze, both of them from the same race, is hardly an inexhaustible supply of precious metal. But Adlington and David Davies have not finished yet and the prevailing mood feels very different. The travails of Sydney - Britain failed to win a single medal for the first time since the war - and modest return of two bronzes in Athens have been consigned to the past.Partly, of course, it is the Adlington effect. Mansfield's finest has demonstrated to everyone that the Brits need no longer feel inferior to their Australian and American counterparts. If a gloriously unaffected Corsa-driving teenager from Nottinghamshire can conquer the world, it would seem that times really are changing. "It's been brilliant across the board," insists the team's flag-bearer Mark Foster, pointing out that, prior to Beijing, Britain had only been represented in four women's Olympic finals in 20 years. "We've moved on as a nation without a shadow of a doubt and there's still a couple more chances to go. I think Becky's got a good chance of winning a second gold. If she does they'll make her a Dame."For some, not least performance director Michael Scott, the broader picture is perhaps the most instructive. There have been 20 individual finals in the Water Cube prior to the weekend. British women have been involved in six out of a possible 10 and the men in four, a healthy ratio given the surge in Chinese standards and the strength of the European challenge. Robbie Renwick, Liam Tancock, Gemma Spofforth, Elizabeth Simmonds, Jemma Lowe, Hannah Miley and Caitlin McClatchey, still all aged 23 or under like Adlington, Jackson and Davies, reached individual finals and should be available if required in four years' time. The women's 4x200m relay failure was an embarrassing setback but Spofforth came within four-hundredths of a second of securing a bronze in the 100m backstroke and Simmonds, just 17, could yet medal in the 200m backstroke.

It is a far cry from the early days of the Bill Sweetenham era, the ultimate in no-pain no-gain reality checks. If Sweetenham rated British swimming in the slightest, he did a fine job of disguising his admiration. "I'm like a mosquito in a nudist colony," muttered the Australian in 2003, "I know what I want but I don't know where to start." Those reluctant to rise at 6am every day and submit to more intensive training regimes were pointedly directed towards the nearest highway.

Nor did it take Sweetenham long to start working on the national psyche. Gentle achievement and second-class ambition was no longer acceptable. "Just how hard do you want to win?" he hissed to his charges in the build-up to the 2003 European Championships. "Have you got a pet? Right, here's a gun. It's shoot the dog or win an Olympic medal, which one? Too late, the dog should've been dead by now." Even as Adlington was basking in her medal glory she referred to Sweetenham as "like my second Dad."

With the 10km open water events to follow next week, there could yet be even more reason to salute the gruff Aussie who resigned last September, claiming he had been given insufficient support following a complaint of bullying from which he was subsequently cleared. Foster, among others, stands by his belief that Sweetenham's blunt methods were not always appropriate but the case for the defence looks increasingly convincing. All that remains now is for someone to find Michael Phelps an English girlfriend and the future really will be rosy.