The cost to train winners

A

s our Olympic heroes flew home to the UK – in a jet with a gold-coloured nose – to a rapturous welcome, thoughts turned to the enormous investment required to train winners on the world stage.

Plans to emulate this success, or do even better, in Japan next time will be already underway. Investment of another kind was also probably on the minds of some of our brightest stars: commercial sponsors will be lining up with untold riches to promote their products.

There are risks for the unwary or unwise, of course: just look at US swimming star Ryan Lochte, whose shenanigans in Rio saw him being stripped of his lucrative sponsorship deals faster than an Olympic record.