THE last time Great Britain won more Olympic gold medals than Australia, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and the record-breaking swimmer Rebecca Adlington wasn't even born.

Since then Australia's dominance over us in the medals table, and many other sporting contests, has been emphatic. At least until now.

With just three days of competition left in Beijing, Britain's team has reached the dizzy heights of third in the medals table, behind China and the United States.

So even if we get overtaken by the Russians, who are breathing down our necks, the Games have been a phenomenal success for a nation usually more accustomed to being gallant losers than champions.

Yet not only is Britain's haul of 17 gold medals in Beijing the best for 100 years, we're also leading arch rivals Germany and Australia, with not a penalty shoot-out or Shane Warne in sight.

It seems, then, that our Olympic fortunes are enjoying the kind of renaissance not seen since the Medicis transformed Florence into the world's cultural epicentre. All right, that might be over-egging the pudding a tad, but there's no denying that
these Games have been an unparalleled triumph for Team GB, as we're now apparently called. Once the euphoria dies down it probably won't be long before we start getting radio phone-ins discussing the global decline in sporting standards which, cynics will argue, is the reason behind our success.

However, it seems that we aren't the only ones surprised by our sporting prowess. Down Under, our success, and Australia's largely disappointing performance, has been greeted with the kind of hysteria usually reserved for national disasters. The growing chorus of dismay was summed up earlier this week by the Sydney Morning Herald, which proclaimed the "Poms are winning, call an inquiry".

In particular, the failure of the Australian men's swimming team to win a single Olympic gold medal, for the first time since 1976, has left the nation in a state of shock. Britain's success in the water has only rubbed salt into the wound and led Australia's Olympic chief, John Coates, to quip that we'd done well "for a country that has very few swimming pools and not much soap".

Ben Carr, a PE teacher from Pontefract who has lived in Sydney for the last five years, says the reaction Down Under has changed as the Games have gone on. "Very little was said at the start as the Aussies were going quite well, but since we have come good in the cycling, athletics and sailing they have started to get more frustrated.

"The big question from a lot of the Aussies is why we compete as Great Britain and not as England, Scotland and Wales? Which is strange as they never questioned this when they used to beat us," he says.

"The other big story has been that we have taken a lot of their sports scientists and coaches and they are a bit cranky about that to stay the least. It's just the general Australian attitude that they hate losing to the Poms, plus the Australian press are never very complimentary."

There is undoubtedly an element of sour grapes here, but perhaps Australia has become a victim of its own success because in raising sporting standards it created a model that others have duly copied.

Leeds Rhinos' Australian-born winger Scott Donald reckons there will be plenty of soul-searching among his countrymen once the Games
are over.

"I think Australians are pretty disappointed with their Olympic campaign especially compared to 2000 when we did so well.

"But since then it's gone downhill and the government needs to have a good look at funding, because that's what Britain has done and their cyclists and rowers have helped push them up the medals table."

He says that while both countries love their sport, for Australians it runs a little bit deeper.

"It goes right back to when the convicts were shipped over and this feeling that we've always been seen as convicts. Which is why there's this desire, even now, to show that we've moved on as a country and that we're better than Britain.

"But it's good to see you guys finally doing well in something, you should enjoy your moment in the sun."

He has a point. In October, England's rugby league team heads Down Under for the World Cup and then next year the Ashes series returns to home soil, by which time normal service may well have been resumed.