CHRIS HOY has won a hat-trick of titles in Beijing, Bradley Wiggins won two golds out of the three he was chasing and Victoria Pendleton and Rebecca Romero are the fastest female track cyclists in the world.

Add to that Nicole Cooke's success at becoming the first of her compatriots to win a medal of any colour in cycling's road racing and the fact Mark Cavendish – who became the first Briton to win four stages of the Tour de France earlier this summer – was the only member of Great Britain's track cycling team not to win a medal in Beijing, and you could safely say this has been a successful Games for our boys and girls on bikes.

Of the 16 gold medals Great Britain has won in what is now the country's most successful Olympics since 1920, eight have been won by the team's cyclists at the Laoshan Velodrome and out on the roads of Beijing. The cyclists have won seven golds out of 10 available on track and have claimed 14 cycling medals so far. Hoy completed his hat-trick in the men's sprint yesterday, beating Jason Kenny in the final, and Pendleton rode to victory in the women's equivalent.

So why has Great Britain achieved so much in the cycling disciplines in these Games?

What do we have that has made our cyclists the most successful in the world?

And how can other sports catch up to ensure it is not only on two wheels that we dominate in four years time when the Olympic Games hit London?

One of the men behind developing British cycling's model for success is two-time Olympian Simon Lillistone.

Now serving as the organisation's marketing director, Lillistone is reticent to encourage other sports to follow wheel for wheel in cycling's trailblazing tracks, but acknowledges the blueprint they adopted over a decade ago is now reaching its full potential.

Lottery funding has created a base for all the cyclists in the Manchester Velodrome and a team of dedicated and experienced coaches headed by performance director Dave Brailsford, provide a training cocoon for the Team GB cyclists to hone their skills and set their minds on winning medals.

"Great British cycling is a centralised programme in terms of coaches learning from each other and creating an environment of elite performance," explained Lillistone, who competed in the team pursuit in Seoul in 1988 and in the points race in Barcelona four years later.

"Since lottery funding came on board that programme has evolved. We had success in Sydney with Jason Queally and then again in Athens with two gold medals.

"What has really been evident this time in Beijing is the success of our junior development programme. We work with kids from 14 years old.

"Jason Kenny (gold and silver in Beijing) is the perfect example of that talent identification in practice."

For both strands of the programme, from talent scouting to the development of the elite cyclists, the Lottery funding has been the catalyst for British cycling to expand. All other Olympic sports like rowing, sailing and boxing, get funding through the central body which is now known as UK Sport, but as British cycling's marketing director Simon Lillistone explains, the finances have to be used wisely to turn potential into Olympic glory.

"The funding that comes from UK Sport is targeted around different areas, mainly talent identification and elite athletes.

"But it's what you do with that money that matters.

"We brought experts in the field in to help with training, and it's only fair to say Dave Brailsford has been absolutely critical to where we have got to."

Chirs Boardman, individual pursuit Olympic champion in Barcelona, said at the weekend that the cycling team's success was brought about by the ruthlessness of the selectors, compared to the GB athletics team who had a number of injured competitors like Paula Radcliffe and Middlesbrough's Chris Tomlinson.

The GB rowing and sailing teams have enjoyed their fair share of success in Beijing and along with cycling have established themselves in the first three Games of this century as the leading Olympic sports in Britain.

Aside from the exploits of team captain David Price and Tony Jeffries, who are already assured medals in the ring, British amatuer boxing has suffered something of a PR disaster in Beijing.

The star of the team Frankie Gavin was withdrawn on the eve of the Games after failing to make the weight and Bradley Saunders said he was 'relieved' to be going home after a second round defeat, despite the sport benefitting as much as cycling from Lottery funding.

But despite the phenomenal success the cycling team has enjoyed in Beijing – they also won half of the 18 gold medals available in the World Track Championships in Manchester in March – Lillistone believes the cycling blueprint should be referred to and not directly copied.

"It's not cycling's place to tell other sports how to do it," he said. "Every sport is different and faces different challenges. Our model wouldn't necessarily benefit other sports.

"What British cycling has achieved in Beijing is fantastic and if other sports can learn from that then that would be great."