After the Olympics: What now for sport funding?

Simon Clegg was jut-jawed and realistic.

Brushing the snow from his eyes on an Austrian mountainside, the then chief executive of the British Olympic Association played down the future medal chances of the young Brits we were watching hurtle down the slopes.

Unless the government provided more money, we were like a third world nation, he said.

That Winter Olympics cycle ended, in 2002, with just two medals at the Games in Salt Lake City.

Sixteen years on, public funding has indeed been pumped up - to more than £28m - and despite injuries to key competitors, the British haul from Pyeonchang is five - the best ever.

It matched the target set by UK Sport, which allocates cash for Olympic sports.

Two cheers at least, then?

It depends, as ever, on how you view it, and on those perennially devilish details.

To an extent, in keeping with the modern sporting world, you get what you pay for (there is a strong correlation in the Premier League, for instance, between the wages table and the clubs' actual finishing positions).

So skeleton, which receives more than any other winter sport, delivered three of those five medals, easily exceeding its target.

And TVs in plenty of homes and offices were indeed tuned to Lizzy Yarnold and her teammates hurling themselves head first down a dangerous ice chute - achieving gold for her and two bronzes.

There was, no doubt, a (brief) lift to the national mood.

However, all but the tiniest percentage of viewers will forget about it all for four more years.

And if you were inspired to go out and try it yourself, there is nowhere in the UK for you to do so.

Moreover, a look behind the overall "target met" headline reveals that every other sport bar one missed its UK Sport prediction.

The exception was ski and snowboard, which was set - and achieved - two medals. Good things are happening here.

When I sat down in November with British Ski and Snowboard's chief executive Dan Hunt, a calm and experienced sports boss, he wanted to talk less about Pyeonchang and more about his vision to make Britain a top five nation by 2030.

No snow? No problem. Billy Morgan, whose big air bronze was Britain's target-reaching fifth in Pyeonchang, learned snowboarding on a dry slope in Southampton.

And Hunt's team are hunting down athletes who don't quite make international standard in other sports like gymnastics, hoping to turn them into stars of the modern, "cool" acrobatic snow events.

Similarly, Yarnold is a converted heptathlete.

British winter sport is serious about being competitive, and has earned respect internationally. It can carry on doing so only if the money bags remain open.

A meeting next month will start UK Sport's funding review.

Ought skeleton, for instance, to continue receiving the multimillions while basketball (more accessible, more inclusive but lacking foreseeable medal potential) gets nothing at elite level?

Difficult questions, no easy answers.