“Bearing in mind that the majority of potential Olympic competitors’ boats are now owned and maintained by their Olympics, could it not be that the £6 million allocated yearly to British Olympic Yachting until the next Games is a sum too great and one not easily and sensibly spent?” he said.

 

Pattison, an Olympic champion in 1968 and 1972 and silver medallist in 1976, made his claim in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, published today.

 

“For example, consider at this stage the size of the GBR recently sent to a second-grade regatta in Majorca,” he wrote. “It consisted of an army of 52 bots, 13 RIBS, seven team vans, 75 sailors and 25 official support staff.”

 

Great Britain is the world’s top Olympic sailing nation, having topped the medal table at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. It has a reputation as the most meticulously prepared sailing team in the world, largely funded by funding it receives from the National Lottery.

 

In the recent announcement of funding each sport will receive during the build-up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing they were given £17.2 million.

 

“Clearly, long gone are the days when Olympic aspirants slept in their own tents cooking their own medals rather than staying in luxury hotels, double-trailed their dinghies (in those days logo free) with other fellow competitors and often car-topped them,” wrote Pattison. “All necessary to save on campaign costs – yet a fair number of Olympic medals still materialised.

 

“I hope this isn’t the start of a policy of needlessly splashing out money, if only to justify this huge sum and to spend it all. In view of those excesses, it is essential that this money is properly and fully accounted for and by a non-affiliated company