By Ian Gordon, PA Sport, Paris

David Moorcroft has appealed to those writing off British athletics for a stay of execution, insisting: judge us after Athens.

Moorcroft, chief executive of UK Athletics, admitted the performance at the ninth World Championships which end in Paris on Sunday had been disappointing.

But the former 5,000metres world record holder believes the time for accountability is after next year's Games in Athens which he is confident will be far more successful.

"To be pressing any panic buttons now would be completely inappropriate," said Moorcroft. "If we don't do well in Athens then we would seriously have to look if what we are doing now is right.

"A bigger issue for us than the relatively low medal count here would be if we didn't think we had athletes that could win in Athens. That would be a major concern.

"The fact we have got about 15 athletes who could medal means there is a great deal of optimism about. We need to get them on the line fit and ready as we did in the Sydney Olympics."

Britain went into the final weekend with just Kelly Holmes' 800m silver and Darren Campbell's 100m bronze registering on the medal table in contrast to the heady days of last summer.

Then home athletes formed a procession to the podium winning 35 medals at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, including 12 gold, and 14 at the European Championships in Munich seven of them gold, little over a week later.

In Germany, Britain finished well ahead of Sweden, who managed five including two golds, in the medal count.

It is the Scandinavians though who can now sit back and look forward to a golden harvest over the next decade with the emergence of triple jumper Christian Ollson and heptathlete Carolina Kluft.

"Special talents come around once in a generation," said Britain's national performance director Max Jones.

"Sweden are fortunate in that they have got two or three special people like we had with the likes of Jonathan Edwards and Colin Jackson. For the next five to 10 years they will have a steady stream of medals coming through.

"Our championships are not over yet, but I always realised that for us to do well here we needed a full-strength team and beforehand there were eight people who were effected who were medal possibles or probables.

"On the old 50% formula that's three or four medals. Our lottery target for these championships was six medals and seven for Athens. I still think we are capable of having a good Olympics.

"If you judge us on last year we did a fabulous job, if you judge us on this year or Edmonton (2001 worlds) we haven't done a very good job.

"But judge us in 2004 because it's a four-year cycle and we are building towards Athens. Athens is the big one, the Olympics overshadows everything else."

Jones, aware his own position would be questioned as well as the £2.5million per year lottery funding if Britain falls short of the medal target, added: "We all know the rules of the game.

"The fund is for a four-year cycle and we are coming to the end of it and if you haven't produced then you have to go before the courts."