By David Martin, PA Sport, Sydney

Performance director Max Jones is hoping UK Athletics will be given more flexibility in spending lottery money for enhancing the sport.

After a marvellous Olympic Games where the track and field stars brought home two gold, two silver and two bronze medals, Jones is adamant that the impact of lottery funding has played an important part in the resurgence in British athletics.

Now Jones, who saw his young charges finish fourth overall behind the United States, Russia and Germany in the merit table based on the top eight finishers in each final, believes even greater feats lie ahead in future years.

But he wants more flexibility from UK Sport in how his team of coaches spend the £2million a year allocated which is spread across several areas from warm weather training camps to medical support.

Jones said: "At the moment we are governed by how we spend the money. We've done so well here, we should be allowed to spend it without having to go and ask permission to move it about.

"Sailing, racing, rowing and athletics have all produced the performances that they promised to do here and I think that will justify more faith being given in us to spend it in the areas we feel need improving most."

Jones admitted the glorious start to the Championships particularly with Denise Lewis and Jonathan Edwards capturing the heptathlon and triple jump gold medals had created an inspirational spirit in the team camp.

"Those couple of golds made a huge difference to everyone and we were hoping to sustain the performances in the second half of the programme," said Jones.

"We continued to do well and have to be happy with the 95 points we scored overall.

"What is significant is that the United States scored 185 points to head the table. In the past they have normally exceeded 200. That suggests the gap at world standard is levelling out.

"From our point of view we have advanced tremendously on what we achieved in last year's world championships where we scored 67 points."

Jones admitted the incessant pre-Games drugs testing may have played a significant part in equality of competitors. With random tests for EPO being undertaken for the first time he agreed that it was noticeable the winning marks particularly in the distance events were very ordinary.

Jones said: "Yes, it may have had an effect. Across the board most winning performances were quite ordinary. It would have been a brave athlete coming to Australia and not expecting to be drug tested. The programme was almost constant and a good deterrent."

Now in the next couple of weeks Jones will be sitting down with his team of directors to identify which athletes are likely medallists at next year's World Championships in Edmonton.

He said: "In world terms we're much stronger. The women in particular were much better than ever before, finishing fifth in their table.

"We have an elite athletes support group. We shall categorise likely medallists for next year and offer them the best support we can. It would be handy to have more money to spend on them," he said of the programme expected to assist a maximum of 12 possible medallists.

For Jones the highlights of the championships were the performances of Kelly Holmes and Jonathan Edwards. "For Kelly to come back and win an 800 metres bronze fully justified our decision in selecting her.

"Personally I was also delighted Jonathan won the triple jump in his last Olympics. He's head-and-shoulders ahead of anyone in that event. It would have been an injustice if he hadn't won the gold medal."

On the downside he admitted the disqualification of the 4x100 metres relay team for running out of its lane was a disappointment while he felt sympathy for Dean Macey, robbed of a decathlon medal in fourth place after winner Erki Nool was reinstated by the jury of appeal after what seemed a definite foul in the discus throw.

"I think Dean was robbed," said Jones. "I've watched the video a few times and I'm convinced it wasn't a valid throw."