By Simon Stone, PA Chief Sports Reporter

Triple gold medalist Matthew Pinsent has called for lottery funding to be increased following Great Britain's unprecedented success in the Sydney Olympics.

The mighty oarsman teamed up with Steve Redgrave for the third successive Games to capture gold in the coxless fours, alongside James Cracknell and Tim Foster.

Even though his sport is still not considered one of the most fashionable on the Olympic circuit, such has been Pinsent's success in recent years that he has been able to eke out a comfortable living as a professional sportsman.

Many of his British team-mates are not so lucky and the men's eight which also won gold in the blue riband event at the rowing regatta rely heavily on the National Lottery for funding which allows them time in which to train rather than just fitting it into a spare slot in the schedule.

Although direct funding through Sport England and UK Sport is in its infancy, its effects have already been seen.

After winning a paltry single gold medal in Atlanta four years ago, the 11 captured this time round is the highest total since the Antwerp Games of 1920.

"Never again should we send a team to the Olympic Games with one arm tied behind their backs as we did in Atlanta," said Pinsent.

"It doesn't matter whether the money comes from the National Lottery, the British Olympic Association or direct sponsorship, it has to be found.

"Some of us are fortunate to make our living from sport but others are not so lucky.

"We were a bit worried that our funding was going to be cut and if in six months' time that proves to be the case then we can say goodbye to any more success in Athens.

"Hopefully this message is now getting through because after all, the successful sports which have returned to Britain after such good performances deserve to have their funding increased, not decreased."

Last week Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the Labour Government would pledge an extra £750million to school sport over the next three years.

This money would allow Sport England and UK Sport, the organisations responsible for distributing cash at both elite and grass-roots level, to free up more National Lottery cash for the higher performers.

Sport England are pledged to hold formal meetings with various sporting bodies over the next few weeks to discuss their relative success and failures and put forward a plan for the next four years which cover the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and the Athens Olympics two years later.

Having entered the Sydney Games holding private fears about the number of medals which would be won, officials remain confident that further improvement can be made, most notably in sports such as swimming which failed to collect a single medal.

However, Pinsent believes hand-outs should not be based merely on the number of medals won. He claims there are other factors which make distribution a more complicated issue.

"It would be crass to say 'you won so many medals, here is your cash'," he said.

"Each sport has to go back and figure out what they did well and what they did badly.

"Some sports need facilities, some need coaches and some athletes just need private funding. You can't just use a very broad scale to assess how much everyone should receive."

Despite all the accolades which have been handed out to the British squad, it remains a harsh reality that 10th in the medal table is still not a good enough performance for a country of Britain's supposed stature.

France, Germany, Italy and Australia all finished higher in the medals table, behind the obvious superpowers of the United States, Russia and China.

Pinsent believes consultation with rival countries is vital in pursuit of further progress.

"France has a similar sized population to us, so why are they higher in the medal table," he said.

"The challenge now is to find out what they are doing and what we can learn from them.

"What we have achieved over the last two weeks is fantastic but we have to be looking at lifting ourselves into single figures on the medals table."