Michael Phelps took his Games tally to four gold and two bronze medals tonight and put into sharp perspective the parlous feats of Britain's swimming team on another night of Olympic farce.

The American teenager powered to his fourth gold in the Olympic pool in the 200metres individual medley 30 minutes after Britain's James Goddard had lost, then won, then lost what would have been Britain's second medal in the pool in the 200m backstroke.

It means Phelps has now won three more gold medals than Britain's entire team have won medals of any colour in the swimming pool at these Olympics.

You would have to be a master of spin of Alastair Campbell proportions to coat those achievements with anything but the thinnest of gloss.

The bronze won by Goddard's Stockport Metro team-mate Stephen Parry in the 200m butterfly is Britain's only success so far.

And while that is one better than at Sydney four years ago, it is scant reward for the big contract awarded to national performance director Bill Sweetenham.

Quite how an Olympic sport can get itself into the farce where it immediately disqualifies United States world record holder Aaron Peirsol for an apparent illegal turn, upgrades Goddard to bronze, then within minutes upholds the appeal of the Americans and downgrades Goddard is something for its administrators to ponder.

It is unfair on the athletes and confusing for the spectators, but how unedifying for Britain again to be lodging appeals, even if it became clear that Peirsol had taken his gold on a technicality only because of the incompetence of an official who had not proffered correct paperwork.

Does no-one accept defeat with grace any more?

Just as with the fiasco at the equestrianism the night before which gave Britain bronze, upgraded them to silver, downgraded them to bronze and is still subject to appeal, it brings little credibility on the sport.

Quite where it leaves British swimming, however, is anyone's guess.

Under Sweetenham, British swimmers won seven medals at the 2001 World Championships, 37 at the Commonwealth Games in 2002, and eight last year at the World Championships in Barcelona, including Britain's first individual world titles in 30 years.

After the trauma of Sydney 2000, when Britain's swimmers returned home without a single gong to show for their efforts, the success under Sweetenham had been hailed as a new dawn.

But for all the hard work, all the talk of discipline and structure under Sweetenham, there is a feeling that Britain's swimmers peaked at the Olympic trials six weeks ago, rather than at the Games themselves.

There is a still a chance of a medal for David Davies in the 1,500m, though with Australian Grant Hackett an overwhelming favourite it would almost certainly be of the minor variety.

Which is why, on the day Britain won their first gold medal at these Olympic Games via Shirley Robertson and her Yngling sailing crew, it left swim fans yearning for the days of Adrian Moorhouse, the last British swimmer to win gold back in 1988.

And Olympic enthusiasts yearning for genuine clear-cut sport rather than the drugs, disqualifications, appeals, counter-appeals and legal mumbo-jumbo which have dominated the past week.