While many of us throughout the UK gathered around bonfires to celebrate Guy Fawkes this past weekend, Great Britain's rowers were busy producing fireworks of their own at the World Championships on Lake Karapiro in New Zealand.

The achievement of four gold, four silver and one bronze medal, won in nine of the 14 Olympic classes, saw GB top the medal table and is Britain's best ever medal haul from a World Championships.

No less than 34 British rowers will return to the UK as World Championship medallists - a fantastic achievement and a huge boost to the athletes, with less than two years until the greatest sporting show on earth hits Dorney Lake in 2012.

Among the many outstanding performances, it was excellent to see our women rowers win two gold medals for the first time, led by the irrepressible Katherine Grainger (pictured below left) who claimed her fifth World title in the pair. It was also impressive and a remarkable feat that 38-year-old Greg Searle won his first World Championship medal since 1997.

What a story it would be if Katherine, three times an Olympic silver medallist and a member of the British Olympic Association (BOA) Athletes' Commission, is able to achieve that elusive Olympic gold in 2012; and if Greg is able to replicate his Olympic medal winning feat 20 years on from Barcelona 1992, when he first stood on top of the Olympic podium.



Greg and Katherine are examples of what can be achieved with the commitment, dedication and sheer desire to be the best that you can be, combined with the unique attraction of competing at an Olympic Games on home water.

These results serve as another demonstration of what is possible when you bring together a well managed and well funded National Governing Body, with a world class high-performance plan and coaches together with talented, determined athletes.

Last weekend also saw the first edition of track cycling's European Championships in Poland, where GB cyclists claimed seven medals, including three golds.

Jason Kenny was one of the stars for GB, completing a hat-trick of podium finishes with gold in the keirin and bronze in both the individual and team sprint. This represents a solid start to the London 2012 qualification campaign. It's a long road, and it's all about peaking at the right time, but it was also important to start well.

British Cycling Performance Director Dave Brailsford spent the beginning of last week at the 2012 Team Leaders summit we hosted at Loughborough University. During the meeting we shared our blueprint for Team GB success in 2012 and discussed the high performance, operations and logistics plans to support Team GB prior to, and during, the London Olympics.

One of the greatest outcomes of the meeting was the spirit of cooperation and collaboration among all the sports, and the willingness of consistently successful Olympic sports such as cycling, sailing and rowing to share their knowledge, best practice and Olympic experience with the sports in the room who are new to the Olympic environment, for the wider benefit of the single, unified Team GB in London in 2012.

For their part, the Team Leaders expressed their support and confidence in our planning and preparation for 2012 and welcomed our collective determination to challenge the status quo. They were particularly pleased with the introduction of the newly created Sports Engagement Managers, who will act as the first point of contact between the BOA and sports.

A busy week for the BOA continued with a meeting of the Advisory Board, followed by a National Olympic Committee meeting (NOC) on Wednesday, which was attended by Hugh Robertson, Minister for Sport and Olympics, who updated NOC members on the comprehensive spending review and implications for elite sport in the run up to London 2012 and shared his vision for the future sporting landscape post 2012.

Yesterday the BOA's headquarters in Charlotte Street were host to the second meeting of the BOA Athletes' Commission. Sarah Winckless and her colleagues, who among  them can draw upon the combined experience from 33 summer and winter Olympic Games, debated how best to optimise engagement with and dissemination of information to athletes and followed on from the Team Leaders discussion of topics such as social media guidance.

On the sporting front, Liverpool will this weekend host a landmark occasion for GB boxing as the first GB Amateur Boxing Championships begin, and the women's titles will be contested at the same Championships as the men. Britain boasts exciting talent across both genders so competition is expected to be intense in the fight for a place on Team GB in 2012.

Andy Hunt is the chief executive of the British Olympic Association and Team GB Chef de Mission for London 2012