大象传媒

There are just not enough words to describe the emotions that I have experienced during the .

There have been highs and lows, some phenomenal performances and lots of tears (happiness, frustration, anger, and more happiness), and that has just been in the , let along anywhere else.

David Weir did a great job on the track on the final night of action, , and overall it was the best night of athletics for the team.

David came into the Games with Britain's best chance of winning athletics gold medals and a lot was expected of him.

He had a shaky start with and but he came through in the end and he should be happy with his Games.

There have been tons of world records across the programme, packed houses (when there were only 75,000 in for the first rounds we were disappointed) and of course the protests in the wheelchair races involving both and also , but I think that we got the right result in the end with those, although not without lots of pain.

So, the GB athletics team didn't deliver the number of medals that was predicted, but the world has changed so much in the last four years, and in Athens there were barely any Chinese athletes competing.

To equal that medal count of 17 this time around was pretty good in the end, because it is a much tougher world than it has ever been. A total of 54 nations won medals in athletics, including the likes of , Venezuela and Pakistan, compared to 34 nations winning medals in swimming, and Tunisia finished 6th on the athletics medals table.

British athletes here have found out on the biggest stage how the world is moving on, and when they go home they need to decide whether they are going to try to aim higher, or leave it to others to take on that mantle.

There is not just one answer to the problems facing the sport, and some of those won't be found here. Targets are harsh (they are just a prediction at a moment in time), but that is the way of the world in sport these days, and you do need them. If they help move things for the sport then it is good.

For all those who are sitting reading this, muttering it is ok for me to say all this now I am now longer competing, I recognise I play a part in it too.

When I retired I accepted a place on the board and am now part of the decision-making processes that needs to gear up for the future.

There have been some big changes in UKA in the past year, and also more recently. But it is not just about what UKA does. As is true in all disability sports, there are a number of organisations who play their part in delivering athletes into the sport.

Then you have the separate question of how they are managed. But at this point, more than ever before, those organisations need to come together. There may be some tough decisions ahead but this is the time to make them.

There is the question of whether there should have been more done to change the coaching and performance structures before coming to the Games, and we will never know the answer to that.

What I do know is that we are in a better position than ever before to properly review not just the performance programme, but to look at all of the sport from grass roots upwards.

There are many things to look at, but now it feels like there is a will to do that, especially with approaching, which will be a key moment for all Paralympic sports.

Athletics at all levels needs to make the most of this opportunity, because that is what I believe this is, and put its best foot forward.

The sport may have taken a bit of a bashing this week, but I think it will only make it stronger.