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Worple Way is an unlikely place to find the British Olympic team's latest recruits: it's a back street in the London suburb of Richmond, boasting no more than a couple of pubs and some nice floral arrangements.

But then, the recruits themselves are pretty unlikely. A toy inventor and a part-time tree surgeon have been given the green light to take some of Britain's Olympic hopefuls to the next level.

Along with two friends, they have won a competition run by funding body to find technical innovations that can gain Britons the edge over their rivals at the London Games in 2012. And they won it by sitting in the pub.

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On the face of it, travelling to the in Hungary without the proper preparation and is a triumph for Great Britain's swimmers.

Having in Delhi, the entire team arrived in Budapest without having undergone the process known as , in which athletes scale down the intensity of their training to ready themselves for big events.

Their subsequent results are a success story - GB's six gold medals equalled the combined gold haul in the previous six European Championships, dating back to 1999.

But they don't mean all is now perfect for British swimming. Two years ahead of London 2012, both the swimmers and their coaching staff have plenty of work to do to maximise their medal potential at the Olympic Games.

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