British Swimming statement on London 2012

Following our collective disappointment at not meeting our high expectations at these Olympic Games, we will be undertaking a thorough performance de-brief.

I have met with British Swimming Chief Executive David Sparkes this week to begin this process so we don't lose momentum as we implement the strategy for Rio.

In the Olympic cycle to London the British swimming team has achieved best ever results at world, Commonwealth and European level but in London we failed to continue this trend and we need to fully understand why.

I will lead a performance de-brief team that will include a member of the British Swimming board with vast experience of international and Olympic competition, Craig Hunter, as well as two independent appointments of high standing and regard to look at both our pool performance and our marathon swimming efforts.

No appointments have yet been made but dialogue to fill these appointments has begun.

In order that we can continue to improve as a swimming nation this will be done quickly but thoroughly with a view to completing by the end of October.

What we have seen this week within swimming is a major step forward for the sport with more nations than ever before making the podium, nine world records and 25 Olympic records being broken.

Within all of this Britain had more finalists than ever before with 23 in the pool but we were not able to convert the two fourth and six fifth places into medals and that is what we hope to better understand with the performance de-brief. We will also look at the fourth and fifth places we achieved in the open water events.