As the 2008 Beijing Olympics draw to a close, Australia's Chef de Mission John Coates has said he'll reflect on the Games with pride and satisfaction.
"I'll be very satisfied that the great majority of the athletes had the opportunity to compete at their best and they did so," Coates said on Sunday.
"And I have immense pride in the outstanding performances of these athletes."
The 2008 team of 435 athletes won 46 medals in 14 sports comprising 14 gold, 15 silver and 17 bronze - and there were 11 fourth-placings.
Australia was sixth on the gold medal table and fifth for total medals.
"We certainly performed to where all the indicators said we should perform," said Coates.
"This team is the equal of the previous teams - it has proved to be that."
"We surpassed our Atlanta performance of 41 medals and for an 'away' team it was second only to the performance in Athens where we had 49 medals."
Coates noted that Australia finished third behind the U.S. and China in terms of the total number of medallists in Beijing.
"This is a very important statistic and team sports are obviously the reason why," he said.
"We medalled in the four team sports (women's basketball, softball, men's hockey and women's water polo) we thought we would."
"Team sports are an important part of Australian sporting culture and sporting life and I hope that we don't ever get to a stage where they're not the recipients of appropriate funding."
Asked how China rated as an Olympic host, Coates said there were issues with the ticketing and transport, and the atmosphere was lacking at times, but the infrastructure and support in Beijing was 'up there with the best' and the venues were 'outstanding'.
"A legacy of these games is that Australians … must have a better understanding of China," Coates said.
"There would have been a lot of perceptions that have been blown away by what they've seen and similarly the volunteers that we've dealt with, they must understand more about people from other nations."
"We haven't had anyone who's wanted to dabble in human rights protests - it might happen tonight - but they've had their opportunity."
Coates said it was significant that despite the intense pre-Games focus on Beijing's smog, not one Australian athlete required treatment for respiratory problems, and he was thankful that none of them had gone AWOL or committed misdemeanours.
He singled out a number of athletes for special mention including veteran oarsman James Tomkins, cyclist Anna Meares, triathlon gold medallist Emma Snowsill, yachtie Elise Rechichi and new Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker.
But Coates said that for him, Matthew Mitcham's gold medal dive - the highest-scoring dive in Olympic history - which denied China a clean-sweep of the diving gold medals was 'clearly the emotional highlight' of the Beijing Games.
So now it's on to London in 2012 where, according to Coates, Australia will be aiming to finish ahead of the hosts.
"We were concerned given our performance in Seoul (in 1988) about the cultural difference of competing here - we knew the heat and humidity and pollution were going to be a big issue," he said.
"We are used to competing in Great Britain … so I don't have any fears about Great Britain as we did here."
"Good planning is going to be required, but we're not out there in the unknown."