A "culture of fear" was how the feeling inside British Cycling was described in an independent report that was released on Wednesday. The finding came as no surprise; in March, a draft of the report was leaked and revealed the damning criticism of the governing body that has, in the past, been hailed as the model to which all other sports should aspire. The draft of the report, which was commissioned following GB rider Jess Varnish’s claims last year that she had been subject to bullying and sexism, was scathing, reportedly accusing British Cycling’s board of being “dysfunctional”, “inept” and effectively covering up an internal investigation into Varnish’s complaints.

However, the final draft released earlier this week was significantly watered-down, with a number of the harshest accusations significantly diluted and with the most severe criticisms toned down. The report’s authors, including the chair of the review, British Rowing’s Annamarie Phelps, have denied that there has been any "whitewashing" of their final report and certainly, British Cycling still do not come out of it smelling of roses. The sport’s governing body remains accused of several failings in addition to the "culture of fear" finding including poor communication, allowing certain athletes to feel like "second-class citizens" and lack of development opportunities for staff. Yet the word bullying, which was used numerous times in the draft of the report, was removed entirely other than in reported speech in the final report.

In response, Liz Nicholl, the chief executive of UK Sport, which was criticised in the report for a lack of oversight of the British Cycling programme, said that: “Any suggestion that UK Sport is about a winning-at-all-costs approach is frankly disturbing and it's wrong. It never has been and it never will be.”

UK Sport need to give it a rest with this rhetoric. They can shout until they are blue in the face that medals are not the be-all-and-end-all but we all know fine well that they are. If silverware was not the only currency that mattered then why was British Cycling lauded unreservedly for so many years about the "medal factory" velodrome that existed in Manchester? And why was Dave Brailsford, who was knighted for overseeing the programme that made British Cycling the pre-eminent high-performance programme in the world, talked about like he could do absolutely no wrong?

We know that medals are all that matter because if World and, more importantly, Olympic medals are not forthcoming then even casual observers are aware that a sport will have its funding at best cut, at worst withdrawn entirely. It is not just cycling that has a problem in this country, though; in recent days, a senior British Bobsleigh coach has been accused of bullying their athletes and earlier this year, British Rowing was forced to conduct an internal inquiry into its coaching culture.

What is so startling in this entire episode though is how surprised people seem to be about how prevalent either bullying or, in the less extreme cases, harsh treatment of athletes is. It will come as no surprise to anyone involved in elite sport that succeeding at the highest level is at best tough, at worst brutal. And the evidence suggests that a friendly, cosy environment does not succeed.

Back in the early 2000s, British Swimming was in a fairly dire state. Bill Sweetenham, an abrasive Australian, was appointed as performance director at the national governing body and charged with resurrecting the sport in this country. His methods were pilloried and a number of high profile swimmers retired, at least in part due to their dislike for him and his training regimes. But a decade or so on, Sweetenham has been vindicated and GB is now one of the strongest nations in the pool.

Similarly, China’s dominance in badminton is down to a system that is brutal beyond belief – a survival of the fittest mentality is in place and like it or not, it works. The toughness of the eastern European gymnastics coaches was unacceptable yet it indisputably produced results while in South Korea, female golfers are subjected to a harder training programme than golfers anywhere else in the world and in turn, reap the rewards.

So while brutal treatment of athletes is not the only path to success, there can be no denying that it consistently produces results. The distaste towards sports which operate unimaginably tough training regimes is understandable but their pay-off is, almost without exception, incredible success. So then, is it any wonder that this is the route many go down when attempting to exert dominance?

There is, of course notable exceptions to this rule. Many, many coaches produce medal-winning athletes without a hint of bullying. But there are other coaches whose jobs depend on their athletes winning silverware who, rightly or wrongly, believe that there is no room for taking things easy for even a day. My feeling is that these bullying behaviours are not done out of badness, rather, such harsh treatment is dished out in the belief that it is the most effective way of ensuring that athletes fulfil their potential.

If success is the primary goal, the most tried-and-tested way to achieve it is to be ruthless. So let’s all accept that while medals remain the one and only priority, bullying of athletes will never be far away.