FOR much of the London World Championships, UK Athletics performance staff were on the back foot, constantly reminded of Britain's lowly medal ranking: only Mo Farah's 10,000 metres gold until the final weekend.

Four relay medals on the last two days and Farah's 5000m silver improbably matched the target set. Last year's Rio Olympics delivered seven athletics medals – the first time there had been more than six since 1988. The UK average for all 16 editions of the World event is 6.125 medals, and fewer than five over the past 13.

Yet London 2017 was dismissed by critics who demanded coaches be sacked. They chose to ignore what we show here was a record performance. There is an obsession with global championship results at UK Sport who have made medals the benchmark by which performance is judged and £27m funding is disbursed. It's a prism which distorts their focus and reflects a lack of joined-up Government thinking which fails to acknowledge sport's proven ability to beneficially impact on social and health issues.

Scratch beneath the obvious, however, and you find Britain has never done better at a World Athletics Championships.

Medal tables alone tell a superficial, simplistic story. The statisticians' points table is less sexy, but is a more accurate barometer. It awards eight points for first in finals, down to one point for eighth. Three gold medals won by a single athlete would ensure a high medal-table ranking - but hide the fact that the country might have no other finalist. Three golds count as 24 points, but with no other finalists, 24 points would have rated just 17th in London where three golds helped South Africa finish third on the medal table, but tenth on the points table.

Two gold, three silver, and a bronze, ranked Britain sixth on the medal table – second European nation, two places behind France. However, the points table put Britain third overall, with a record 105 points and a record 25 finalists achieving top-eight. It's only the second time since 1993 that Britain had exceeded 90 points.

Britain's nadir was 2005 in Helsinki where only seven athletes reached finals, and we placed twelfth overall and sixth in Europe. Paula Radcliffe's marathon gold buried her Olympic demons of a year earlier, but was Britain's solitary individual medal.

Only table-topping USA put more athletes in finals than the London hosts. Five golds by Kenya helped them into second, yet they had fewer finalists than GB. France drop back to eighth (68) on the points table - just fourth European nation.

We have analysed the championships from the start in 1983. Data of the past 20 years is shown. Never before had Britain placed higher than fourth on the points table, and never until now have they ranked No.1 in Europe. Russia's exclusion, of course, contributed to this, and two years ago in Beijing it helped the UK place second in Europe for the first time. In London, GB overtook Germany whom they had never beaten.

Britain is bucking a trend, improving as the rest of Europe founders. At the inaugural championships, nine of the top 10 nations on the points table were European. In London there were just four. With 208 nations in membership of the world athletics body, competition is now genuinely pan-global. In London, 27 different nations claimed gold, and 43 won medals.

With five fourth-placed finishes – two by Scots, and two relay medals from Scots – Britain was denied a record medal haul by the tiniest margin. It's one which UK Sport is too myopic to see, but athletics can look to the future with confidence.

But was it vintage? No. The most eagerly-anticipated event, Usain Bolt's valedictory 100m, was won in the slowest time since 2003. The weather helped ensure there was just one championship record and no world one. Yet outstandingly close competition was proved by just 0.38 of a second covering the first four in the women's 1500m, and the leading four in the women's long jump were all within six centimetres – half a cigarette.

Having defended Britain's record, I believe, however, that we could do better if we stop relying so heavily on imported coaches. This is to the detriment of British coach development. It's not as if home-based coaches can't cut the mustard. Twelve of the record 16 Scots in the team have UK coaches, including those who made the biggest impact: relay silver medallists Eilidh Doyle and Zoey Clark have Scottish coaches; so has Laura Muir, Britain's highest world-ranked athlete last year and Scottish record-breaker in London. The Glasgow student finished fourth, while the other fourth-placer, marathon man Callum Hawkins, is coached in Kilbarchan by his dad. Eilish McColgan is coached by her mum, and is within less than a second of Liz's best time. Andrew Butchart, eighth in the 5000m, first European-born finisher, is also coached in Scotland.

It is largely domestic UK – and Scottish-based – coaches who have driven the Scottish athletics revival. That should perhaps inform UK coaching policy.