Martin Lipton, Deputy Head of Sports Content for The Sun, on why Britain remains a sporting nation against all odds.

Nice guys, they say, don't come first. In sport, perhaps, that is truer than anywhere else.

Dreams of glory are hard to make reality.

It is not just about having the talent, although that is the first requirement.

If you don't have the opportunity, the facilities and the platform, the odds are hugely against.

But without the killer instinct, the ability to sense an opponents' weakness and brutally take advantage and go for the jugular, it's simply not going to happen.

And it seems that is that lack of the cold hard edge that still underpins sportsmen from the rest of the world which means many of our best are destined to fall short of their own aspirations.

In the past, when sportsmen and women were drawn from either the ranks of the aristocracy, where the sports field was seen as a variation on the battlefield, or the working class communities where it was a way out of grinding poverty, the focus was there.

Generations shaped by two global wars were also determined to play hard, too. They knew that peace could be transitory, rather than the norm.

There wasn't too much else to do, either. Kids who played football in the streets could hone their skills in such unpromising conditions as an alternative to helping with the household chores.

Now, unquestionably, things are different. Poverty on that scale has, in the main, been eradicated. Virtually every home has multi-channel television, a games system, various other entertainment options.

Schools, where interest in sport used to be fermented, no longer have the time, or, far too frequently, the pitches or staff, to undertake the basics now.

The weather doesn't help, either. From October to March, it is either raining, or about to rain. Dark at 5pm. Cold, windy, miserable - before the occasional deep freeze.

Cape Town and Melbourne are often warmer in their winter than we are in our summer. The climates of many countries encourages a more active life.

Then again, maybe the biggest problem with British sport is that we spread ourselves too thinly.

Admittedly, we invented most of the major sports, or at least codified them. And so, with the exception of the likes of baseball, volleyball and water polo, we try to be the best.

Occasionally, rarely, we do succeed, although the fact that we remember 1966, 2003 and 2005 (when England finally won back the Ashes after 18 years of misery) as stand-outs shows how unusual it is for the team sports to get it right on the biggest stage.

Even near-misses, 1990, 1996, the women's World Cup this summer, are celebrated. In Germany, runners-up are viewed as squads that have under-performed.

It is, perhaps, no surprise that British sporting success has been frequently about individuals rather than teams.

Even this summer, Chris Froome's Tour de France victory was a triumph of the personal spirit - although many might also point out the Kenyan-born cyclist is "British" by choice as much as birth - as much as the Team Sky colleagues who propelled him up the mountains.

Would Mo Farah have been the athlete he is had he been born in St Austell, rather than Somalia?

Nevertheless, we hailed them both. Just as we have relished the successes of Coe, Ovett, Thompson, Redgrave, Pinsent, Adlington, Holmes and Ennis.

All proof that Brits can prosper and find glory despite the system, as much as because of it.

Perhaps we should accept our limitations and concentrate our resources accordingly.

Of course, money is part of it, but not everything.

After all, the Lawn Tennis Association has spent millions in recent years, rewritten the blueprint time and again, promised the search would be widened.

Only for the one stand-out performer, a true great, to be Andy Murray, who absented himself from the British system when he went to Barcelona to train at the age of 15.

Britain remains a sporting nation.

Just look at the crowds who flocked to every venue at London 2012, who ensured full-houses at the morning sessions of the Paralympics, who turn up to make the Championship, England's SECOND tier, the fourth most-watched league in Europe.

That will never change. Wouldn't it be great if we could win a bit more, though?