Triple gold medal winner Chris Hoy called for continued backing for elite athletes, but also facilities for the nation as a whole.

He said: “We need support not just at an elite level but also facilities to encourage youngsters to take up sport, not just for the Olympics but for the general well-being of the nation.”

Team-mate Rebecca Adlington, who won two gold medals in Beijing, also called on the Government to continue its support for British sport.

She said: “This team has performed so well. It has inspired a lot of youngsters to get into sport and I think just carry on what we’re doing and get behind us.”

The Scottish National Party and actor Sean Connery have called for Scotland to have its own Olympic team, but Hoy said the focus should now be on Britain.

He said he is equally proud to be a Scot and British and that the two are not “mutually exclusive”.

Hoy was selected to parade the British flag as part of the closing ceremony in Beijing.

The champion cyclist, who became the first British athlete to win three gold medals in the same Olympic Games for 100 years, said: “It was crazy. Meeting David Beckham, Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, it was just an unbelievable night and it finished off what’s been an incredible two weeks for me and the rest of the team.”

Adlington was also surprised to learn Yates’ Bar in her home town of Mansfield is to be renamed The Adlington Arms.

She said: “I just feel proud to come from there let alone have something named after me.”

Cyclist Nicole Cooke who became the second-ever Welsh woman to win a gold Olympic medal will take part in an open top bus tour in her home country today.

She said: “I’m very excited to be going home. I haven’t seen my family and I’m really looking forward to it. There’s a really good community spirit in the part of Wales I come from.”

Cooke added: ”It is the spirit that we had in the Olympic village that really pulled this all together. It was just such a great team and such a good atmosphere.”

She said that as she crossed the finish line she experience an “explosion of emotions” and was still letting it all sink in.

She said she hoped her own dedication to the sport would inspire other youngsters to take to their bikes and said that over all the long years of training it was “just enjoying it and that passion that drives you forward”.

“I would hope that this highlights road racing and hope that it inspires people,” Cooke said. “But if we really want people to understand the sport it is going to come from getting people riding to work and school and kids having cycling as part of their life.”

When Hoy was asked how he and Adlington would cope with their new found fame, he answered: “It’s still sinking in and we’re in quite a strange environment at the moment. When we get back it will be strange for a while, but it’s going to be exciting.

“It’s going to be fun, but then we’ve got to get back to it. My commitment is to my sport.”

Adlington agreed: “We’ve just got to get on with it and get down to more hard work.”

Rower Steve Williams described the feeling when his team crossed the finishing line for gold.

He said: “The first feeling when you cross the finishing line is absolute exhaustion because you’ve just given everything you’ve got, and then you just feel relief – which sounds pretty bland, but that’s all you can muster.”