UK Athletics Olympics head coach Peter Eriksson hailed his first major championships in the job a "big success" after Great Britain brought home eight medals from the European Indoors in Gothenburg.
Eriksson, who took over from Charles van Commenee after London 2012, saw his young team win six medals, including three golds, to finish the three-day event with a flourish. It meant the new chief's era started with double the number of medals Van Commenee won in his first championships - the European Indoors in Turin in 2009 yielded just four.
The Swede, who was in charge of Great Britain's Paralympic athletes at London 2012, said: "I think this was a great eight medals."
He continued: "I think there were a lot of season's bests and personal bests for the team. All of the women made finals and it was only a few guys who didn't reach their finals so I think this was a big success for us. We selected a whole team to be potential finalists and that is important for us moving forward to get the medal count up.
"It's a championship so we need people to be in finals to get medals. When you get to this level you have got to step up to championship potential."
The eight-medal total was just short of the team's haul of nine from 2001 in Paris and only two off their best-ever total. Four golds was Britain's equal best number of that colour at a European Indoors since 1994 and put them second to Russia in the medal standings.
Eriksson added: "We said we wanted to do better (than in Paris). I think we did better as we had one more gold than last time."
Perri Shakes-Drayton, a 400m hurdles specialist, left Sweden with two titles to her name to go some way toward making up for the disappointment of missing out on the Olympic final, when injury cost her the chance of bidding for a medal in her home city.
The Londoner, who clocked a second personal best in two days of 50.85 seconds to win the individual title before anchoring a team also featuring Eilidh Child, Shana Cox and Christine Ohuruogu to relay victory, said: "With every disappointment I think you get stronger and that's the case with me."
The men's 4x400m team were made to sweat before their gold medal was confirmed after they were briefly disqualified, having crossed the line streets ahead. The quartet were disqualified while on their lap of honour because Richard Buck stepped off the track, but they were quickly reinstated as the York athlete was clearly impeded.
