Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier 'on path to more success'

Badminton bosses believe they have hit on the right formula to deliver Olympic success after Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier won World Championships silver.

"I'm not getting too carried away - this is one tournament, we've really got our feet on the ground," said Badminton England chief Adrian Christy.

"We know what we're doing with them - it's more of the same.

"And let's hope these guys can deliver more of the same as well. I'm really confident they can."

Christy continued: "We've got 14 more tournaments until Olympic qualification finishes and we'll make sure they are best-prepared for every tournament they go into."

The Anglo-Scottish pair reached the mixed doubles final as the only Britons to escape the early rounds at Wembley.

And Christy, whose organisation oversees the development of the whole British team towards the Olympics, believes that performance makes up for disappointments elsewhere.

"We had probably the youngest squad we've ever had coming into a Worlds," he continued.

"We're not going to turn these guys into world champions overnight but we've come close this week to doing that. An absolutely superb week."

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS FACTS

• British badminton players have won medals at two of the last eight World Championships
• By far their most successful in that time was 2006, where English players won mixed doubles gold and silver alongside men's doubles silver in Madrid
• But Adcock and Bankier's silver this year was Britain's first senior world medal since then
• China has won all five gold medals at each of the past two World Championships

Adcock, 22 from Nottingham, and 23-year-old Glaswegian Bankier only came together as a partnership in the last 12 months.

Their run to the final, after mixed doubles colleagues Nathan Robertson and Jenny Wallwork fell in the second round on Tuesday, proved a surprising fillip for British interests.

But Christy insisted he was not disappointed by Robertson - who cryptically tweeted "average treatment gets an average outcome" following his defeat - and Wallwork.

He said: "Nathan and Jenny came into the tournament as the number eight pair in the world, so they're not far off the top, are they?

"They didn't have a good week and they'll be disappointed, but Nathan is a world-class professional and Jenny has come on an awful lot.

"These guys can't peak at every event and we're not expecting them to. I'm not going to stand here and be in judgement of them. They are a world-class pair."

Christy blamed Rajiv Ouseph's draw for the promising singles player's similarly early exit.

Ouseph, who turns 25 at the end of the month, lost to number-three seed Peter Gade of Denmark.

"It's difficult to peak at a world-level event when you're drawn against one of the best in the world," said Christy.

"Look at the experience Peter Gade has had. He's 34, this is probably his last Worlds. Rajiv's probably got three Olympic Games and another 10 World Championships in him."