The warning came after UK Sport allocated £246.8 million to governing bodies to help them prepare for London 2012.

Australian sports said that they needed more than A$213 million (£93.5 million) currently targeted for the elite athletes through the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) if they were not to fall even further behind Britain.

Britain finished ahead of Australia in the Olympic medals table in Beijing for the first time in 20 years.

Rowing Australia chief executive Andrew Dee said: "We have to decide upfront whether as a nation we want to be successful.

"You can't join the space race with a hang-glider.

"If you say you are going to space, you need a spaceship.

"If you want to be successful, you can't then spread the funding too thinly.

"We need a quantum leap forward."

The Australian Government is currently conducting a funding review is under way, which is due to report in May 2009.

Swimming Australia chief executive Kevin Neil was another to warn that they would struggle to compete with their rivals in Britain.

British Swimming was one of the biggest winners in the latest funding announcement, receiving £25.6 million - a raise of £5 million.

Neil said: "That is four times what we get.

"Our revenue for the last four years has stayed the same and our costs have continued to go up.

"With so much overseas travel and the dramatic change in the dollar, whether we can continue to send the same-size teams to international competitions will need to be decided."

UK Athletics received a cut of £1.5 million but will still get £25.1 million to prepare for London 2012.

Athletics Australia chief executive Danny Corcoran said the British athletics team would have more than triple the funding available to Australian athletics.

He said: "It's a monster, a huge gap.

"The UK team were amazed by what Australia was able to do in Beijing with our resources, and it is now getting worse.

"Competition across the world is getting better.

"For us to try and compete against not only the UK but many other countries spending more than us, we can't continue to compete with our hands tied behind our back.

Dee said his rowing team, which receives A$4.5 million (£1.9 million) a year for elite programmes, was being massively outspent.

He said: "And they [Britain] don't have the overheads that we do with travelling.

"We spend A$2 million (£877,000) each year just getting to Europe to compete."

Dee said elite sports funding had plateaued since the Sydney 2000 Games.

He said: "We've been able to perform as well as we have in recent Games off the back of that funding for 2000.

"But a little in Athens [2004] and then more in this last Games, we are seeing those athletes we developed during that period are just about over."

Britain won six rowing medals in Beijing; Australia finished second on the rowing medal tally with three, two of them gold.

Cycling Australia president Mike Victor said the British team's funding was a serious warning.

British Cycling is to receive £26.9 million for London 2012.

Victor said: "We'd love to have some of the things they have and be able to run things like a professional road team.

"But we just can't at the moment."