World Championships 2017: Richard Bowker sees 'fantastic crop' of GB talent

Great Britain celebrated gold in the men's and silver in the women's 4x100m relay at the World Championships

British athletics is in a "good place" with a "fantastic crop of talent", the new UK Athletics chair Richard Bowker told BBC Sport.

GB had a target of six to eight medals for the World Championships in London.

They brought their total up to six on Sunday, including a gold and silver from double Olympic champion Mo Farah, who is retiring this summer.

"I've always felt that this was a transitional phase," said Bowker, who will succeed Ed Warner later this year.

"The real issue is have we got the underlying talent to take us into the next great age of British athletics? I think what people have seen this week is that we absolutely have.

"We've got a fantastically rich crop of young talent. We feel we're in a good place."

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As well as Farah's gold in the 10,000m and silver in the 5,000m, Britain collected gold in the men's and silver in the women's 4x100m relays, and silver and bronze in the women's and men's 4x400m relays.

But the team have also had to settle for five fourth-place finishes at the London Stadium.

"We've had some sensational performances from young and upcoming athletes who are just demonstrating that they're getting into great shape, where Tokyo is our real focus," added Bowker.

"We think we've got a team which is really going to be in a fantastic position to be competitive and deliver then."

Toni Minichiello, who coached former Olympic and world champion Jessica Ennis-Hill, has voiced his concerns about the legacy left by Warner, who was in charge of UK Athletics for 11 years.

Minichiello said Bowker had "three years to save the sport" and that coaching should be his top priority.

In response, Bowker said: "I don't quite see the world he describes because when you look at the coaches we do have here, we have clearly got some absolutely brilliant British coaches.

"We talk about five fourth-placed athletes, 80% of those have British coaches.

"We've got to be flexible and have a system that responds to athlete needs, but if there are things that we can learn and look at then we should do that."