The battle of Waterloo, it used to be said, was 'won on the playing fields of Eton'.

The remark was meant to indicate the crucial role of the English public school's muscular ethos in shaping the officer class of the British Army.

This was always an exaggeration for, in truth, much of the fighting at Waterloo was done by hard-bitten professional soldiers, many of them from Ireland and Scotland, while Wellington himself was a Dubliner.

Gold medallists who went to private school: Sailor Ben Ainslie (left) and cyclist Chris Hoy

Yet the maxim reflected the towering self-confidence of the privately educated ruling elite in Victorian Britain.

These days, of course, things should be very different.

We are supposed to be living in an age of egalitarianism and social mobility, where the divisions of class have evaporated and the concept of privilege through birth has disappeared.

But despite the huge changes since Victorian times, the public school system still exerts a disproportionate influence on many aspects of our society.

There is no better indicator of this than the performance of the British team in the Beijing Olympics.

Over the past weekend, our sailors, cyclists, swimmers and rowers won an unprecedented eight gold medals, by far the greatest haul by Britons in two days in a century of Olympic competition.

Expensive education: Yngling winner Sarah Webb went to a Catholic independent school

Apart from the astonishing magnitude of the achievement, what is also striking is the background of the golden Olympians.

Of the 14 heroes pictured on the front page of yesterday's Mail, six were educated at independent schools.

This group comprises: oarsmen Zac Purchase, schooled at King's Worcester, and Steve Williams, from Monkton Combe in Bath; sailor Ben Ainslie, educated at Truro School; cyclist Chris Hoy, a former pupil of George Watson's College in Edinburgh; and the Yngling winner Sarah Webb, who attended the Catholic independent girls' school St Maur's in Weybridge.

Now, some might think there is nothing particularly odd about the sizeable number of privately educated Olympians.

Yet while fewer than 10 per cent of all British schoolchildren go to fee-paying private schools, they accounted for more than 40 per cent of our weekend Olympic golds  -  a vastly disproportionate total.

Nor is this some statistical anomaly. The disproportionate Olympic success of privately educated contestants has been an enduring pattern in recent years.

One recent study found that 60 per cent of British medallists at the 2004 Olympics in Athens were educated at fee-paying establishments, an increase on the 58 per cent figure for the 2000 Olympics.

We will have to wait until the end of Beijing's Olympic fortnight to see whether the overall total for 2008's medal winners will be any different.

But this much is certain: the proportion of privately educated Olympians will still be astonishing.

To some critics, such statistics are an indictment of the outdated, class-ridden nature of British society, where certain young people continue to be rewarded because of their affluent family backgrounds rather than their own talent.

In this grievance-filled sports world of victimhood and privilege, the urban working class are said to be excluded because they do not have the same access to facilities, coaching, and support.

However, there is an entirely different way of looking at the issue.

Instead of indulging in their usual class obsessions, the critics should be asking why the state education system has such a dismal record in producing Olympic champions compared to the private sector.

The British record is a sad indictment, not of class divisions, but of the sorry complacency, ineptitude, low standards and lack of enterprise in the comprehensive system.

The simple explanations of the past  -  that independent schools were far richer than state schools  -  will not wash any more, because, as the Labour Government continually boasts, billions of pounds of extra funding has been poured into state schools in the past decade.

Winner: Zac Purchase celebrates winning a gold in the Men's lightweight sculls final

No, the real answer lies in the anti-competitive ethos that prevails in too much of the state sector. Equality of outcome is the central theme of the politically correct British state.

The concept of a talented elite is despised rather than celebrated.

The accepted mindset is that excellence should not be encouraged for fear of lowering the self-esteem of those who lag behind.

As a result, genuine sporting activity, which has raw competition at its core, has been remorselessly downgraded in state schools, too often replaced by pathetic soft games where no one loses, but no one learns how to stretch themselves.

Nor is this the only problem when it comes to state schools and sport. Another is the sale of playing fields to make way for lucrative housing developments.

Then there is the growing feminisation of the teaching profession, where more than 90 per cent of primary school teachers and 60 per cent of secondary teachers are women  -  a development that again leaves many sporty boys unchallenged.

And, of course, we must not overlook the malign influence of the health and safety brigade, which wants to cover all children in cotton-wool and stifle their spirit of adventure.

But undoubtedly the greatest handicap for would-be sporting champions from state schools is that the whole concept of the Olympics is anathema to the rulers of British state education, because elitism of any kind is frowned upon, whether in the sporting arena or the classroom.

Thus far, of course, the extent of our academic failure has been disguised through the dumbing down of standards, so that the pass rate in A-levels has now reached 97per cent.

Good education: Steve Williams on the podium after winning the gold in the Men's four final at the Beijing

But Olympic statistics are harder to manipulate, and while we should be proud of each and every one of our gold medal winners, one can only wonder how much greater our medal haul might be if state school children were encouraged to strive towards sporting excellence in the same way as their privately educated peers.

If there is one lesson that we can carry forward from Beijing to London 2012, it should be this: When it comes to Olympic greatness, the Government should stop worrying about the supposed privileges of the private sector, and demand that the state education sector put its own house order.

Alas, the signs are not encouraging.

The Commons Select Committee on Culture recently demanded that our national sporting body, UK Sports, should collect more information on 'the backgrounds' of top athletes.

Such data, the committee said, would 'help increase the socio-demographic spread' of funding.

In other words, the Committee wants more social engineering, more drivel about equality, more intervention in the name of access.

This is the sort of nonsense that has ruined state education and it would only undermine our sporting competitive spirit. Gold will not be won by bureaucratic edict.