The Olympics brand themselves as a high-minded celebration of global friendship and what used to be known as sportsmanship. Yet in reality national pride, personal ambition and cash are central. While athletes may admire each other’s prowess and commitment, they would not reach this level of competition without a single-minded determination to win and the employment of all possible legal advantages: the right nutrition, the best trainer, the most cutting-edge equipment. Richer countries benefit.

Barring a return to the ancient practice of competing nude – both chilly and perilous for the Winter Games, despite the Tongan flagbearer’s bare chest – there will be no levelling of the field. But the distinction between a legitimate marginal gain and an unfair leg-up is a fine one, renegotiated with each technological improvement. In 2009, as records tumbled, the International Swimming Federation banned LZR whole-body swimsuits. The British swimmer Rebecca Adlington compared the advantage the suits provided to doping.

This time, the British skeleton squad is in the spotlight, including defending champion Lizzy Yarnold. Their astonishing practice times – and the Guardian’s revelation that they are using high-tech skinsuits with drag-resistant ridges to improve aerodynamics – led rivals to question the kit’s legality. The sport’s ruling body has given the all-clear. But broader questions about what constitutes acceptable advantage, and about the drive to win at all costs, will persist.

UK Sport was lionised for its ambition, its relentless focus on medals, and the resulting success it reaped after years of under-investment and under-achievement in elite sport in Britain. Yet increasingly people are wondering if a clutch of golds is really the best measure of the nation’s sporting health. Britain has spent £6.5m since 2014 on the skeleton, a very niche sport indeed. Last year YouGov found that only 7% of those surveyed had been inspired to take up sport by the Olympics. Pleasant as it is to cheer when Britons climb the podium, it all seems a long way from the promises of a broader legacy – a fitter nation – and even, perhaps, the “tradition of fair play” which the Queen celebrated in her welcome to dignitaries attending the London Olympics.

The head of the US Bobsled and Skeleton Federation suggested the UK’s real advantage lay not in the new kit itself as much as its psychological impact. “Athletes from various nations are talking about the British suits instead of focusing on the upcoming races,” he pointed out, calling it a smart move. The British author Stephen Potter once explored such tactics in a book subtitled “the art of winning games without actually cheating”. The excellence, discipline, drive and sacrifice of athletes from all nations is laudable, at times even awe-inspiring. Yet the collective impact of the Olympics can seem closer to Potter’s gamesmanship than the lofty ideals of sportsmanship it proclaims.