The Carnival is over. Let the hand-wringing begin.

One month ago, Australia's Olympic chef de mission Kitty Chiller predicted Australia could win 16 gold medals and finish in the top five on the medal table at the Rio Olympics.

At the conclusion of these games a downbeat Chiller admitted the 8 gold medals and the 29 in total that Australia won, leaving it 10th on the medal tally, fell well short of expectations.

The team actually won fewer medals overall than in London in 2012 — an Olympics which were deemed to be a failure for Australia.

Following London, the Australian Sports Commission set up the Winning Edge Program and funnelled more than $300 million into elite sport with the expressed purpose of achieving success on the international stage.

On that score, it's largely been a failure.

No doubt there will also be calls for more funding as a nation that prides itself on sporting success licks its wounds.

Cate and Bronte Campbell fell short of individual medals at the Rio Games ( AP: Lee Jin-man )

Already there are suggestions we should set up a lottery-style funding system like the one that has propelled Great Britain to second on the medal table.

Chiller says there should be a debate about high-level funding and the Winning Edge program, and she's right.

So let the debate begin.

The first questions we should be asking are: What exactly is the value of a gold medal — how do they contribute to our nation? And why do we put so much value on coming first?

Not too many people would have heard of Chloe Esposito before she snuck up on us and won the gold medal in the modern pentathlon. And well done to Chloe Esposito, who no doubt has trained relentlessly for her success without Winning Edge funding.

But we don't know her. Most people have no emotional connection with her in the same way we do with say, a football club we've supported our entire lives.

Did her win give us any more than a transient thrill for a few seconds before normalcy resumed? Whether young Australians now race out to join their local modern pentathlon club remains to be seen.

And surely that is the goal. A gold medal for a gold medal's sake provides nothing more than an ephemeral feeling of good will.

Chloe Esposito of Australia won gold in the modern pentathlon ( Getty: Sam Greenwood )

The quest for gold and to achieve a certain position on the medal tally smacks of cultural cringe. It's as if we are somehow justifying our position on the world stage by our success as a sporting nation, in the same way that we celebrate an Aussie song getting to Number One on the US charts.

But do we really need gold medals to feel good about ourselves as a nation?

The point about sport, we tell our kids, is how you play the game. The key word there is play, it's fun, it's a game. The drive to win at all costs drains all the enjoyment from competition. Suddenly sport becomes all about pressure and expectation.

There is room for elite sports funding and it is great to have role models. If they can get people playing sport and enjoying themselves there's no question the whole nation benefits.

But there has to be a balance. Winning in and of itself has no meaning. If sport funding is only about winning, if it's only about international success, then we have lost sight of what we're trying to achieve in the first place.

One of the goals of the Winning Edge strategy is "engaging, uniting, inspiring and motivating all Australians." It's a strategy based on success.

One could equally argue that if the goal is engaging, inspiring and motivating people, then why not spend some of that $300 million on sporting infrastructure, or grassroots sport. We know Australia has a health crisis, in part due to a lack of physical activity. So spend the money, buy the footballs and build the basketball courts.

The seriousness with which Kitty Chiller conducted her last press conference spoke of an opportunity lost.

That's the problem with setting high expectations — it's a massive let-down when you don't meet them.

A gold medal is a glittering prize, but if it's the be-all and end-all then we've missed the point of playing in the first place.