Australia's quest to return to the top of the tree at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games will be driven by a focus on athletes' goals - not medal predictions.
Australia won 29 medals at the Rio Olympics - the nation's lowest tally since the 1992 Barcelona games - despite some pre-Games estimates of up 45 medals being won.
Some athletes appeared to struggle with the weight of expectation in Brazil as Australia finished 10th on the overall medal tally after targeting a top-five spot.
Australia's Commonwealth Games Association chief executive Craig Phillips says it will be important to avoid medal forecasts in the build-up to the Gold Coast event.
The host nation will field its biggest Commonwealth Games team in 2018 with 450 athletes expected to earn selection.
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After finishing second to England in the 2014 medal tally at Glasgow, Phillips admits nothing less than return to No.1 will be expected on home soil but it will be attained by working with athletes on their individual expectations and goals rather than an overall focus.
"Certainly there's expectation for our team to return to No.1 and I don't think we can hide from that," Phillips said.
"What we will be doing is working with our sports to make sure we're not reducing it to individual medal tallies for different sports ... our goal is to actually put as many athletes in position as possible to win medals here on the Gold Coast in 18 months time.
"It's very much putting athletes in a position where they can achieve their goals and dreams rather than applying that pressure of a medal target as such."
Phillips and his board are expecting to meet with representatives of Australia's Commonwealth Games sporting codes in November to begin planning for the 2018 Games.
Feedback from those sports which took part in Rio will be a key part of those discussions as Australia aim to find out what worked and what didn't in Brazil.
"There's certainly a lot to learn from the Rio experience," Phillips said.
"We'll certainly gather as much information as we can from all the agencies and organisations that were involved, the (Australian) Sports Commission as well."
