Just to qualify onto the team you had to be ranked at least sixth in the world and it is a team that topped the medal table at the 2006 IPC World Championships.

There will be some familiar faces in Beijing who seem sure to medal - swimmers such as Sascha Kindred, Nyree Lewis, David Roberts, Jim Anderson and Natalie Jones.

However 45% of the team are first time Paralympians and they are likely to be in the mix too.

The GB swimming team have maintained their success for the same reasons cycling and sailing were so successful at the Olympics - funding, planning, attention to detail and focused athletes and staff.

Since the release of National Lottery funding to cover more than just capital projects, British Swimming has been able to invest in the development of talented athletes.

Simply throwing money at something will only get you so far. Team members like current head coach Lars Humer focus on getting all of the detail right all of the time and this doesn't happen by chance.

There will already be a four-year plan in place to move the team on far beyond Beijing.

As with most sports, the athletes put in all the hard work required to get into physical shape but here there is a real sense of team in the broader sense.

Each component of the support team from strength and conditioning to sports psychology, from sports science to the office admin support, everyone is focused and passionate about helping the swimmers be the best they can be.

However, the British team will not have it all their own way. Ukraine has a very strong team of predominantly visually-impaired swimmers and, with stars like Erin Popovich and Jessica Long, the USA will accumulate a substantial medal haul.

Few swimmers will be as dominant as South Africa's Natalie Du Toit in the women's S9 events and of course there will be a very strong team representing the host nation China.

There are a couple of races that I am particularly looking forward to.

The Men's 34-point freestyle relay is always very exciting and although GB won gold in both Sydney and Athens they are likely to be pushed very hard by Australia, with Matt Cowdrey leading the charge.

However, my pick for the entire competition would be the Men's S8 400m freestyle which will be on 12 September.

It will feature Britain's Sam Hynd, who is the world record holder for the event and, despite it being his first Games, he will be favourite.

He will face one of the most talented swimmers in the world Xiaofu Wang who will have the home crowd behind him. It is sure to be an exciting contest.

Just a small part of me is envious of this year's Paralympic swimmers. To race in such a beautiful pool like the Water Cube will be an incredible experience for them.

Thankfully, the larger part of me has come to terms with the fact that my time as an athlete has been and gone and now I can just enjoy commentating on their endeavours.

With the start of the Beijing Paralympics just a couple of days away, final preparations are being made - and there is an air of confidence around the team.

The likes of four-time Paralympian Jody Cundy are old hands at Paralympic villages, but for wheelchair basketball player Helen Freeman it is a whole new experience.

18-year-old Freeman (above left), from Watford, is the youngest member of the women's team. She has been training hard for her Paralympic experience while studying for her A-levels.

A place at Reading University, studying Biochemistry, awaits Freeman when she gets back to London later this month - but she wants to make the most of her first Games.

"It has been an amazing experience so far. I now just want to get out there and play," she told BBC Sport.

"I've been excited for months and now I can't wait for it all to start.

"It was a bit of a culture shock at first to see so many disabled people together in the village, but after a few days I've got used to it and there is a special atmosphere around.

"The food hall is the biggest I've ever seen. It's like a school canteen but on an extreme scale. I reckon it's about the size of two football pitches!"

Freeman's team-mate Ann Wild, who plays alongside her at club level and will be playing in her fifth Games, has been offering hints on the temptations in the food hall - like eating grilled meats, and avoiding fast food.

"It's good to be able to get help from people like Ann, who has so much experience and it's all good advice," she said.

And with comfortable beds, so much food that there are tough choices to be made, and every facility on your doorstep, what does Helen appreciate most?

"The kettle - that's been most important in the apartment I'm in," she replied.

"There's been plenty of tea drunk - my team-mate Helen Turner normally plays mother and makes it, but we've all enjoyed it."

Freeman, Turner and the rest of the 206-strong team are now gearing up for Saturday's opening ceremony.

Then Sunday sees the start of action in basketball, boccia, cycling, equestrian, five-a-side football, judo, shooting, swimming and table tennis.

Chief executive and chef de mission Phil Lane described this 2008 crop as the best prepared athletes he'd ever seen, and the team are delighted with facilities on offer at the athletes' village.

Lane explained: "It's the first time we have gone straight into a facility used by a GB Olympic team, and we worked with the British Olympic Association to share as much equipment as we could. The hard work has paid off.

"Our athletes have sofas, chairs, tables, televisions and DVD players in their apartments as the Olympians did, to give them home comforts and a place they can call their own.

"In Athens we had just one spare bed - not even a spare room. Here we have room so if people need their own space for whatever reason, it is available to them."

The vast majority of the British team are already here in the village - the equestrian riders and sailors will join them after their events in Hong Kong and Qingdao.

Since then, I've had more time to reflect and I stand by what I originally said and if a lot of things don't get better, I will pack it in and that's not me being a sore loser.

Concerns need to be raised for the benefit of the whole of GB archery - if we can push on, the funding will get there, if not, the sport goes back to no funding and fewer competitors.

The next three or four years are going to be interesting with London 2012 coming up - we should get more input into what we need to become world and Olympic champions.

I know I'm capable of winning Olympic medals, but I need to have the right support.

This is the first year since I turned senior in 2002 that I've not won a medal in target or field archery despite shooting better than ever.

That has been down to a lack of confidence and the mental side of things and things going on behind the scenes.

This year, everything was wrong in the build-up to the Olympics with the selections for the World Cup circuit.

If we bombed out in the first round of a competition, Peter would say don't worry - but confidence gets knocked if you're not doing well.

We need a do-or-die mentality - put everything in until your fingers bleed.

We weren't prepared properly.

I have no problem with Peter away from archery, but we have different methods within the sport.

Team morale was low at the Team GB holding camp in Macau but Peter said he expected that because of nerves and that it would be alright when we got to Beijing. But it wasn't and it was down to the team to try and lift ourselves when we should have been focusing on competing.

Since my quarter-final defeat at the Olympics, I have not spoken to Peter. He left for Korea straight after the competition; there was no de-brief as we have always had after every other event, which was a bit strange.

I have always worked with my own personal coach at home and things have always gone perfectly - I have always been in charge and every medal I've ever won I've done by learning how to approach different matches mentally.

This year, the confidence has been non-existant and by the time I was knocked out at the Olympics, it was the first time I had lost control in a match situation.

I want to emphasise though that I really enjoyed my first Olympics experience despite the problems.

We've got a meeting in October with all the British archers who competed at the Olympics and Paralympics which will hopefully sort some things out.

Before that I'm off to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace as part of the big parade through London with all the other British Olympians on 16 October, which I'm really looking forward to.

Away from the competition, I had a great time in Beijing, spending time with my mates and going to watch other sports.

The best was watching Beth Tweddle in the gymnastics - we went because we know a few of the gymnasts from training at Lilleshall - I've never been to a gymnasium hall, it was massive and the atmosphere was great, particularly when the Chinese were competing.

Beth was unlucky and, even though we didn't know much about the technical side, we thought her performance deserved third!

The athlete's village is not as mad as everyone makes out - there were a lot of people there who still hadn't competed when we had finished, so there is respect for everyone else.

It's a different story in the city though - the bars were rammed, mainly with Australians! I tended to stick with the archery lads and lasses from Australia, America and Canada as we all know each other through competing across the world - it was a brilliant experience.

Me and Larry Godfrey had a few good days enjoying ourselves but we had the option to come home a day early before the closing ceremony, so we did.

When I got home and saw the closing ceremony and the plane carrying the rest of the team, I thought it would have been nice to be on it, but then it was nice to arrive at Heathrow and slip through unnoticed.

Since I got back to Cumbria, I've had a bit of post-Olympics blues - out in Beijing we were living in a bubble and everything was done for you so we could enjoy ourselves and focus on our event.

But when we got back, nobody told us how hard it is to get back to reality.

I was back a couple of days before I resumed training and my next aim is to qualify for the British field archery team for the World Games next year.

Field archery is extreme archery - there is a course with 24 targets which can be up a cliff, down a cliff, or across a ravine and you shoot three arrows at each target. They are all different sizes and on day one you have to guess how far away they are. On day two, the distances are marked.

I use the same bow as for the target archery, just with lighter arrows - field archery has always been at my heart, I was number one in the world a few years back and I've won many medals including a World Games silver and World Team silver and I was also European junior champion.

I was hoping to be given a wildcard into the British team for the World Games as I used to dominate the sport, but they wouldn't accept me, so I'm training hard and I want to bang in some big scores at the first of two qualifiers next weekend in the north-east and prove a point.

Click here for GB team manager Hilda Gibson's response.

Alan Wills was talking to BBC Sport's Peter Scrivener.

Here the best para dressage riders in the world have gathered for the biggest para dressage show on earth.

It's great to be back amongst equestrian folk, chatting about Hanoverians and halts; tack to tests and lots of chitter chatter about who'll bag the medals.

I've spent the last two days virtually stalking the British team. They have generously allowed us to film their training sessions and on Wednesday we took Lee Pearson and Ricky Balshaw down to the waterfront in Kowloon for a tour on camera.

It was one of the best days filming I've had. Lee and Ricky are great company and needless to say Lee was his usual entertaining self. He is also looking hot stuff in the arena.

Last night we watched the whole team practice their tests in the stadium under floodlights with the full GB kit on (including plaits) and Lee's test was particularly impressive.

He has long made it known that his horse Gentleman is new to competing at the top level and the pair have had their ups and downs. On Wednesday morning Lee described them as being on the brink of "divorce proceedings" but later that night they looked magical.

Gentleman is a good-looking horse and if they perform like that on the day they'll be hard to beat.

It's also been great to get to know the riders. Simon Laurens has some hilarious stories about his superstitions including his hatred of the number three which is unfortunate since he's a Grade 3 rider and therefore every competition number starts with that number for him.

He has had hypnosis to help him with it so fingers crossed it worked!

Debbie Criddle told me about her music choice for the Kur - expect some Wet, Wet, Wet!

I also finally had time to chat with Anne Dunham who is looking super-relaxed as always on Teddy. This is her fourth Paralympics. She's won team gold at every one and sounds as determined as ever to do the same here.

Like every Paralympian I've met, Anne talked openly about her disability. She has multiple sclerosis and over the years has had to move down the grades in para dressage.

It sounds patronising to talk about bravery and I know none of the riders want sympathy but I have to say I find it inspiring hearing their stories of how they got to this level. Every one of the 72 riders from the 28 nations competing in para dressage here has a story of courage and how they overcame adversity.

They love this sport and they love their horses. Riding gives them the freedom to be just like everyone else. As Ricky Balshaw told me about his horse George: "He lends me his legs and we can take on the world."

So to the action and I'm really looking forward to the start on Sunday morning. Like the Olympics, the para dressage is split into morning and evening sessions. It's hard to know which will be best for our riders as the temperature and humidity doesn't drop much in the evening.

I do, however, think it's slightly cooler now than when I arrived at the beginning of August. Apparently the humidity will drop dramatically as September wears on but it'll no doubt be too late for us.

All five of our pentathlon events took place on one day, the last Friday of the Games, so we only had Saturday and Sunday to enjoy ourselves properly.

But the advantage of competing so late was that the more medals Team GB won, the less nervous I felt. It took the pressure off because suddenly nobody was looking to the final few events in desperation for medals.

Heather's silver medal is a brilliant result for her, and for our sport.

We've had a great last two years now - qualifying two boys for Beijing beat our initial target of one, and a medal is what we had to produce from the girls' point of view. My seventh place shows we've got strength in depth in the team.

I'm 90% pleased with my result. Seventh is a good result in pentathlon, especially at an Olympic Games, but I know my fencing was a bit below par and that was the difference between seventh and a place on the podium.

You've probably seen the disaster that was the men's modern pentathlon show jumping. I was there and it wasn't pretty to watch.

But it helped to take some of the stress out of the event for me - I thought that if it was going to be that bad for everyone, then maybe I could take advantage and move up from 20th into a medal position.

The organisers made some changes for the women's event - for a start they took the worst horses out, and in the end I really got on with my horse. The other two girls who rode it didn't have very good rounds at all, so I obviously rode it well and I'm pleased with that.

The conditions were much nicer, too. There was a lot of talk beforehand about heat and humidity but I didn't notice any difference - we did our running event in the evening, and I've ridden horses in much stuffier conditions than that too.

Things will be a bit subdued next year without an Olympics, but I'm used to that - it's what my sport is like, and it means I have to set my sights on London 2012. After my experience in Beijing I am so keen to compete there, but I know four years is a long time and I've got to train hard to stay in the mix.

It's just a shame I didn't get to see the Beijing shops but, to be honest, being around our gold medallists in the village was too exciting.

I met Chris Hoy, some of the rowers and Rebecca Adlington. Heather and I wanted our picture taken with everybody! Rebecca Adlington's lovely, we got on with the rowers really well, and Chris Hoy even let me hold his medals to have my picture taken.

Being part of Team GB and mixing with athletes from other sports was a large part of what made the week so special.

I'm not sure what's next for me now. I'm enjoying a rest at the minute, then it's the last competition of the season, the World Cup final, in four weeks' time.

But after the Olympics that's not a huge priority, I'm just going to maintain my fitness and have a nice competition to end the season.

After that it's winter training - but hopefully with a few parties thrown in along the way to finish this brilliant year off nicely!

Katy Livingston was speaking to BBC Sport's Ollie Williams

First stop: Hong Kong

Here, some of the British team were fine-tuning their preparations. Over the next few days, my plan was to film interviews with the squads in HK and Macau.

When we landed, it was encouraging to find my wheelchair was still in one piece and promptly available. Paralympic signs were up, officials were organised (and helpful) - within 45 minutes of touching down I had my accreditation and my luggage, and was arriving at the hotel!

As at the Olympics, Hong Kong is the venue for the equestrian events. As I arrived the Paralympic banners were being hoisted.

I stayed at the same hotel as a number of the GB athletes. It was good to catch up with some of my old table tennis colleagues, including Arnie Chan and Neil Robinson. Neil is taking part in his seventh Paralympic Games, and hasn't aged!

But it's also good to see some new faces in the squad, including 20-year-old Tunbridge Wells player Will Bayley.

The wheelchair racers were also in town - one of the fastest mondo tracks had been located in a suburb of the city.

My only real Chinese meal during my stay was at a small place in the square near the hotel - beef, rice, vegetables and Chinese tea cost me a mere 26 Hk dollars (£1.50). And having realised that I forgot to pack some toothpaste, I found I could get some next door for the same price!

I didn't see much of HK, apart from Kowloon, where the Star Ferry takes you around the port, but the sight of those amazing skyscrapers and the hustle and bustle of the city is amazing to see.

Within 48 hours it was off to Macau.

This is where most of the GB squad were preparing.

I thought it would be a straightforward ferry crossing, but the taxi driver took me to the wrong port!

All my negotiating skills were needed to get swapped back to the correct ferry - however they were excellent and even gave me a 20 dollar refund.

I was joined by cameraman Steve Pook and reporter Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes, who has been covering the Olympic equestrian events for BBC Radio 5 Live.

Macau is something completely different, the gambling world of the East - but a dollar wasn't wasted during my stay.

Sunday and Monday were a haze of filming at training venues and at the team hotel.

After a long day in Macau we jumped on the ferry back to HK, wherewe loaded the footage onto Steve's laptop. The next day the first preview would be transmitted on Sport 24.

Tuesday morning was another early start. We went across town to catch up with Dave Weir and the wheelchair racers, who were training in blistering heat and humid conditions.

Dave is in good form ahead of the Games and he can't wait to start competing in the Bird's Nest, where he has already raced in May.

Seven days after leaving London, we're now in Beijing and it's full-on in the International Broadcast Centre. The world's media are starting to descend on what I'm sure will be a compelling 13th Paralympics.

My flight from London to Hong Kong was great. I upgraded to business class (or World Traveller Plus, as it is called now) and it was amazing.

I felt like a bit of a muppet though as I had never flown business class before and was a bit out of place, but it was good.

I had my own little area where I could put my feet up and relax. I was most looking forward to the actual sleeping because you can never get comfy on a plane, can you?

I was just grateful I could lie down - I think I had a full eight hours of sleep. I was really pleased about that, because sometimes I don't even get that at home.

Training has been going great so far. The first two days in Macau we only trained in the afternoon as we were all tired and needed our sleep.

The hotel there is amazing and because we had been there a couple of times already it felt like we had never been away.

I can't actually believe it was a year since we were last in Macau - there are so many hotels that have been built while we have been away.

Macau is like the Chinese version of Las Vegas. The Chinese aren't allowed to gamble on the mainland so they come over to Macau to gamble.

I have never been to Vegas but I can imagine that it is just like Macau but on a bigger scale.

The weather has been on the warm side but I don't want to make anyone jealous as I know we haven't had much of a summer back in England.

We flew to Beijing on Tuesday ahead of the opening ceremony this Saturday. Because I'm competing the following day, I will not be going.

In the past, there has usually been a day in between the opening ceremony and competing, but this time there is no rest for the wicked!

My fiancé Rik, who is on the GB cycling team, will be over there before I get to Beijing so at least he will be able to get his bearings as well.

I'm starting to get pretty nervous now, as I'm going into this Games as World and Paralympic champion and the pressure is all on me to perform.

My parents and Rik's parents are coming out too so it will be nice to have a load of support there. Plus I'm sure I'll be able to hear my dad and my brother shouting.

If not, then I'm sure everyone else will be able to hear them, so I apologise now for any bleeding ears.

Just wanted to say congratulations to the athletes in the Olympics. I was glued to it all the way - it was just amazing, so let's hope that we can do it too.

I would also like to thank the people who have sent good luck messages to me and Rik - they are much appreciated. Let's hope we can do you all proud.

And finally, good luck to everyone on the British team - fingers, toes, eyes, legs and mouths crossed!

With the Opening Ceremony taking place next Saturday, Beijing is ready for Paralympic fever to take over. No sign yet of Paralympic souvenirs but the first tangible signs were the replacement a few days ago of all the Olympic banners that line the streets of the city with the Paralympic versions. Street signs have changed too with directions to Paralympic venues instead. For 'Olympic Village' read 'Paralympic Village'.

When the Olympic medal table is swapped for the Paralympic version, it's a near certainty that China will again top the table. They did so four years ago in Athens, so for the rest of the world, it's a question of who will come second. Great Britain has come second for the last two Games. In Athens they won 35 Golds with a medals total of 94 and have been set a Beijing target by UK Sport of winning 112 medals. A stiff challenge! With Team GB having exceeded their Olympic medals target and achieved their best performance for a hundred years, one wonders how much extra pressure this puts on Paralympics GB.

In particular, the spotlight will be turned on athletics and swimming. Swimming have been set a lower target this time around, 41 as opposed to 52 medals won four years ago. The opposite is the case for Athletics who are expected by UK Sport to win 13 more medals than their Athens achievement of 17. They are hoping stars like David Weir can become multi-medallists and returning champions such as Danny Crates can repeat their Athens success. In swimming, David Roberts will be hoping to add to his tally of gold medals and beat Tanni Grey-Thompson's record of 11 gold medals. The pressure, however, will be on all 206 athletes competing in 18 sports to deliver. Public interest and expectation will again be high with London 2012 on the horizon; a challenge for the team and for the BBC.

Following the successes of our Olympic coverage, our aim across all of the BBC's output must be to put in a 'Team BBC' performance that does full justice to those of the athletes. We aim to feature the achievements of Paralympics GB and many of the other performances by the world's top Paralympians; athletes such as South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius and swimmer Natalie Du Toit. Three distinguished former Paralympians join the BBC team for the Games - 11 time Paralympic Gold medallist Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, wheelchair basketball bronze medallist Ade Adepitan and swimmer Marc Woods along with familiar faces and voices such as Clare Balding, Steve Cram, Paul Dickenson, Eddie Butler, Nick Mullins and Bob Ballard.

BBC television coverage will be more extensive than ever before with six hours a day of live coverage, starting at 1000 BST, being streamed on the red button and broadband each weekday with a one hour highlights show on BBC Two at 1900 each night. At weekends, the coverage starts on the red button/broadband and then switches to BBC One or Two for the afternoon. All BBC One and Two output will also be simultaneously shown on the BBC High Definition channel. Both the Opening and Closing ceremonies will be broadcast live including the London handover moment on the final day.

BBC Radio 5 Live will also have a dedicated team in Beijing to provide news and commentary throughout the Games with the BBC's award winning Disability Sport (currently renamed Paralympics) website providing news, features and blogs alongside live streaming. There are also teams from News and Nations & Regions providing specific content for all the BBC local tv and radio stations.

We're looking forward to a great Games; another terrific sporting spectacle. As always, we'll endeavour to convey the drama and excitement of world class sporting competition to audiences back home. We make no apologies for it but the BBC is ready to convey 'Paralympic fever' to the UK.

Last time, there was barely a dropped kerb in sight, and now there is more tactile paving than I have ever seen in my life.

I was out and about in the city a couple of days ago and ramps that weren't there two weeks ago were appearing in shops.

What I hope is that they don't disappear as soon as the Games leave town, and there will be a lasting legacy, but from what I have seen over here, the learning curve is steep and what they learn sticks.

There have also been considerably fewer people staring at me in the street. This time, the attention has focused on my blonde blue-eyed six-year-old daughter, who had an average of 25 people a day taking her picture.

People literally stop in the street to look at her or touch her hair, something that she was incredibly patient with, seeing as she won't let me brush her hair before a school day!

In the last two weeks there have also been Paralympic adverts on TV, programmes showing the technicalities behind wheelchair racing and other sports, and major coverage of the Paralympic torch relay.

But still I have this inkling that the city doesn't really know what to expect.

There appeared to be a slight lack of international support at the Olympics, so will the local supporters understand the competition and will the stadiums be full? Let us not forget that some of the sessions of the Olympics were not full.

But I do get the sense here that there will be strong encouragement for local support.

In Seoul in 1988, the local churches were brought in to "support", having the same seats every day, but different countries' flags appeared to be on rotation.

It didn't feel patronising at the time, or that they were coming out to "cheer on the poor people". It felt more like education.

I have no doubt that Saturday's opening ceremony will be sold out (it seems impossible to get tickets) but we have just a few more days to wait to see if they can also fill the venues.

Hodge isn't just talking about a plan to aim to repeat the feats of the Great Britain coxless four in London in four years' time. He's also alluding to the plans the wider rowing world has in place to build on the success of Beijing. But more of that later.

Many of the rest of the 23 British rowers who came back from Beijing with medals have got some thinking to do over the next few months. Do they want to go through another punishing four years to compete in front of a home crowd in 2012?

Hodge's crew-mate Steve Williams is clearly already sick of answering the question, saying: "For me now is the time to put the feet up, recharge the batteries and enjoy the moment. The answer will come to me."

Williams was the only rower to fly home from Beijing business class as a double Olympic gold-medallist, he is 32 and admits he considered retiring four years ago so the fact his decision is still up in the air is a bit of a shock.

Asked if he has achieved everything he wants to, he replies: "That will be the question that makes up my mind and I'm not really thinking about it at the moment."

Katherine Grainger clearly hasn't achieved what she wanted to. When the request comes for photographs of the GB medallists at their post-Games media day, she smiles ruefully at a crew-mate.

The mission of the women's quadruple scull was to win Great Britain's first women's rowing gold. Their tears and exhaustion on the podium as they accepted silver told the whole story.

"There's still disappointment and that won't go away. There's always a bit of a what-if about it," she tells me.

With two silvers already to her name, there was an assumption that Grainger's third Olympics would be her last but she explains: "You need perspective and distance. Everyone wants to go to the Olympics and if you could do 10 more you would because it's so special just to be there.

"But for what it would take for 2012, it's about what I would feel like on a wet, wintry morning in December.

"If the passion and desire is still there then of course it's possible but a rather large and enjoyable holiday must come first.

"You need the physical break but you need the mental and emotional break more than anything else and then you can see more clearly which way to go."

My barely-informed hunch - after a three-minute chat with Kath - is that she will be back for more (although she is clearly a good way from making her mind up) while Williams will decide to spend more time building a career as a motivational speaker.

Also from the quad, Debbie Flood will become a fully qualified prison officerr in the next few months while Frances Houghton - a former crew-mate of Rebecca Romero - plans to do some cycling, "but only between vineyards".

Matt Langridge, silver medallist in the men's eight, is still suffering shell-shock after the Games (and the week of partying in the Olympic Village that followed).

"We've had weeks of being told what to do, when to eat, when to go to bed. Now we can do what we want," he says.

Men's head coach Jurgen Grobler expects the squad to give him some sort of idea about what they want to do by mid-October, still more than six months before the first international event of the 2009 season.

Meanwhile, GB Rowing performance director David Tanner - a man so meticulous he visited Shunyi six times before the Games to make sure everything was in place - is already thinking about the new faces the squad will need for 2012.

"We need to accept some retirements. I think the biggest challenge is to blood some new rowers," he tells me.

"By 2010 we need to have the 2012 team. There will be some new faces and that's the biggest challenge.

"There will be some changes - I hope there will be changes. Nobody had heard of Tom Lucy in the men's eight until a year ago. Zac Purchase was a junior in 2004."

Purchase - gold medallist in the lightweight double scull in Beijing - is likely to be one of the faces of 2012 and he has high hopes of British success in the rowing regatta.

But the effects of his success are already being felt at grass-roots level. The club where he learned to row, in Upton-on-Severn, Worcestershire, is reporting that all of their summer sculling courses are full.

Hodge, meanwhile, will spend next season as captain of Molesey Boat Club in Surrey, a club that also provided his crew-mate Tom James and Acer Nethercott, cox of the eight, to the GB squad.

Two of the programmes he is particularly keen on getting more involved in are the Sporting Giants initiative and World Class Start - both designed to identify potential Olympians based on their size and to fast-track them into the national squad.

Rowing clubs around the country will be braced for an influx of wannabe Hodges and potential Purchases but while those novices take to the water for the first time, the current crop of stars will be taking a well-earned break.