2008 Olympics Updates

Relaxed and ready is the mood in the ParalympicsGB camp on Thursday in the athletes’ village.

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.

What an incredible Olympics for our modern pentathlon team. Heather Fell and I were excited from the moment we set foot in the athletes’ village to the moment we left - and that moment came far too soon.

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

Within 36 hours of the Olympic Games closing ceremony the flags in the city of Beijing were changed to Paralympic ones.

The message that I have seen in Beijing is that things happen here fast. I came here a couple of years ago when the foundations of the athletes’ village were being dug and it seemed impossible that anything would be ready.

If the rumours are true, in the last two years there have been 200 new hotels built in Beijing and in the past six months many underground stations have been made accessible for disabled people.

Since my first visit to Beijing there have been many dramatic changes, not just physical ones, but more attitudinal ones.

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.

Now the Olympics are over it is full steam ahead for the Paralympics and the nerves are starting to kick in a bit more.

We headed off to Macau on Saturday for our pre-Games training camp which is an important part of our final preparations and will help us to adjust to the conditions we will experience in Beijing.

It takes a lot of time for me to acclimatise, as it does for a lot of cerebral palsy athletes, so it is nice to get over there early and not feel tired when it comes to the competition.

When we were building up to Athens four years ago we spent some time at a holding camp in Cyprus but it wasn’t for too long because we didn’t have to get used to a time difference.

Going first to Macau and then to Beijing means we will be away from home for about a month and it gives you a good chance to get used to everyone on the team.

For some of the others on the team it will be their first big trip abroad. Some are very young and it will be a new experience for them. I know what I was like when I went to Sydney in 2000. I was 15 and I was used to my mum doing everything and it took me a while to get used to the team set-up.

It helps us that we have a good support team behind us, not only our coaches but also people like our nurse Lynne, who is there when you need a hug!

To be honest, I don’t really like being away for so long, but the hotel in Macau is so nice with lovely big beds and that it makes it easier. When it comes to leaving and going to the athletes’ village, it will be hard to drag myself away from the luxury!

In Macau I’m sharing with another swimmer Rachael Latham. We sometimes train together in Manchester and although Beijing will be her first Games, she will hold her own!

We will then be sharing an apartment in the village with two of our coaches Lars (our head coach) and Billy.

Rachael and I are both a bit messy and I know at home my fiancé Rik despairs of me and is always tidying up behind me, but I prefer to think of it as organised chaos.

My packing went surprisingly well. It doesn’t get better the more often you do it and I always hope I won’t forget anything but Rik flies out to Beijing a week later to take part in the cycling competition so he can always take it over.

We have our team kit, so that’s easy to remember, but I have taken some of my own clothes for our last night party and I also have a couple of pairs of my own shorts and some t-shirts if I have a day off.

My allowance was split between two bags so if one goes missing it isn’t too bad, but I did take some spare underwear and a toothbrush and a hairbrush in my hand luggage in case of emergencies! Last year we went to Macau and five of the team’s suitcases went missing on the Manchester to London leg, so those whose bags weren’t there had to go for a week without clothes.

Over the last couple of weeks all of us on the swimming team have been getting really excited watching the Olympic swimming events at the Water Cube.

For Michael Phelps to win eight golds was amazing, but I didn’t like the fact that the swim programme was changed to suit American television.

I’m not a morning swimmer and I’m glad that our heats will be in the morning and the finals in the evening, which is what we are used to.

Natalie Jones was speaking to Elizabeth Hudson

Nihao from the athletes’ village in Beijing.

I’ve just come back from the velodrome, and I’ve now only got three training sessions left until my racing begins. We’re that close.

I’m settled into my room, I’m feeling relaxed and I’ve even got my coffee machine working. Excellent.

The British squad here has done well. We’re spread over two five-storey blocks right in the middle, not too far from the dining rooms and laundry, and we’ve also done well with the rooms themselves.

B&Q have kitted us out with a load of extra stuff - sofas, fridges, rugs, DVD players - so it feels more like we’re staying in a hotel than the basic student accommodation that everyone else has.

While physically it’s probably the nicest athletes’ village I’ve stayed in, my only complaint would be the food.

It’s quite disappointing to be honest. There’s not that much choice, and there’s certainly a shortage of fresh fruit and veg, which as you can imagine is a bit of a problem when you’re dealing with thousands of athletes.

What’s quite amusing is seeing the range of body types you get in here. Every possible shape and size is represented - tall, skinny basketball players, tiny squat weightlifters and everything in between.

I quite like it. It makes you feel less of a freak yourself. And it also means we can sit there at dinner trying to work out what sport various people do.

Life’s quite simple for us cyclists at this stage of proceedings.

Training-wise I have one day on and one day off. The rest of the time it’s feet up, resting as much as possible.

There’s no chance of sightseeing, of getting down to the Forbidden City or Summer Palace, or even any over-competitive games of table-tennis against athletes from other countries.

And we didn’t make the opening ceremony. In some ways that’s a shame - it’s the symbolic start of the Games, and you get a big kick out of it if you can make it.

But it simply involves too much standing around in the heat. It’s not just the two hours after you’ve walked into the stadium either.

So many athletes go from the village that you have to queue to get on a bus, sit in traffic with hundreds of other buses and then stand around in an enormous waiting-area before you finally file into the stadium.

By the time you get hope you’ll have been on your feet for six or seven hours, and that’s no good to us this close to competition.

As for my Mandarin - well, you’ve heard almost all of it already.

Vicky Pendleton’s the linguist in the team. You should hear her talking to the volunteers and officials - she’s a natural…

Chris Hoy was talking to BBC Sport’s Tom Fordyce