2008 Olympics Updates

Having competed at the last five Paralympic Games it will be a new experience for me to be a spectator in Beijing. However, as a commentator I will still be close to the action and be able to speak to the team each day.

Trying to pick out ones to watch from the incredibly strong British swimming team is difficult.

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.

I spoke out against GB head coach Peter Suk immediately after my quarter-final defeat at the Olympic Games and then retracted it on reflection in my blog later that day.

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.

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

Olympic Green Archery Field

A bit like the sailors at currently windless Qingdao, Britain’s medal tally has hit the doldrums over the last couple of days.

There was concern this first week was going to be slow, and to be honest, so it has proved.

Apart from the swimmers, who’ve had a great Olympics, and the cycling team who will undoubtedly be Britain’s biggest providers, there’s been disappointment elsewhere.

Nothing out of judo, diving, badminton, tennis, shooting - and now archery, where I’ve been spending my time over the last few days.

Archery had a target of two medals, and managed only a 4th place in the women’s team event.

Let’s add some context to that.

Last year was a particularly good one for the British archers, winning three medals at the World Championships, but it’s here in Beijing where it really counts, where the fruits of their labours, and the £2.8m investment the sport’s had in the past four years should be reaped.

What’s gone wrong?

Alan Wills offered me an insight straight after bowing out in the last 16 this morning.

He told me the head coach, Peter Suk, wasn’t letting him “be himself” out on the target field.

He wanted to feel more aggression, but felt that his personality was being subdued, because Suk wanted a calmer approach.

Team-mate Simon Terry mentioned “issues around the team” the other day, and clearly that’s what he was alluding to.

I’m left to question why wasn’t this resolved before the games?

If Wills wasn’t getting what he personally needed, then why?

After all he’s the bloke out there drawing the bow.

Whether this is a management or a communication issue, I don’t know, but the net result is a flat team, flat performances and a zero in the medals column.

Team leader, Hilda Gibson, said that there’d be a chance to get all this out into the open at a big de-brief post games.

Fine, but forgive me, too late for Terry, who said he’d not got his head around the one-on-one contests yet, or Naomi Folkard who let nervousness get in the way of her talent.

If ever a sport needed a good psychologist to give them strategies for dealing with those things, it’s archery.

Like target shooting, it’s a sport you play as much against yourself as the person standing next to you.

The Grand National Archery Society has some thinking to do, as do the other sports who’ve missed their medal targets here.

UK Sport has a much publicised “no compromise” policy when it comes to funding sport.

Archery will be among those nervously awaiting the outcome of the divvy-up of cash for London 2012.

Beijing Workers’ Gymnasium

For those of us wondering what effect the last 48 hours have had on the British Olympic boxing team, James “Chunky” DeGale gave a forthright response: never mind Frankie Gavin, it’s now about the seven of us still here.

Not that DeGale was dismissing Gavin’s plight or passing any kind of judgement on the events surrounding his controversial return home.

No, the ebullient Londoner, still swaggering after his impressive first-round victory over Mohamed Hikal, was quite justifiably stating the bleeding obvious.

“We’re all gutted for Frankie,” said DeGale when asked about his team-mate’s surprise failure to make the weight in the 60kg division. “But this is the greatest show on earth, it’s time to focus on the rest of us.”

As attempts go to wrestle the limelight back from events in Britain (where the early arrival of one of Team GB’s best medal prospects has prompted a 15-round tear-up of blame-gaming) DeGale’s wasn’t bad at all.

The middleweight started a little slowly, losing the first round 3-2 to his Egyptian opponent, but he settled down in the second and started to use his obvious advantages in reach and speed.

A couple of big rights in the second helped the 22-year-old to a 5-3 lead at the next bell and it was plain sailing from there. The final score was 13-4, a healthy margin against a former African champion and world bronze medallist.

“I’m pleased because (Hikal) has been around, he’s halfway decent, you know, OK, but not the best,” said Degale, still bouncing on his toes.

“I got the flow in the last couple of rounds, I got the rhythm. But there is more to come.

“To be honest, I could have boxed better but I was a bit nervous - I was the first up (from the British team) and this is the Olympics!

“But if I box properly I could get to the finals. I know I can, I feel it.”

Terry Edwards, the British team’s head coach, agreed with his fighter and said the improvement after the first round was down to DeGale “starting to listen”. But then all coaches say that.

What we wanted to know is if Gavin listened too. On that subject Edwards, who turns 65 on Sunday, was less forthcoming.

It is clear to all that the coach, his staff and the fighters are desperate to concentrate minds on the job in hand and deal with the Gavin inquest when they get home, hopefully with a few medals.

So Edwards reiterated his disappointment his star lightweight is no longer here, restated his case that all that could have been was done, and asked that we start to talk about Chunky again.

The coach knows his position is under threat - there were rumblings about “governance” and continued funding before this team even left the UK - but his devotion to his fighters during campaign season has never been questioned.

He did, however, have this to say about the criticism directed at him in the British media.

“It depends on who is doing the criticising,” he said pointedly. “If they are in my top-10 of boxing wisdom then I might be more concerned…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence, the message was clear.

What was more revealing was DeGale’s unprompted (by us, anyway) praise for Edwards and the British set-up. He also said he never has any problems with the scales - “I just listen to the dieticians and nutritionists and I make the weight, cushty.”

But he admitted the camp did need a lift after Gavin-gate and the tough draws most of the team were handed on Friday, him included.

DeGale does not lack for confidence (his problem is consistency, not quality) but he acknowledged he has a brutal path to the medal rounds.

The American Shawn Estrada awaits in the next round but DeGale’s confidence is buoyed by the knowledge he has beaten another American who has recently beat Estrada.

But if he gets past him there is the small matter of Russia’s brilliant Matvei Korobov in the last eight. The world champion looked in great touch in the first bout at the Workers’ Gymnasium, outclassing Swede Naim Terbunja.

“My final is probably the quarter-final,” confessed DeGale, before quickly adding that “on his day” he can beat anyone, as the scalp of reigning Olympic champion Bakhtyar Artayev would suggest.

It was at this point Edwards chipped in again with some more praise for his fighter, “this is a connoisseur of boxing”, he told us.

He will need to be to beat Korobov but he could definitely do it. Not the most technical boxer in the world, Degale’s athleticism and awkwardness give him real hope here.

I also wonder if his draw is as hard as Joe Murray’s: the bantamweight must fight Chinese hope Yu Gu in the first round.

The 21-year-old Murray, who told me last month he wants to win gold here and defend it in London, beat him on his way to a superb bronze at the 2007 World Championships.

But beating a Chinese boxer in Chicago is not the same as beating a Chinese boxer in Beijing.

I’ve experienced some intimidating/inspiring (depends which side you’re on) atmospheres at sports events in this job but the support a half-full Workers’ Gymnasium gave their middleweight Jianzheng Wang was something to behold.

Wang scrapped his way to an ugly 3-1 win over a gritty Ukrainian and the Chinese went nuts. I can’t wait to be here when the rest of the workers knock off.

Murray will have to show heart and quality. He’s got both but it is still a mighty challenge.

But let’s leave that for Tuesday. The message today is it ain’t about “Funtime” Frankie anymore, the British boxing challenge has started and it’s time to get serious.