2008 Olympics Updates

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.

We are finally in Beijing after acclimatising in Macau and we are on to the serious bit - the Games themselves.

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!

From Macau

The first thing that strikes one about Macau is the heat.

And “strikes” is the operative word. A thermal wave hit me like a wall as I emerged from my air-conditioned ferry.

The women’s hockey team, desperate to atone for their calamitous failure to even make the Games in Athens, are the first members of the British squad to taste Macau and its climate.

“It’s something else,” admitted coach Danny Kerry as I watched him oversee training. “It’s like running through treacle.”

Team captain Katie Walsh is trying to take the heat off her team concerned only about erasing the memory of four years ago.

“The worst moment of our careers,” she told me.

And as they limbered up with a light-hearted game of Frisbee, Walsh sounded upbeat about their chances of even being in the medal mix. First up are Olympic champions Germany on 10 August.

“We hope to catch them cold, that’s our Baldrick-style cunning plan!” says Kate.

The humidity clearly is not dampening her sense of humour.

Beth Tweddle could be forgiven for feeling hot and bothered even though her expertise takes her indoors away from the challenging climate.

GB’s finest-ever gymnast by a distance, has endured a frustrating year hampered by ankle problems.

Now affable team coach Adrian Stan tells me she’s getting over a rib muscle injury which he describes as “‘minor but unsettling”.

It’s clearly hampering her preparations; the former World and European uneven bars champion moved rather gingerly about her training today.

And Mr Stan tells me she will spend an extra three days on the island where she can use softer mats before she rejoins the rest of her colleagues in Beijing on Monday.

Oh yes, the heat is definitely on.

We fly out to Beijing on Wednesday and the excitement is really building. Apparently we have done 308 days of preparation so far this year.

So adding up all the years since I have been rowing and dreaming about this kind of opportunity, I make that roughly 4,299 days of preparation.

But that is too many days to think about at the moment, so I’m just taking it one day at a time, one session at a time, relishing the moment we are in.

After training camps abroad over the last few weeks we have come together as a full squad - men and women - at our training centre in Caversham in Reading for our final preparations.

Unfortunately we couldn’t go out to join the rest of Team GB in Macau as there is no rowing course there, but bringing the whole rowing squad together for this last week has really made the momentum build.

The hotel and boathouse here have both been set up to have an Olympic feel, which gives us all that extra lift every day.

Everyone is really looking forward to seeing what the Games are going to be like and to getting out there and seeing how fast we can all go.

With all the build-up and counting down that’s going on all around us, in the papers and on the television, it feels like we have next to no time left.

But in fact the heats will take place in just under two weeks, and the finals in just under three; and in training and peaking terms three weeks is a long time.

So there are still many sessions and many days left yet to get the most out of, and just as well as there is still really important work to be done in bringing everything together, making the final tweaks in technique and making sure that we are sharpening up physically.

Who knows what it’ll be like in Beijing when we get out there, but every day now we are finding more speed with the boat and feeling better recovered in ourselves.

The only way is up (and slightly eastwards) now, so I’ll just keep taking it one day at a time until the starter says go!