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.

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

It’s so hard to describe how it feels as we make the final preparations for Sunday’s final.

We have spent the week working on all the aspects of rowing and our racing that we think could possibly give us more boat speed.

We were pleased with our heat, and it was a good win for us, but we know that the final will be on an entirely different level.

There is no way of knowing how the race will develop and unfold, so all we can do is prepare ourselves the best we can and take everything we have, all our strengths - old and new - and all our passion to the start line.

This is my second Olympic final, but I’m not sure that makes it any easier.

I know what is coming up, I know that I am going to feel ill to the pits of my stomach, that my mind will be playing games with me, the voices shouting from temple to temple louder than my head can possibly contain.

Often I feel that getting myself to the start line in the right state of mind is the hardest part of it all.

But between now and when nerves really start to kick in, all I can do is prepare my response to the questions I am going to be asking myself, and go over and over again in my head just how I am going to row, how I am going to make the first two strokes of the race.

There is a very fine line between doing all the preparation that I need to do, and doing too much.

We will have to be relaxed and focused when we race, not anxious or tense.

Once you get to the Olympics, everyone is physically and technically exceptional - no one gets a head start.

There is no advantage given for past form, it is all about the moment. I’m just doing my very best to make our moment the best it can possibly be.

Sha Tin, Hong Kong

Well it wasn’t gold but I’ll settle for two bronzes!

What a night it was here in Sha Tin.

The atmosphere in the stadium was electric and the huge floodlights dazzled and sparkled, really hammering home you were witnessing an Olympic final.

I’ve decided to leave out any mention of disappointment.

Sometimes we can spend too long talking of what would have been. Let’s just all celebrate how a team of five Britons, two of whom were at their first ever Olympics, managed to come third in a competition that is always so hard to win.

The Olympic equestrian events are never clear cut.

There are so many horses and riders based around the world that we in Britain don’t get to see compete.

Add to that the travel, weather, scary arenas, huge crowds and of course nerves, then anything can happen.

William Fox-Pitt’s ‘Ed’ did his worst ever dressage test and Mary King told me ‘Cavvie’ hasn’t had a show-jumping fence down for two years.

But the one who really surprised everyone was Tina Cook.

It’s been nine years since she last rode for Britain yet she looked like she’s never been away.

Tina’s been telling us all how good Miner’s Frolic is for years ”This is my horse for the Olympics,” she kept saying.

What she meant though was 2012, not 2008!

Well done Tina. It was also an incredible result that the individual gold went to Germany’s Hinrich Romeike.

Every amateur rider reading this must take heart from the fact that he’s a full-time dentist with just one top horse - Marius. I reckon this makes him the ultimate working rider?!

The competition has been marred slightly by the news that the American event rider Phillip Dutton was disqualified after his horse was found to have been wearing illegally weighted back boots.

Some riders use weighted boots on their horse’s back legs in the show-jumping phase to make them pick their feet up, but they have to be within a certain weight limit.

Dutton, who won two team gold medals for Australia in 2000 and 2004 before switching nationality to the US, would have finished in joint 12th place in the individual competition.

His disqualification doesn’t affect the USA’s final team position of 7th or any of the medals - but it’s just not what the sport needs.

It also begs the question, why don’t the officials check these things before the rider goes into the ring?

It’s a shame - but I hope everyone will forget about it asap.

So one down, two to go. Bring on the pure dressage next.

It starts today at 7.15pm HK time - 12.15pm UK time.

Anky, Isobel, Kyra as well as our own Laura B, Emma and Jane.

I know I am a very lucky girl and I will enjoy every minute watching it.

Beijing, Water Cube

There is no doubt that Tom Daley and Blake Aldridge were well below their best today, finishing last of the eight pairs in the 10m synchronised diving final.

It was frustrating because their aerial work and synchronisation was fantastic but they were both off with their entries into the water. You saw the Chinese and Russian pairs going in with hardly any splash, while our boys weren’t upright and throwing up lots of splash. That meant they were penalised heavily by the judges and they were quite a way off the pace in the end.

Nerves played their part. It’s a big occasion and Tom and Blake are at their first Olympics. The other teams in the final had a lot more experience and that shone through.

There has been a massive amount of attention on Tom but I don’t think that had any influence on the way he performed today. In the past few days, the team around him - including me as his mentor - have tried to protect him. In fact, I ended up doing a lot of interviews for the media so he didn’t have to.

There has been a massive amount of attention on Tom but I don’t think that had any influence on the way he performed today. In the past few days, the team around him - including me as his mentor - have tried to protect him. I ended up doing a lot of interviews for the media so he didn’t have to.

The simple fact is that it was always a huge ask for them to get a medal. It was a really tough field and a massive occasion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m desperately disappointed for them. I was hoping for a bronze. They had an outside chance if people were making mistakes and if they performed at their best - but they didn’t.

I spoke to Tom briefly after the final before he and Blake faced the media scrum. The whole world’s media seemed to be there scrabbling for a piece of them. My plan is to give them a call and catch up hopefully later on today.

That performance today - disappointing as it was - means that there will be more realism from the media and the public when it comes to Tom. When it comes to the individual event, he can now relax, enjoy it and find his flow. There is no pressure on him whatsoever, and that’s exactly what I’ll be telling him.

Individual qualifying is not until Friday 22 August, with the final the next day, so Tom will now have a few days to take it easy and I’ve told him to try to catch some of the other events. Pete Waterfield, who’s also in the individual, is actually going back to the GB training camp in Macau. Sometimes, being in the Olympic village can become a bit samey and you need to go away and freshen up if your event’s right at the end.

But Tom’s opted to stay in the village because he wants to be close to his family so they’ll probably go off and do some sight-seeing together, before knuckling down for the individual about a week before.

I don’t think today’s experience will have anything but a positive effect on him. It was by no means a disaster and he has said all along that this Olympics was about gaining experience - which is exactly what he now has.

What pushes you back makes you stronger. There was no fairytale today but there will be one in the future.