South East Olympic Dreams

This is the Olympic Park in Stratford, where thousands of

athletes will be competing in the 30th modern Olympic Games. Tonight

we're going to introduce you to six of them, all from the South East,

all hoping to make Britain proud. The dream is the gold medal,

winning the gold. It would be nice for me to come from where I have

come. Whoever comes the highest place get to go to the Olympics.

is between the two of you. This is where I feel it is my second chance.

My children are very young, only five and seven. I am missing out on

time in their lives. You are a decathlete, 10 events, you must be

That is pretty much it, it is as simple as everyone imagines, I

think. First up, Ashley Jackson he was a

hockey superstar as a Kent schoolboy and his goal-scoring

talent has made him one of the most crucial members of the Great

Britain side. But is it enough to Most athletes dream of the Olympics.

An Olympic athlete dreams of medals. And if you are a four-wood for the

GB hockey team, that means just one thing. You have to score goals.

That is exactly what Ashley Jackson dreams of. And the dream is the

gold medal, the winning gold. I am not sure whether it is winning gold,

or just an absolute rout and we destroy whoever we are playing in

the final. I haven't quite made my mind up, I have been playing a few

scenarios over and over again. It is as simple as everyone imagines,

I think. It is a simple dream but one that Ashley, from West Malling

in Kent, could not have pursued without his father. At an early age

he spotted Ashley's sporting potential, first in ice hockey and

then field hockey. He encouraged his son and watched him emerge as

an accomplished player at Sutton Vallence School near Maidstone. But

it was aged 13 that his father would take the gamble that would

change Ashley's life. He decided his son should join division to

East Grinstead, instead of Premiership Canterbury. It is down

to my father, he decided this was probably the best option and he

could not have planned it any better. I came here in a slightly

lower league but played hockey and developed faster than I would have

done at a Premier League side. Everything has gone pretty much as

smoothly and as perfect as you could imagine. The team soon

graduated to the Premiership, and went on to take medal after medal.

Ashley then joined the Great Britain team. In 2010 he was named

best junior player in the world. The Great Britain coach, Jason Lee,

will tell you why. Ashley's commitment to the game, his will

and drive to win, is really significant. It drives the rest of

the players in training as well as the matches. It is quite a rare

ability. He loves the pressure, which is again quite unusual.

bigger the game, the more he is willing to put himself out there.

And that is not common at all and it makes a real difference for us.

But can it make a big enough difference to take gold at the

Olympics? At the last big tournament before the Games, the

Champions Trophy in New Zealand, GB lost 4-1 to Australia and eight one

to Spain. Ashley failed to score a single goal, although he would not

There is going to be more and more pressure for me to produce, but it

is what you play for. The sort of pressure that you like to have.

GB team have won and Olympic gold, in Seoul in 1988. Although Ashley

tends not to dwell on the fact, there is no doubt it is part of the

drive behind his dream of a gold medal of his own. We want to be the

new guys, to take over from the guys who won it in 88. It is about

So, for Ashley Jackson and the Great Britain hockey team, success

or failure will be decided here at the Olympic Park. But for our next

athlete, the pursuit of glory will take place 200 miles away, off the

coast of Weymouth. -- 120 miles It is a really unique feeling, when

you are leading the fleet around the course. You look ahead of you

and there is just clear water. Bryony Shaw, Britain's top windsurf

and lucky enough to be training on the very water where the Olympic

event will be held. Weymouth is an extremely good sailing venue. It is

not a specialist venue, you have to be a very good all-round sailor.

From the sea currents to wind conditions and the size of the

waves on any given day, Bryony has come from her Tunbridge Wells home

to build what is likely to be vital knowledge. Training here, and

getting all that may new experience, and ultimately going as fast as you

can on Weymouth waters is ultimately critical. Bryony will be

relying on her physical stamina and technical skill to create that

speed, no more than when she is pumping, the technique of banning

the sale in order to accelerate the board. You are doing high

repetitions and pulling it towards you, in a sort of rapid movement. A

wholesale kind of flicks like a bird's wing. -- the whole sail kind

of flicks. I have to be a good endurance athlete to get that

acceleration, and then the endurance to last 30 minutes

through the race. But at the Beijing Olympics four years ago,

Bryony proved she had no end of endurance and strength of mind.

After a difficult start that saw had disqualified from one of the

races for starting too early, she went on to eventually take the

bronze medal. And if you saw that final race, you will probably

remember her reaction. I am just so happy! Thank you so much for

supporting me. It was such a hard race, I have had such a hard week

and I am so happy! It is the best thing in the world! This time

around, you are unlikely to see any tears of joy, unless Brioni takes

gold. Looking back on it, I feel like I had the opportunity to win,

and it was disappointing I did not get the gold medal. So this is

where I really feel it is my second chance, here in Weymouth. Bryony's

recent performances indicate she could achieve that dream, a dream

she will know is within grasp when all she can see ahead is the

Bryony Shaw - definitely one for you to watch at London 2012. Coming

Former Olympic javelin thrower, Steve Backley, turns coach to one

of our decathlon hopefuls. And we meet Sophia Warner, who

balances cerebal palsy with a family and a Paralympic training

schedule. But first, here's three more

athletes to keep an eye out for at London 2012.

Kent 1,500 metres runner, Lisa Dobriskey - who narrowly missed out

on a medal in Beijing - is aiming to put a dreadful run of injuries

behind her this year. The 28-year- old from Ashford had surgery at the

end of 2011 on a hip condition that normally affects ballet dancers.

She expects to return to competition in April.

Paralympian table tennis player, Will Bayley, from Tunbridge Wells,

is hoping the experience of his first Olympics in Beijing will help

him win a medal this summer. Bayley has a congenital muscular disorder

that affects his limbs and is the current world number two.

And there's no doubt 2012 will be the biggest year of rower Dan

Ritchie's life. The 25-year-old from Herne Bay, who won a World

Championship silver last year, is going for gold in London and then

gets married after the Games. Traditionally it's the track and

field events that grab the big headlines, and our next competitor

did just that when he came from nowhere to bag a Bronze medal at

the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. Now he's eyeing qualification

for London 2012, and so we sent former Olympic Javelin thrower,

Steve Backley, along to give him For most athletes, their job is to

master one event. For decathlete Martin Brockman, it is his job to

From the high jump to the 1500 metres, he knows if he is to stand

any chance of qualifying for the Olympics, he needs to be at his

best in all of them. Like any athlete, he has his strengths and

his weaknesses. The javelin needs a bit of work, which is why I am here.

There is one question I have got to ask. As a guy who threw javelins,

it was all I did. You are a decathlete, 10 events, you must be

mad. It is a silly idea. I used to do just high-jump. I was quite a

good high jumper, but I got bored. I started playing around with high

jumps -- with pole vaults and curdles. -- and hurdles. My coach

said, why don't you learn to throw at you can be a good decathlete. I

am still learning to throw, but it is going well so far so I have

stuck with it. But it is not quite going well enough. The Maidstone

lad's personal best throw is 54 metres, but he really needs to

regularly be hitting the 60 metres mark. I took part in two -- four

Olympic Games, winning two silvers and a bronze, and I am hoping to

pass on experience. First I have to establish what the problem is.

do you think are your strengths and weaknesses? I have quite a strong

arm. You can throw a stone a long way? I can, but I can't quite put a

javelin on a point for the so you can't line it up?

No, it always dies out. OK, we can work on that, it is quite an easy

fix, actually. We now know what we need to work on. Let's start with

some introductions. This is Martin, be nice to each other. I don't

think Martin would consider the javelin to be his friend, but he

knows he needs to master it. Throwing one is as much about

technique as strength and that is what I will focus on. No, that is

all right. You looked like you have got a tendency to go up here, and

that is what will kill you off on the run up. The hand is nice and

high, and all you do is you whack the side as hard as you can.

Obviously, it is a bit more complicated than that, but Martin

has a lot of knowledge and is an accomplished sportsman. At the,

moth Games in Delhi two years ago, he turned up as a rank outsider and

walked away with a bronze medal -- at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

It poses different challenges to one event. Not only is it

physically exhausting, you have the mental exhaustion of trying to keep

mentally prepared for two days. It is not easy to do. You also have

one event that could go well, one could go badly and it is that

ability to pick yourself up after the bad events that make a really

good decathlete. That is all about mental strength and as the day goes

on, I see that Martin has plenty of it. There is a lot to learn and or

training session is tough, but throughout he remains positive. It

is not easy mastering one sport, let alone 10, so making every

second count in training is vital to Martin's success. After a few

hours, he really does seem to be improving and I think we have made

real progress. My stride, it good shapes, that is all you're looking

for at this time of year. -- nice stride. You are a tall lad and you

are using the long levers to good effect. The next thing is to

increase the speed as the winter goes by, and maintain that shape

and you'll get more distant. Good Steve Backley, with that report.

One of the big stars of the Paralympics is sprinter Sophia

Warner, who has cerebal palsy. But how do you juggle a disability with

Paralympic training and two young children. Steven George went to

Hi. I have made special cheesy It is teatime at the Warner family

home in Crawley, and mum has cut. Despite appearances, this is a far

from ordinary scene. Mum is a Paralympian, Dad has given up work

to look after the kids and this is the first Neil Sophia Warner has

cut in quite a while. -- the first meal. I think it is the first time

I have made tea in a few months and I have made cheese on toast, and it

is quite impressive! Not as impressive as the juggling act that

this family performs every day, to ensure that Sophia, whose condition

restricts the use of her left arm and leg, can prepare properly for

the Paralympic Games. As people like to imagine that I trained

full-time and I am a full-time mum, I train full-time and Hayden is a

full-time parent. We try to maintain as normal a life as we can

for the children, whilst I am out there trying to live my dream,

really. And that dream is to run fast enough to win a medal at

either the 100, or 200 metres. But it won't be easy. Whilst Sofia may

be home to serve up cheesy taste for tea, the rest of their date has

been a far cry for that of most other mothers. -- the rest of her

At the moment, I am spending a lot of time training, an enormous

amount of time. I am talking six or seven hours a day. And at least

half of that training is aimed at overcoming cerebral palsy, which

affects Sophia's ability to send messages from a brain to her

muscles. The fact she can run at all is an achievement in itself.

Yes delay -- yesterday, I opt for the first time without holding on,

which is ludicrous and I felt like I should have my parents there to

witness it. -- I opt for the first time. I don't know how I did it. I

have always tried to hop. We put some processes in place and they

have been gradually building up to me a hopping. Yesterday, I just

hope. That achievement was down to hard work, and today, that

continues. Hours are spent in the gym, lifting weights to increase

strength and therefore speed. Every hour means sacrifice. But will it

be worth it? Her husband, Hayden, certainly hopes so. To give Sophia

the time she needs to succeed, he has also given up work to be a

full-time parent. I help out with the kids, take them to school, do

the drop-offs and pick ups. I generally just help out around the

house. Before, when I was working, it was a lot more difficult. Now we

can get by. We are totally committed to 2012. Does Hayden have

an Olympic dream of his own? I hope that she is happy at the end of it,

really. And she gains what she wants to out of it. Obviously, a

medal would be nice. And, yeah, I hope that the doors open and other

possibilities could come along. All in all, I just hope she is happy.

Back at home, after a day spent on the track and Jim, Sophia doesn't

have to look far to find happiness. Despite the challenges of juggling

family life and her Olympic dreams, she would not have it any other way.

Definitely not. It would not be so fun doing it without them, because

at the end of the day, we are all kind of benefiting and enjoying the

whole experience for different reasons. It would not be the same

if I was on my own. Steven George, with that report.

Coming up: Showjumper, Guy Williams, takes us

around the ring at his Canterbury stables.

And I meet the girl with the golden gun - Charlotte Kerwood.

But first, here's another three athletes with Olympic dreams of

their own. 400 metres hurdler, Jack Green,

from Kent, has high hopes of making the Olympic final in July after

impressing at the 2011 World Championships. The 20-year-old from

Snodland is the best in Britain for his age.

Ben Quilter is the current World and European visually impaired judo

champion, having won the latter title at Crawley's K2 last November.

The 30-year-old from Brighton trains at the British judo centre

in Dartford and is a hot favourite for Paralympic gold.

Look out for Billy Whenman from Gravesend. He's been riding

mountain bikes since the age of nine. He burst onto the scene two

years ago when he won the final stage of the Mountain Bike Tour de

France, and is currently ranked second in the UK.

Now, it's hard enough for an Olympian to rely on themselves to

deliver the performance they need on the big day. But what if your

gold medal chances are largely determined by an animal?

He Guy Williams faces a unique challenge as he prepares for the

Olympics. His dream of taking part rests not just on himself but on

the horses he rides. If the Games are to feature in Guy Williams'

yeah, he is not the only athlete who will need to be on form.

horse needs to be totally focused on what he is doing. He is an

athlete and he has to be treated like one. At his stables near

Canterbury, Guy is hard at work with these animals, honing the

talent in the hope they would lead him to the Olympics. It is a hard,

complex task. On the good days, when success is in the air, he and

his horses can sense it. They know when they are going good and when

they are not going so well. Horses have to peak at the right time, and

it is quite complicated. As a rider, you know what you are doing and if

your horse feels good when you get on it. You should do, anyway.

Equestrianism is one of the biggest ports in the Olympics, and London

2012 would be Guy's first games. Chances are high he would be taking

part. After a 23 year career in -- as a showjumper, he is number one

in the country. It is not just riding that he is talented at. One

of the greatest skills is putting together the right team of horses

and managing them throughout the year, in an attempt to stack the

odds in their favour. You are relying on an animal for a start,

he can get ill and become lane -- Lane more or anything for to be

after I have back-up plans and plan the course you are going to take.

We go slowly, we go each month, we are just tweaking it, moving it

about a bit, shuffling it about to get the right result for July.

you can tell, Guide Me believes that whilst the horses obviously

play their part, success or failure rests on their shoulders -- Guide

You are there to do your job and focus on getting the horse do the

best of his ability, making improve through the months to not go wrong.

The pressure is on you and not the cause. Hopefully he should be

steered and jump some clear rounds. -- and not the horse. And there is

another side to this story. Showjumping is perceived by many to

be an elite sport, something enjoyed by the wealthy. For Guy,

who comes from a working-class background, Olympic success would

taste even more sweet. It would be nice, for me to come from where I

have come and to reach that bit in the sport, it would be really good.

It would be an amazing achievement. But it is a long way to go yet. I

Finally tonight, a cautionary tale for all our competitors - previous

sporting success in big events is not always a guarantee of a seat on

the team GB bus. Sussex shooter, Charlotte Kerwood, has two

Commonwealth Games gold medals to her name but still doesn't know if

she'll make it to London 2012. -- 3 She is the UK's number-one trap

shooter, she took part in the 2008 Games in Beijing and she has won 3

Commonwealth Games gold medals. Yet competition for the one shooting

plays is so tight that for Charlotte Kerwood to fulfil her

Olympic dream, she is again going to have to prove she can hold her

nerve and her aim, when the pressure is on. I have managed to

make the shortlist. At the moment there is only me and one other lady

on the shortlist. We are going to America in March for a World Cup,

and also to London for a World Cup. They have said that whoever comes

highest gets to go to the Olympics. You know that it is a shoot off

between the two? Pretty much. is just one challenge that the 25-

year-old from fledging in East Sussex has to contend with. The

sport is also one of the most expensive to pursue. It is a very

expensive sport, if you want to do it at the top level. Guns are not

cheap, cartridges are not -- are quite expensive. Her cartridges

cost as �6,000 a year, and buying her a gun costs about a grand more.

Then there is the travel involved. We have four World Cups a year, all

over the world. We have the world championships and the Europeans.

You are going abroad at least six times every year to compete, it can

get quite expensive. Right now, Charlotte is lottery-funded, but it

hasn't always been this way. After a poor performance in Beijing in

2008, she was dropped from that funding programme. After Beijing, I

was taken off the programme, just because there were such big cuts

and I didn't really perform that year. 2009 was very expensive.

happens when the money disappears? In the case of Charlotte,

continuing to pursue her Olympic dream would not have been possible

without this man. Her supportive and rather generous father, Dan.

get to her level, we are probably looking at something in the region

of 15,000 a year, with the travelling abroad. It can be quite

a drain on the funds. But there is no question it has been worth every

penny. When you see any child doing well, whether it is academic day or

in sport, you have got to give them every chance you can. Charlotte did

so well that we have forgone a few holidays, or some luxuries, but to

see her at the podium and the national anthem being played --

played, that is payment in full back. With financial worries and

the pressure of knowing she has got to outperform a GB rival, it is

fair to say that Charlotte has a lot to contend with. Then there is

just the small task of hitting a piece of play travelling at high

speed. You don't know which direction it will go in, it can be

a 45 degree angle left or right, it can be a straight target. It comes

out at about 60 mph, travelling 75 metres. You haven't got long?

long at all. No one ever said chasing Olympic dreams was easy.

Like all of our Olympic hopefuls, Charlotte will need everything she

has got to get to the Games, and perhaps a little more to win gold.

Like any good athlete knows, if you want to succeed, you have got to

You can follow the progress of all the athletes you've seen tonight by

logging onto our local Kent or Sussex websites. Also coming up on

British Olympic Dreams returns to your screens this coming Saturday

with a Winter Youth Olympic Games special. It's on BBC One at 1:00pm.

And the programme is back in February with more behind-the-

scenes access to Britain's Olympic There's just over six months left

before the Olympic flame is lit and the Games begin. Between now and