Episode 5 British Olympic Dreams

-'Kelly Holmes.'

-'The crowd are on their feet.'

'Good footwork be DeGale - what a start.'

'Denise Lewis, Olympic champion!'

'And Rebecca Adlington is bringing it home for Britain.'

'Great Britain get the gold medal!'

-'Yes! Yes, yes!

-Kelly Holmes for Great Britain.

'What a performance!'

'James DeGale is the Olympic champion!'

'You are absolutely brilliant!'

'Great Britain takes gold!'

It's a massive opportunity and one that, as a group,

we are experienced, we're very keen to take.

Knowing that it's the best competition you can ever play in,

it's the pinnacle of any athlete's career.

It's such an exciting time for every sport,

not just swimming, and hopefully we can go there and rule the roost.

I invite the athletes of the world to participate

in the Games of the 30th Olympiad in London one year from today.

Good luck, London.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And so the clock has ticked past one year to go

until the London Olympics.

The real business of qualifying for the Games has begun in earnest

for Britain's athletes, and the teams behind them,

helping them every inch of the way.

Today, we bring you the stars of athletics, rowing,

swimming and triathlon.

But first, with one year to go until London 2012,

who better to open the show

than the world's greatest all-round athlete, Jessica Ennis?

So where's the lens? I can't quite see.

What's the best thing about being Jess Ennis?

Obviously, athletics,

wedding on the horizon,

and just the people around me, great friends and family.

Over time, I've learned that I do have to give her orders.

"Do this, do this." Keep the message succinct,

cos that's how it's best received.

That is so typical of you, that we're working on something there,

and you moan about something over there. Yeah, it ain't all about...

I said that bit was all right.

It's not where you finish, it's where you start.

How much do you know at the start of each week? Does Toni

give you a shout on Sunday evening

and say, "This is the plan for the week ahead,"

or do you just turn up and he unveils the horror?

I need to know exactly what I'm doing every day, weeks in advance,

so I can just get it right in my head.

I have to know what session I'm doing on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

If I just rocked down to the track

and didn't know what I was doing and then he just surprised me with a session,

there'd be uproar! I'd absolutely hate it!

Yeah, wait, though. Hold that a second, then go.

Not a second, even, it's a hundredth of a second.

Sometimes she needs a bit more convincing. As does anybody.

"Where have you got that from? What's that about? What'll that do for me?"

You come to understand, when she was 11,

and you've got this guy, six foot tall,

it's just fear, you do as you're told,

so you're pretty much teaching. You get a bit older, you're coaching.

Now, she's Jessica Ennis, businesswoman,

world champion-type thing.

I used to be able to bully her - I can't any more.

I am now the bullied!

It must be a real bond of trust between the two of you?

Yeah, I think there has to be

a lot of trust between an athlete and a coach.

Just because Toni's coached me for so long, and every year, year upon year,

I've improved, and the programme that

he's put together has obviously worked well,

so I've got a lot of trust, and I'm just happy

as long as I've got a programme, I've got complete trust in the programme,

and I know that if I follow that and I train hard, I'll improve.

What was it like when you first met each other?

I guess you were part of a big training group then?

Groups change so much

over the years. Yeah, when I started, I was obviously one of the youngest,

and there were some older girls there,

and then people moved on and stopped training, doing athletics,

so yeah, it's changed a lot over the years, but I'm the last one standing,

so I think I deserve a medal for that!

Come on, girl!

-Come on, come on!

-It doesn't spur me on, it just makes me angry,

cos I think, "Why am I doing this

"when you're just stood there, blowing a whistle?"

To someone who's never done a session like that, try and describe the pain.

The pain is...

I don't know, it's indescribable.

It builds up in your legs, obviously, the lactic acid,

and your arms are tired,

you're out of breath, and your body feels like

it's going to collapse. It's a horrible feeling.

You can't get your breath back quick enough before the next run,

and then you're building more lactic up on each run,

so by the end, you're just dying.

One more, one more, one more, one more.

-I can't.

-You can.

-So when you go to the major championships

and feel a bit anxious, you can think back to a session like today's

and think, "I've got that in the bank"?

Yeah, I always think that. I think, before an 800 metres

at a championships, I'm always really anxious and really nervous,

and that's one thing I do tell myself,

is that I've done all these running sessions in horrible conditions,

but I know I've done all those sessions,

so I should be able to cope with

two laps of the track at the end of the heptathlon.

My biggest dream in the Olympics would be

to be in the 100-metre final and to the 100-metre champion.

Doing the most perfect competition I can on all six pieces of apparatus

and standing on the podium at the end.

I want to go there and do the best I can...and a medal,

coming away with a medal, would be an awesome achievement.

'It's a new world record!'

'Two gold medals!

'This man is unstoppable!'

-ORE:

-Dorney Lake, Eton. A 2-kilometre stretch of water.

2,000 metres of lung-bursting effort every race

for GB's rowers next year.

For Mark Hunter, the journey to defending the Olympic title

he won alongside Zac Purchase back in 2008 has been

anything but straightforward. John Inverdale tells us more.

Rowing. There's a temptation to think that

it's a public-school and Oxbridge monopoly, but it's far from that.

20 years ago, an East End boy started rowing for fun,

and next year, the Olympics come to his manor.

I started rowing at the age of 14. My dad used to coach

a local rowing club, Poplar and Blackwall, on the Isle of Dogs.

I went down, tried it out.

It coincided with the Olympics being on the television in '92,

saw the old guy, Greg Searle, winning.

Watching him and his brother win inspired me

to want to go on that journey. In 2000,

when I saw Steve win his fifth, I thought,

"If he can win five, surely I can win one."

So that really kicked it off.

Mark Hunter did his apprenticeship as a waterman on the Thames,

running cargo boats. His mates left school and headed for

the bright lights and the fat pay cheques of the City of London.

His love of rowing saw him head for Henley, to row at the Leander Club.

Leaving the comfort of being in my own environment,

a big fish in a small pond,

and going to be the small fish in a big pond, it was like that,

you've got all these great athletes

around you, like Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell, watching them train

really made me understand what was needed to be done,

and how to get to the top was by watching them.

He went to Athens, but the Athens Olympics came and went.

His crew failed to even make it out of the heats.

Try explaining that to your fat-cat mates in the City.

They didn't know what rowing was, and when I told them

I'd started rowing, they laughed cos they didn't understand it.

Then, obviously, my experience of getting to Athens,

not doing well, they were,

"You've wasted this time." Your friends have got

flash cars, nice houses, earning loads of money,

and I'm there with nothing, trying to get to the top and thinking,

"Is this the right journey?" But it's a choice you have to make.

If you want to be the best in the world, you have to make sacrifices.

The failure of Greece became the glory of China.

A partnership with Zac Purchase made the pair the hottest properties

in the lightweight crews.

We have different ways of going about things,

but we are committed to winning, and that's what matters

when you get out in the boat, when you come to racing,

you want to cross the finish line first.

And their victory in Beijing gave both

a place in the rowing history books.

'Mark Hunter is leading Zac Purchase to a wonderful gold-medal victory!

'And we have now gone into the record books!

'Great Britain are the Olympic champions! And it sounds fantastic!'

All my friends back home were watching the TV,

and one of my close friends

kicked his wife out and said, "I need to be on my own."

It was interesting to hear all their stories and how emotional they got,

cos they know how hard I worked and how long

it had taken. They patted me on the back and said,

"Well done, it was well worth it."

What do you do when you have an Olympic gold?

If you're Mark Hunter, you go to America

and do some coaching, chill out, surf.

While you're trapped being a full-time athlete,

you don't do anything else, you think you're the only thing

that's important in the world, what you're doing.

But when you step outside, you realise, to be honest,

the world doesn't care about you. They see you at a big event on TV for a few minutes,

and then they forget about you.

It made me realise how important it is to really appreciate what we do.

Purchase battled with illness and injury,

then last year, they started over again,

and when they went to the World Championships, it was like they'd never been away.

'Here they are, three lengths ahead of the World Champions.

'That's pretty stunning.

'Job well done for Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter.

'They've added the world gold medal to the gold they won two years ago.

'Absolutely incredible.'

Yes!

We're back.

Now it's full steam ahead to the Worlds and then the London Olympics,

when all Hunter's mates who thought he was mad to go rowing

when they were raking in the cash,

will be able to spend some of it watching him try to repeat that Beijing glory.

That's one of the special things about home Olympics -

your friends, family, close friends, maybe not-so-close friends

can come and see you in action.

It's kind of a great story to win in Beijing,

have some time out, come back,

get our seed back and then go on to London

and what will be on the day.

To go there and accomplish a second gold would be the ultimate.

I can't think of anything better than that.

Head to our website for more information

and to keep up with everything that's happening

in the world of Olympic sports.

To have the Olympics in your own backyard,

I drive past it maybe once a week,

see the stadium being built.

The Olympics is the pinnacle of any sport, but the ones in London,

on home ground, is going to be something very special.

I get a shiver down my spine every time I think about London 2012.

Hi, there! My name's Ben Pipes, GB men's indoor volleyball captain.

This is our court where we're coming back next year for London 2012.

As you come in, you see the media side on the right.

On to the left is the athletes changing rooms and the warm-up courts.

This is one of the changing rooms we use during the Games.

You can see it's fairly lifeless now, but I can promise you

when it's full of players, there's lots of banter,

there's a lot of pushing and shoving.

THEY SHOUT

Moving into Earls Court, even now I get goose bumps.

You imagine 15,000 people in a packed home Olympics.

You get a real glimpse and a feeling of the grandeur of everything,

and I know if we could play tomorrow, we're ready.

Rowing brothers stood together at the top of the podium at Barcelona '92.

20 years on, Britain will again have a pair of brothers chasing Olympic gold,

but they won't necessarily be helping each other out all the way here in Hyde Park.

Every British athlete's dream is to win a gold medal.

It would be fantastic if we could both get up there on the podium, but one step at a time, I think.

Finishing hand in hand would be a dream,

but it is one of those special things on the day.

I can't imagine us not racing down the finish, to be honest.

Even if we had the best intentions in the world not to,

we're the two lads who can't play Monopoly

without throwing the board at each other.

Suddenly you're on the biggest sporting stage in the world.

I've got a feeling we'll probably race.

If we were going hand in hand, I might just dip in for the line.

Outside of this, he's a semi-professional triathlete

and a semi-professional Football Manager player, I think.

I'm a Leeds United fan, so every time I'm on Football Manager, I start off with Leeds United.

I started with Aston Villa last week,

because they had more money to spend and it's more exciting.

I buy all the Leeds players.

Who started the triathlon thing first?

Definitely, it was me, I started everything first.

-He always says that, he always says I copy him.

-You do.

Swimming and running, our parents were into that

and doing everything as kids, even a bit of football.

Cricket, rugby, I suppose.

-You never played football or cricket.

-I did!

I begged my dad to take me to a triathlon to have a go

and I think the year after Jonny started it, as well.

He's got an altitude tent at home and he sleeps in it at night,

so he goes to bed, turns it on, and all night I get this annoying

humming noise next to my room, because his altitude tent is ticking away.

-He tells me he sleeps at 2,500 metres or something.

-It's actually 3,500.

He can't hear the generator, he just likes it as an excuse, I think.

Everyone likes rivalries and battles,

but there are 20 or 30 guys who could actually win.

Javier Gomez, he's an incredible athlete. He's got no weakness.

He's one of the best athletes in the world.

On his day, he's absolutely phenomenal.

The Olympics are my main goal right now,

the only thing I haven't won yet.

I don't have a medal of the Games,

so I'm focused and will try to get it in London.

Would you say the Brownlees are your biggest rivals?

Yeah, right now, when you see the results,

there's no doubt that they are the big rivals.

They are on a different level than all the other ones.

I have a lot of respect for them

and they are great champions as athletes and as people,

and for me, and I guess everyone else, it's a challenge trying to beat them,

How to do it? You have to run faster than them.

It sounds easy, but it's pretty difficult.

If Alistair wasn't there, I wouldn't be as strong.

Both of us working together is really important.

What does he do that makes you better?

He's just there, really, in training, chasing me,

making me work that little bit harder.

It's only little things, and it probably makes little difference,

but maybe that's the little bit of difference that helps.

How worried are you that one day he's going to be better than you?

I am not worried it's going to happen.

Fingers crossed we'll alternate

and push each other to get better, ultimately,

and be better than everyone else, and that's the important thing.

Ollie Williams reporting there.

Now from brothers racing for triathlon gold

to a father and daughter combination aiming for success in the pool at London 2012.

Nick Hope joins Patrick and Hannah Miley

as they prepare for a nice family outing

to the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai.

# To dream the impossible dream... #

-COMMENTATOR:

-Hannah Miley wins gold at the European Championships...

# To fight the unbeatable foe... #

She swims 80,000 metres a week...

# To bear with unbearable sorrow... #

Good job, Hannah.

# To run where the brave dare not go... #

Take your mark...

WHISTLE SOUNDS

My dad's always been my coach - I've not really known any other way.

I guess, like any other relationship, you're going to have ups and downs,

but in the end, we always manage to work it out.

There's pressure because we're in the same house so much,

but the quality of information

that you get is second to none. You know sometimes too much!

He's gone out and worked with Ian Thorpe, Brooke Bennett,

lots of top Olympic athletes, so I fully trust

that he knows what he's doing, so I can't really challenge that.

OK, 37.3.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Ian Thorpe was actually in the office a few weeks ago, and it turns out he is quite a fan.

Of course there's your Becky Adlingtons and Fran Halsalls,

and also Hannah Miley.

That's awesome - he knows my name!

That's pretty cool, actually.

I think I have to apologise. I'm going to be quite smiley now.

I quite like being just that little bit different,

saying, "Well, I do 12 sessions a week and I do a bit of rock climbing,"

because there's not that many other athletes that do it.

You ever been scared of heights?

The first climb I did, I got halfway and realised,

"I've got to get down!"

Are you OK?

No, that really hurts.

The Chinese suction cups release any sore trigger points,

but it just looks horrific when you see it happening.

We've heard about Hannah's hectic schedule,

but, Patrick, yours isn't exactly easy -

father, coach, inventor and helicopter pilot?

Well, that pays the bills.

That's my job, that's my profession.

I flew in the military, in the army,

and I've been flying on the North Sea for almost 22 years.

How difficult do you find it

-when you see your daughter struggling some days?

-I don't find that difficult,

because, as a coach, it's information.

I tend to be very clinical once I get poolside,

it's pretty clinical.

If she does get ill during a session,

she pushes herself and gets sick, that's part of the process.

I'm not a big fan of getting too soft on any athlete.

Hannah Miley, she doesn't have a great butterfly.

After that, she's really good...

Having already been at a World Championships,

I'm now going into the event with a little more experience, more know-how.

And Hannah Miley, she swam so well, but she's come fourth.

Every missed opportunity, like getting fourth again,

it's a huge driving point, you don't want that to happen again,

and you kind of have to use it as fuel to come back fighting

faster and stronger next time around.

Obviously, with the 400 to come on the last day,

it's a test of mental strength as much as anything else,

the ability to hold out for the last day.

The final individual race of this World Championships here in Shanghai is the women's 400 medley.

STARTER BUZZER

I was hanging on for dear life. My little legs couldn't kick any more.

Hannah's not doing too badly.

This is the closest thing to the Olympics.

It looks like Hannah Miley may turn second here.

To get a medal in this is just, "Oh, my God."

Is she going to get a silver

or a bronze? It's going to be one of them. I think it's a silver!

Well done, Hannah Miley.

It's great I can get these performances, because it shows the hard work he's doing

when he has time to coach, because half the time he's flying helicopters.

It's fantastic we can produce these results

and it does show sometimes it's not all about the better facilities,

it's about the coaches, the coaching relationship and how they coach you.

The Serpentine here in Hyde Park

will be the venue for the open-water swimming events.

One person who'll definitely be there, barring injury, is Kerri-Anne Payne.

She became the first GB athlete to qualify for the Games

after her success in the 10-kilometre event in Shanghai.

Rebecca Adlington will arrive at the stunning Aquatic Centre in 2012,

now as Olympic and world 800-metre champion after her success in China.

The Tank, Liam Tancock defended his 50-metre backstroke title,

while a surprise butterfly silver for Ellen Gandy completed the tally for Britain's swimmers.

Just the thought of competing in front of your home crowd

and kind of making everybody else proud as well.

Proud, driven and the ultimate goal.

Very excited. Is that OK?!

SHE LAUGHS

There's no point in dreaming about it. Just got to go out there and make it happen.

I try not to get caught up in daydreaming.

YOu can't guarantee what's going to happen.

You can only deliver the very best performance you have on that day.

We take to the skies now with the GB basketball team,

as they get a bird's eye view of the Olympic Park.

MUSIC PLAYS

My name's Drew Sullivan. I'm captain of the GB basketball team.

My first time, but I'm excited.

'Before we got in, it was a little daunting, obviously for the first time,

'but once we got in there, took off and started flying around,

'it was really, really exciting.'

'We saw them all. Track and field, where the swimming will be taking place.

'The handball and the basketball court. It looks like a lemon meringue.'

I think it holds 12,000 people.

'I'm hoping there's 12,000 fans screaming for us.

'I think that's what dreams are made of.

'Myself and my team mates are some of the lucky few

'that are going to competing there,'

and that makes us quite unique and quite special.

'We're 12 months away from it becoming a reality.

'Everyone's extremely excited about it.'

When 400-metre runner Andrew Steele donned his Great Britain kit

at the 2008 Beijing Olympics,

the future looked bright,

but illness and injury has knocked him way off track.

For him, the road to the stadium

behind me could be a long and winding one.

MUSIC PLAYS

'Smiling hasn't come that easily to me, let's say.

'Constantly tired, constantly confused, couldn't sleep for months upon months.

'It seems a long, long time since Beijing 2008.'

'Beijing, I did medium well, we'll say, for the relay.'

We finished fourth in the final.

'Down the back straight, a hernia appeared in my body

'and then suddenly, bang! An incredible pain.'

The hernia caused a groin injury,

which kept me out for the entirety of the season in 2009.

'2010, as I was beginning the season, I came down with glandular fever.'

As you can imagine, glandular fever is hard enough for students at uni,

let alone running in international athletics, so I couldn't train.

'I was having a terrible time and had to call time on 2010 before I'd even begun as well.'

As I start racing now, I think I can start to step-by-step

get back to my best,

if I can reach below 45 seconds, high 44 seconds again,

'then I'm back on the road for the stage I need to be at pre-London.'

Let's see if I'm on the right path

to getting back to my best, you know?

'It's the second day of finals at the UK trials and championships...'

'Out on the track ready for the men's 400-metre final...'

'Andrew Steele, yet another trying to get back to some good form.'

STARTER GUN

'..just got left a little bit in the blocks...'

'It's a real good tussle. Clark trying to hang on

'but Rooney's got the advantage!

'Rooney takes the win.'

As you can see from the state of me here, it's just hard...

I can't exaggerate just how difficult, mentally and physically,

a process like coming back from some of the difficulties I've had has been...

I'm not back. There's no way.

I used to cruise those times in semi-final.

I'm having to force it and push it.

I'm getting just about to the times where I'm allowed to start competing.

Hopefully this doesn't affect next year in any way.

It will be a nice, positive stepping stone. Things have gone really well here. But...

but I've got a long-term plan, which results in London 2012.

Well, that's just about it for this edition of British Olympic Dreams.

Join us next time for more stories like this...

So sweet!

I was never that big.

I was always big, I swear I was born this big!

Absolutely love them. I find it so relaxing because you're so involved.

I get so into jigsaws. Where is this piece?

It completely distracts you

from everything else going on around. It's so nice.

There is less than one year to go

until the greatest show on Earth arrives right here.

And for every British athlete hoping to be a part of it,

-the excitement is building day by day. Goodbye.

-See you.

Everyone wants to be there. Everyone wants the chance to compete at a home Olympics.

When you're dreaming about it, it still brings up goose bumps.

It's a special moment.

It's pretty exciting to think what could happen.

Having it at your own doorstep's amazing.

It is exciting and it's not too far away.

If I qualify hopefully for the Olympics,

then I'm going to be the most happy girl on the planet, I think.

I'm just hoping I can do myself proud now.

I'm thinking about winning.

I'm thinking about desire, passion and motivation.

Get to the start line in one piece!

'I've got a silver medal in Athens.'

I could only imagine what getting a gold one will feel like.

To win a fourth gold medal on home waters

would be an incredible achievement.

I'm still really excited. Still absolutely loving the journey.

It's just a privilege to be able to do this again.

When you say a year to go,

I think you get that slight rush of adrenaline

and you just think, bring it on.

'I think we just need to go out there,

'we need to enjoy it and make the most of it and do what we know we're capable of doing.'

'Absolutely fantastic.'

I can't wait till the Olympics come to our shores.

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