03/09/2011 World Olympic Dreams

Welcome to the East End of London and another edition

of World Olympic Dreams,

featuring Olympic hopefuls from all across the globe.

Now, in just a year's time, thousands of us will be flooding

to the Olympic Park to see those records smashed

and those precious medals won.

But for the athletes, the Games themselves represent just the last

tiny step of a journey that they've been on for years.

WHISTLE BLOWS

In this programme,

we meet the sports teacher that set Usain Bolt on track

to becoming the world's fastest man.

He tells us how much she means to him.

She's like a second mum. While I was in high school, she looked after me.

American gymnast Shawn Johnson brings us along

on her tour of a major sporting brand's headquarters in the States.

And we find out why Russian high-jumper Ivan Ukhov

is praying it won't rain in London in 2012.

Three...

Hurdler Jehue Gordon tells me about the difficulty

he and his former school mates had growing up on the island of Trinidad.

Some have died already. Shoot-outs. Some are in jail...

And finally Olga Kharlan shows us

how the sport of fencing has opened the door to a new life.

Oh, my goodness.

Although London will play host to the majority of events,

the whole of Great Britain can savour the Games.

Sports clubs up and down the country are training up

the next generation of British hopefuls

and they may also play host to some of the foreign competitors.

As I'm about to find out,

there could be a future Olympic gold medallist coming to a town near you.

Birmingham is just one of the many towns and cities

throughout the UK that will entertain training camps

for the world's top athletes in the final weeks before the Olympics.

This is the University of Birmingham and they will play host

to one of the fastest teams coming to the Games, that of Jamaica.

This is the very track where, in the last few days

before the Games begin, Usain Bolt will hone his technique

as he prepares to take on his own world records in the 100m and 200m.

Usain Bolt has been very public

about his dream to play football for Manchester United.

He might have been tearing past defences in the Premier League

if it hadn't been for his first PE teacher,

who spotted and nurtured his talent.

Andy Akinwolere has been to Jamaica to meet Usain Bolt

and the woman who gave us the world's fastest man.

Rush on...

'She's the woman behind the fastest man alive.'

WHISTLE BLOWS

'Meet Lorna Thorpe, the PE teacher that set Usain Bolt on track

'to Olympic gold medals and a 100m world record time of 9.58 seconds.'

CHEERING

COMMENTARY: Bolt, kicking away from the field.

It's going to be gold from Jamaica. That is superb.

It's a new world record!

He has blown the world away. That was phenomenal.

How did he do that?

WHISTLE BLOWS

'And it all began here, William Knibb School in Falmouth, Jamaica.'

I actually can't believe this is where Usain Bolt used to train.

It's not so much an athletics track but just dust.

In terms of William Knibb as a school,

the confidence and discipline they're instilling in those children

is just absolutely phenomenal.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Lorna taught Usain at the time he was deciding

whether to give up cricket and football in favour of athletics.

She's still there today, inspiring a new generation of track hopefuls.

She provides for us economically, financially and emotionally

and makes sure that anything we need, we got it.

We just love her. We admire her. We adore her.

She's like our own mother to us.

How does that make you feel as a person?

Very good but it's part of my job so I have to just work for them.

That's what I get paid for. To work with them.

You are so modest. You guys are making such a massive difference.

Because, I mean, what would they be doing otherwise?

Out on the street, doing something they shouldn't be doing.

You say it's a job but I think it's a little more than that

-from what I see here.

-It's a passion.

-It really is.

-It's a passion.

If you ask Usain, he'll tell you that. If you ask everybody.

It's just a passion. I have to be there for them.

'Her star former pupil hasn't forgotten where it all began.

'Bolt's paid for a new canteen for the school

'and he's given the athletics team new kit.'

Nice to meet you, all right...

'When I caught up with him,

'it was obvious Lorna Thorpe is still very much in his thoughts.'

For me, she's like a second mum.

While I was in high school, she looked after me,

for anything I wanted.

She made sure I was in classes.

She was always on me in school,

to make sure everything was OK, I was focussed.

She played a very big part.

For school kids in Jamaica, the stakes are high.

Once a year, the top athletes compete here at the boys and girls champs.

It's not like any school sports day that I ever went to.

For many here, sport is the one chance

they have to avoid being pulled into a life of poverty or crime.

Bolt first burst onto the scene here and he's not looked back since.

His presence is obviously an inspiration to today's generation.

The fact he's made it to where he is today is what keeps these kids

pushing ever harder to cross that finish line.

For a lot of Olympic champions,

their route to success would have begun at a place like this

an ordinary club full of people with extraordinary goals.

It's a privilege on World Olympic Dreams to meet athletes

in their natural environments and it's also amazing to find them

in the clubs where they started out.

This is Bury Gymnastics Club,

a part of the resurgence in gymnastics in the UK.

19-year-old US gymnast Shawn Johnson started at her local club,

a bit like this one, and she went on to win three silvers

and a gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

She is now an inspiration to Olympic hopefuls everywhere.

Despite the fact she still trains at that same gym,

Shawn Johnson's career continues to hit new heights.

She has now signed a sponsorship deal with one

of the world's largest sportswear brands.

Tom Burridge joined Shawn in a rare look behind the scenes

at Nike headquarters in Portland, Oregon.

An Olympic gold medallist as you've never seen her.

The dots on the screen are gymnast Shawn Johnson.

The technology maps her movements as she runs down the mat.

Cameras pick up the reflective nodes

which are attached to nearly every part of Shawn's body.

I am out of high school and wanting to go to college

and wanting to build a foundation for the rest of my life,

and this really can set me up for good.

Shawn seriously injured her knee last year.

She isn't even certain she'll compete at London 2012.

For a big sponsor, there's no guarantee that the deal will pay off.

There's plenty of evidence that shows having celebrities endorsing products

not only causes an uplift in sales but allows you to charge a price premium.

The more difficult thing to prove conclusively

is the impact it has

on overall brand image and therefore overall sales.

Shawn Johnson does have celebrity status.

She has more than 85,000 followers on Twitter.

And for her, the deal is part of her future as a business woman

as well as an athlete.

I do consider myself a business woman and I'm still learning

and there's a lot left to learn but I love that part of it,

because that's the part where people get to know who I am

and see the real me instead of just the gymnast on the screen.

For Shawn, a day touring the company's headquarters is a day she isn't training.

Her deal will mean more commitments like this.

But her hope is that the support of a big sponsor will only increase her chances of gold in London.

In Cornwall, these schoolchildren have been using the Olympics to connect with the rest of the world.

The BBC's World Class project has been twinning British schools

with those of our World Olympic Dreams athletes.

The school here in Redruth has been twinned with a school in Russia.

The Olympic Academy, no less.

Ivan Ukhov, our World Olympic Dreams high-jumper, went to that school.

Back in 2008, Ivan achieved a huge degree of notoriety

when he was filmed drunk at a tournament.

Earlier this year, Steven Rosenburg was in Moscow,

where Ivan has now matured into a potential Olympic champion.

At the Russian Army's sports club,

they like to keep the conscripts on their toes.

These soldiers are unlikely to be Russia's answer to Usain Bolt,

but you can find one Olympic hopeful here.

Or rather, down there.

True, he may not be doing too much at the moment.

He looks more sleepy than sporty

and, unlike this lot, he's not a military man.

But Ivan Ukhov believes he's got what it takes to win the men's high jump

at the London Games.

Ivan is the current world indoor champion.

He never set out to be a jumper though.

TRANSLATION: For many years, I was a basketball player.

Then I argued with the coach and packed it in. I took up the discus.

But one day, I saw some guys doing the high jump.

I asked if I could have a go just for fun.

They said yes. I jumped so high, I beat them all.

But Ivan does have a weakness.

And, curiously, it's all to do with his shoes.

In the battle for a gold medal,

perhaps Ivan Ukhov's biggest problem is his footwear.

Unlike other high-jumpers,

Ivan doesn't like to wear shoes with spikes in the heel.

In rainy conditions, that can be a big obstacle,

and as everybody knows, the sun doesn't always shine in London.

At this competition in Switzerland,

it wasn't rain making Ivan Ukhov lose his balance.

It was alcohol.

His drunken performance, caught on a mobile phone,

became an internet sensation but these embarrassing scenes

nearly ended his career.

Ivan doesn't like talking about the incident. He's put it behind him.

He has a family now.

His wife and daughter have brought stability to his life

and that means Ivan can focus on his sporting goals.

TRANSLATION: The most important thing for me, for any sportsman,

is to set a world record and win an Olympic gold medal.

Russian athletics meetings aren't quite the same as an Olympic Games.

But if Ivan Ukhov keeps putting in winning performances like this,

he'll be off to London and praying for sunny weather.

Sheffield is known as the Steel City,

but in the lead-up to 2012, it's gold medals they're trying to forge.

By next year, it's believed approximately one in seven

members of Team GB could have trained in Sheffield.

Ponds Forge Sports Centre

is one of the best diving centres in the country.

These guys train for up to five days a week,

doing 100 dives in a session.

It takes huge commitment for them to make it to the Olympics.

As someone once said, dedication's what you need.

In China, potential medallists are scouted as early as six

and put into special schools

where they only get half a day off in a week.

Synchronised divers He Zi and Wu Minxia are two such athletes.

Michael Bristow has been to the heart

of China's medal factory in Beijing to meet them.

Diving is years of training, distilled into one perfect leap.

He Zi has been practising the art since she was six.

Barring injuries, she'll perform at the London Olympics next year.

This is who she'll be diving with - Wu Minxia.

She's already won two Olympic gold medals.

Their coaches watch every dive, offering words of advice

and criticism.

The two athletes must be in complete symmetry.

In London, there'll be no room for error.

-TRANSLATION:

-It's quite tense. The atmosphere makes you very nervous.

But if you believe in yourself, you can control your performance.

Both divers are products of China's sports machine,

that trains children to become winners.

Scouts search the country for promising youngsters.

Anyone with potential is sent

to one of hundreds of special sports schools.

Life for these youngsters is tough.

They train virtually every day

and they have to keep up with their school work.

Only a few will fulfil their dreams.

Most will drop out and go home,

where they'll have to pick up the pieces of their former lives.

The divers He Zi and Wu Minxia have made it to the top.

No expense is spared on their training.

But the pressure to succeed is intense.

They lead a regimented lifestyle.

With only half a day off a week,

there's no time for shopping or eating out.

After training, it's straight back to the dormitories.

These athletes live in a bubble.

The outside world is glimpsed through a bus window.

Millions of Chinese people survive on less than a dollar a day.

Not here, though. This is communal dining for the sporting elite.

But there are sacrifices to be made.

-What about a boyfriend, do you have one?

-No.

"I just train, eat and sleep," she says.

The Chinese flag reminds the divers why they're here.

The country's long seen itself as an under-performer.

Sporting success brings pride to the nation

and reminds the world that China is now a force to be reckoned with.

Fans of basketball will know all about this man.

Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls will be one of the major stars in London

next summer when he plays for Team GB.

When he's not on court, Luol spends a lot of his time helping

the country of his birth, the newly independent South Sudan.

-Thank you!

-World Olympic Dreams travelled there with him last year

to see some of the projects he's involved with. And it's clear the trip had a profound impact on him.

It was a wake-up call, just realising how lucky we are,

how blessed we are.

We get caught up in the life we're living, where everything is so easy.

Sometimes I lay on the couch at home

and I don't want to get up to grab a bottle of water.

And it's already bottled up and it's clean and everything.

And back over there, you have people walking for miles to get

the water, heat up the water, clean it up, just to drink it.

But I try to remember those things that I saw from the trip,

to kind of use those and be more positive.

The city of Cardiff is going to host actual sports events during 2012.

But in the weeks prior to the Olympics, it will also be

a training base for a few of the nations, like Trinidad and Tobago.

And at venues like Leckwith Stadium,

local students will get a very special kind of Olympic experience.

Hi, Tim.

'Tim Sharp from Cardiff University tells me how volunteers could get

'the chance to shadow the coaches

'and physios of teams like Trinidad and Tobago.'

OK, and here we have two of our students,

-Beth and Tessa.

-Hi.

-Hiya.

And they'll be working in rooms like this,

in different places around Cardiff, providing support for the various teams

that are going to be here, based in Cardiff. Being part of

the whole Olympic thing, I think that's really nice

for the students, to feel a part of it,

even though they're in Cardiff and not in London.

There's still an awful lot going on down here that they can be part of.

From your point of view, what does it feel like, what does it mean?

It's a good opportunity to get involved

in multi-sport organisations as big as the Olympics.

And picking up lots of skills to take back into the NHS.

Looking forward to being a general help and meeting lots of different people.

Cardiff is almost set up for the Games,

although the city will prove a very different environment for some athletes.

Trinidad has some of the worst crime rates in the world

and when I flew out to Port of Spain to meet Jehue Gordon,

a young Trinidadian hurdler, he told me

how a few of the people he grew up with are either in prison, or dead.

Jehue is now a vital role model for the next generation.

Every morning and every evening from now until London 2012,

you'll find Jehue Gordon doing this.

Stop.

Jehue is a 400 metre hurdler,

one of the best young athletes Trinidad and Tobago has produced.

And he only has one thing on his mind.

Just thinking about the Olympics a lot, you know.

Amazing pictures come to my head.

I'm not happy with just making the final,

because I want to get a medal.

I want to get that gold medal.

The people who know Jehue Gordon best say he was born special,

and that's in keeping with how a lot of sports people refer to themselves.

They'll put a lot of their success down to their genes.

But if Jehue wins in London 2012,

it'll have a lot more to do with his own hard work.

-GUNSHOTS

-In recent years,

Trinidadian society has faced the twin spectres of poverty and crime.

Scenes like this, a short walk from his training ground,

are not uncommon.

Many of Jehue's school friends have been caught up in the violence.

I know a lot, some have died already.

-In violence, or...?

-In crime.

You know, shoot-outs, some are in jail,

some have made children, who are even younger than me.

It is really a sad sight to see.

Jehue believes that his sport and a strong faith in God offer him

and his friends an alternative to a life of crime.

It's a lead that those around Jehue hope others will follow.

They take that from him, they see that if I want something,

I have to work hard for it, I can't just get it and it falls in my lap.

So for the ones who really take it seriously,

they go to practices, but they also concentrate on the academics.

That's what Jehue has done for this school, to some extent.

You don't have to limit yourself

because of the situation that you're in.

If you grow up in a ghetto, that doesn't mean you have to be

doing things like you're from the ghetto.

Most people who are into sports are actually some that came

out of the ghetto and they are some of the best people today in society.

This young man knows that Trinidad could do with some new heroes.

And he's dedicating every minute

to making his family and his country proud.

For the London Olympics,

I'm going to be fascinated to watch the rowing finals.

But then, that's obvious - I'm British and I used to be a rower.

What's been great about World Olympic Dreams

is seeing it from every other nation's perspective.

Because in each of those countries, there'll be one event

during the Games that makes the whole nation stand still and watch.

For Ukraine, that event could be fencing.

After their success at the Beijing Games,

the women's sabre team became pin-ups,

adorning the covers of magazines.

For one member, Olga Kharlan, fencing has opened new doors

to a life her parents could only dream of.

Nicola Pearson caught up with Olga

in her home town of Mykolaiv, on the Black Sea.

Olga Kharlan, just 20 years old,

already a national hero

and now Ukraine's brightest hope for Olympic glory in London.

For this Olympian, though, it all started very differently.

In the shipbuilding city of Mykolaiv, in the south of the country.

This is where Olga grew up.

It's a long way from here to getting an Olympic gold medal,

and probably, even in her wildest dreams,

she would never have thought that she could achieve that.

-Hi!

-Olga, hi. Nice to meet you.

'Inside her parents' one-bed apartment,

'where Olga still lives some of the time,

'she showed me the souvenirs and trophies of her success.'

How does it feel to have won all of these medals, these awards?

-TRANSLATION:

-When I lie on my bed and look at all these cups and medals,

it just makes me want to win more and more.

Olga's silverware isn't just for show.

Her success also means she can leave her family's small flat behind.

'Using her winnings, the 20-year-old has been able

'to build this, a home most Ukrainians could only dream of.'

-It's big!

-Yes.

-And all because of fencing.

-Yeah!

'For Olga, this is the house that Beijing built.'

-TRANSLATION:

-I want my children to have a better life than me.

I had a great childhood, of course,

but what I want is to improve on that for my children.

Next morning, at the crack of dawn, it's time to leave home again

and return to training.

For Olga, this means a six-hour car journey north

to the Olympic base in Kiev.

It's a long way, but she does it in style.

We're now on our way to Kiev and we've just stopped to get some fuel.

You can really tell that this is Olga's car, look at this -

the Olympic rings on the side. Apparently, this car was given to her

by the President of Fencing in Ukraine.

After 300 miles, we finally reach the Olympic camp in Kiev.

Olga's immediately into a training session with her coaches.

It feels like a long way from the love of family back in Mykolaiv.

But as Olga knows more than most, only hard work produces medals,

and medals are changing her life.

So, with a year to go until the Games, the pressure is building.

To see how it's affecting all of our athletes, go onto the website:

Join us next time,

when we meet the Olympic hopeful without a country to compete for.

Majlinda Kelmendi is from Kosovo, a nation that is yet to be

formally recognised by the International Olympic Committee.

Nevertheless, she still dreams of competing at London 2012.

But until then, from all of us at World Olympic Dreams, it's goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media

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