Meet the GB stars going for gold in 2012

1/7
10 April 2012

The stadium is finished; the tickets are like gold dust and our athletes are ready to enter the arena. Dan Jones meets six champions in waiting

JUDO
ASHLEY MCKENZIE

I was a bit of a hood rat growing up. I wasn't on the streets a lot, but I had ADHD, I was quite naughty at school and I didn't get good GCSEs. But judo was fun and took all my energy. We trained on Mondays and Fridays, so my challenge was to be good throughout the week and weekend so my mum would let me go. Judo was something I could do that made my family proud and helped me do good.

I started when I was about 11. I was trading Pokémon cards with some kids in the street. We got into a bit of a scrap and one of them threw me. I was like, 'Wow.' I went on the internet to find out what he'd done to me, but I couldn't work it out. So when I saw the kid again, I said, 'Look, I don't really want another fight, but what the hell did you do to me?' He ended up giving me my Pokémon card back, and I started doing judo.

I won my first national championship at 12. At 16 I was the European U20 bronze medallist. Last year I was European U23 champion. And I've just won the World Cup gold medal up in Liverpool. I'm about 20th in the world now, so am ranking high enough to qualify for London 2012.

I train hard, two or three times a day, and whenever I have a day off I completely rest. I've got friends who go out all the time. Last year I was a bit of a rebel, but now I've settled down a bit. I go out maybe just once a month, and I try to stay as professional as possible. It's hard to keep the discipline. I'm not the perfect kid, but every year I'm trying to get better.

Lives: Queen's Park
Age: 22
Height: 5ft 5in
Medals: World Cup gold 2011
Training hours per week: 26
Calories per day: I try to keep a decent diet
Secret weapon: My speed. People says I'm the fastest 60kg boy they've ever seen. I'm like a little rat, running around
Achilles heel: Focus and concentration
Nemesis: James Millar (Scottish), World Cup bronze 2011

BEACH VOLLEYBALL
DENISE JOHNS

There's a lot of skill involved in beach volleyball: we do core work to improve our ability to twist and move on the sand. We're also starting to do a bit of tennis as the serve is a similar, more exaggerated movement to volleyball. But it's pretty comical. I think I've played tennis about ten times in my life. Lucy has a pretty mean serve.

We played our best volleyball ever at the Olympic test event in the summer. We got to the semi-finals and beat China to get there - they're a really good team. I just got married to a beach volleyball player [British men's player Jody Gooding]. Even though we have different schedules and they don't always overlap, it's really nice.

I grew up in the States, and beach volleyball was a social event in my neighbourhood. I played lots of other sports, but I've always loved beach volleyball - it's just you and one other person.

It would be great to get a medal in the London Games. I don't know how attainable it is. The first aim for Lucy and me is just to qualify for the host nation spot. We have to be the number one GB team or in the top six teams in the world.

LUCY BOULTON

How could you not have fun playing beach volleyball? It's such a great game and Denise and I get on well. I always say that the relationship you have with your volleyball partner is even more important than the one with your boyfriend or husband. You need to know what the other person is going to do, instinctively. You need synergy. We've been playing together for five years now and I think we pretty much understand one another. We don't fall out. Some teams do - some of them don't even talk. I don't know how they do it.

The Olympic test event was amazing. We don't get to play in front of English crowds much, so it's not very often that we have a big crowd cheering for us. And it was great playing in the heart of London, especially as I grew up in Essex. It was a little taster of what it's going to be like next year and it gives us huge motivation to train really hard for the next nine months.

DENISE
Lives: Somerset and Bath
Age: 32
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 71kgs
Medals: Swedish tour event, fourth at London Olympic Test Event
Training hours per week: 28
Calories per day: We don't count calories but we aim for 1.2g of protein per kg of bodyweight
Secret weapon: I've got good defence, which is quite an advantage for a tall person
Achilles heel: I guess I could always improve my serve.
Nemesis: USA

LUCY

Lives: Southend-on-sea, Essex
Age: 25
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 78kgs
Secret weapon: My jump serve
Achilles heel: Sometimes I lose my temper a little bit with the officials.
Nemesis: Brazil - they dominate the sport and they've got a lot of good players

SAILING
BEN AINSLIE

For me, the only goal in 2012 is winning gold for the fourth time. Everyone's excited that London 2012 is less than a year away. We've had the Olympic selection for the sailing team, and we're all feeling that time is now ticking for our final preparations. At the moment I'm competing in an Extreme 40 regatta in Spain. I'm having a six-week window away from the Finn [the single-man yacht in which Ainslie has won his last two Olympic golds] to do some other sailing and I'm learning new skills. I'm not out of the water completely but I think it's important to stay fresh and motivated. At the end of the month I'll go to Australia to train for the World Championships in Perth in December. It'll be a mixture of fitness training in the gym, aerobic training - running or cycling - then two to five hours a day on the water. It's repetitive, but that's what you have to do.

My favourite Olympic memory is Sydney in 2000. We were sailing right in the heart of the city, in Sydney harbour, and I won my first gold medal. London will be my fifth Olympic Games. I think the experience will be massively different from Beijing. In China it was very windy and there was a strong current. In Weymouth it'll be a much harder course and I hope the atmosphere for us will be better because of of all the buzz.
Investment management firm JP Morgan Asset Management is the title sponsor of Ben Ainslie's Olympic campaign. jpmorganassetmanagement.co.uk

Lives: Lymington, Hampshire
Age: 34
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 94kgs
Medals: Olympic silver (1996); 3 x Olympic gold (2000, 2004, 2008)
Training hours: Up to 42 hours a week
Calories: 5,000+
Special power: Determination
Achilles heel: Keeping up physically with the younger guys
Nemesis: There's huge strength and depth in the Finn class - I'll be competing with at least 10 other guys

ROAD AND TRACK CYCLING
LIZZIE ARMISTEAD

I went to watch the Olympics test event when it was in London during the summer. I'd imagined a flat, Commonwealth Game-type course like we had in Delhi in 2010. But the London course is pretty hilly - particularly up Box Hill in Surrey. It's going to be tough.

There are big differences between road and track cycling. Track races are a lot shorter - the maximum distance is a 20km points race - so it's very sprint orientated. You also only race five times a year on the trace - four World Cups and a World Championship - whereas on the road I race up to 140km and I have about 50 to 60 race days a year. They're very different sports, but they compliment each other well.

British cycling is doing really well at the moment. Success breeds success, and when you're training around Olympic champions like Vicky Pendleton and Chris Hoy, it inspires you. Pushing yourself and training are is what makes champions.

A lot of what people see in road cycling is the spectacular crashes, but that doesn't play on my mind too much. I know all the girls I'm racing against are professionals. Accidents happen, and they're unavoidable, but I've been in a few and I've come out all right.

There's never a normal week of training. Generally I'm trying to mix up track and rioad time with gym time. As we build up to 2012, you really notice the peloton getting stronger. That always happens in an Olympic year. You just have to get stronger with them.

Lives: Otley, West Yorkshire
Age: 22
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 55kgs
Medals: European Championship gold (team pursuit, scratch race) World Championship gold (team pursuit) Commonwealth silver (road race)
Training hours per week: 20 hours on the bike plus extra time in the gym
Calories per day: I don't think about it too much
Secret weapon: Decision-making under pressure
Achilles heel: Getting sucked into The X Factor
Nemesis: Marianne Voss (Dutch), Olympic points race champion, 2008

GYMNASTICS
BETH TWEDDLE

I've just been competing in the gymnastics World Championships in Tokyo. Our team had to finish in the top eight to qualify for London 2012, so it was the tensest competition I've been part of. We finished fifth in the team final, the best result for British gymnastics in about 80 years, and it means we will be at the Olympics.

In gymnastics the top four teams - Russia, Romania, China and America - are in a class of their own. Then there's us, Japan, France, Australia and Spain, all at about the same level, so it's all about what happens on the day. But Britain has quite an experienced team - four of us competed in Beijing. When I win a competition I usually wait until I get home to celebrate. I normally just go out for a meal with my coach Amanda, who's been with me since I was 12; then there's my mum and dad, who have followed my career everywhere - whether I was in Australia, America or Japan, they've been there; and of course, my friends back home, who've had to put up with a part-time friend disappearing off here there and everywhere.

The team for the Olympics is only announced about four weeks before the Games begin, which is really late compared to other sports, but normal for gymnastics. It keeps you on your toes. Literally.

Lives: Liverpool
Age: 26
Height: 5ft 2in
Weight: 53kg
Medals: World Championship bronze (2003, 2005) and gold (2006, 2009, 2010); European Championship bronze (2002), silver (2004, 2007, 2008, 2010) and gold (2006, 2009, 2010, 2011); Commonwealth games silver (2002) and gold (2002)
Training hours per week: 30
Calories per day: No set calories, just a healthy balanced diet
Secret weapon: My mind: I'm very determined
Achilles heel: My desire for perfection
Nemesis: He Kexin (Chinese), current Olympic champion (uneven bars)

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in