London 2012 Olympics: Beach Volleyball is most popular sport for ministers

He said top sponsors could buy up to 13,500 tickets, but the Government had not taken up its full allocation, purchasing instead just 8,800 at a cost of £750,000.

Around 3,300 will be used for dignitaries, 2,000 will be given to local authorities while more than 2,000 are expected to be sold to staff involved with the Games.

Beach volleyball, which will be played at Horse Guards Parade, in the heart of Whitehall, became one of the fastest events to sell out at the Games.

Many put the sport’s popularity down to the athlete’s regulation attire, which sees women wearing closely fitted tops and tiny briefs and men in vests and shorts.

Smiles were raised at the Culture Media and Sport select committee when Mr Sutcliffe asked: “Can you explain why there seems to be a strong interest in beach volleyball among ministers and civil servants?”

Mr Stephens responded: “When purchasing tickets for staff to purchase we thought they were most likely going to be able to go at the weekend or on Fridays.”

In the Beijing Olympics four years ago the Americans won the gold medal in both the men’s and women’s event.

London 2012 Olympics: Great Britain basketball star Luol Deng's place at Games in jeopardy after wrist injury

Deng missed Britain's first ever appearance in a European Championships back in 2009 after failing to overcome a stress fracture in his right tibia suffered while playing for the Bulls.

His decision to put off surgery and play through the problem raises questions over whether he will be fit for the Olympics in London.

However, Deng, who suffered a similar injury to his right wrist during the 2004-05 NBA season, ultimately having surgery before the end of the season, is optimistic after consulting the doctors who treated him then.

"It could always be worse. Injuries happen," Deng said.

"And this happened in the fourth quarter of a game. But it is what is. It's just: 'What do we do from here.'

"I'm very confident that I'll be fine. It's sore, but the soreness is going down a lot in two days. So every day [I'll] keep treating it and see if I can get rid of the soreness and just try to be back there as soon as possible."

Deng's injury is the latest setback for GB who are sweating over the fitness of Eric Boateng, Joel Freeland and Nate Reinking.

Performance director Chris Spice admitted that the action in the NBA, in which Deng is logging a career high 38.3 minutes per game, has been "absolutely ferocious" this season.

He added: "The workload on key players and the increased injury risk on players has become quite an issue, certainly the Bulls have been badly hit. There is very little we can do, the lock out has determined that there be this short highly compressed season."

London 2012 Olympics: Jessica Ennis stars in British Airways in-flight 'wellbeing' video

The heptathlete, who won silver at the 2011 World Athletics Championships, is the star of British Airways's new in-flight "wellbeing" movie, alongside gymnast Louis Smith and Paralympian Shelly Woods.

The video features Ennis clearing hurdles, Smith completing a routine on a pommell horse and Woods hurtling down an athletics track in her wheelchair.

While it is unclear whether these facilities will be available for passengers onboard British Airways flights this year, the three athletes also perform some exercises which can be done from the comfort of your own chair.

Luisa Fernandez, British Airways sponsorship manager, said: “We’re proud to be using some of our Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls in this wellbeing video. With their sporting backgrounds they are perfectly placed to share their exercise techniques to enhance the in-flight experience.

“As official airline of Team GB and ParalympicsGB, we will be flying athletes to and from training camps in the coming months, so they will benefit from the wellbeing video too.”

_{Jessica Ennis performs a "wellbeing" exercise. (Hurdles not pictured)}

London 2012 Olympics: West Ham United 'will not submit formal bid' for Olympic Stadium by deadline

According to reports in the Times (£), West Ham are cold on the idea of wasting more money on another bid without there being more clarity, while they are also concerned about starting the process to sell their current home Upton Park unless they know for certain they are moving to the Olympic Stadium.

West Ham are thought to have spent nearly £1 million on the process of their first bid.

They are not the only London football club who are considering their options.

Leyton Orient are full participants in the “expressions of interest” phase, and are considering what kind of offer they might be able to make to the increasingly anxious OPLC

An issue for both football clubs is that the OPLC will retain the power to force tenants to share with each other.

The “pairing” system means that tenants have no choice about who they share with, meaning that the OPLC could impose a rugby club in a ground-share with West Ham, or pursue sharing between West Ham and Orient.

That would present a bigger problem to West Ham than to Leyton Orient.

London 2012 Olympics: spectator capacity at Box Hill for road cycling race to be increased to 15,000

"Spectators will have a unique viewing position on the route, there is another 120km of route which is free to spectators, including some great points through London and The Royal Parks.”

British Cycling welcomed the decision, saying it had resulted in a "much more satisfactory situation". President Brian Cookson said: "Following the test event, both myself and UCI President Pat McQuaid made our views about the unsatisfactory arrangements on Box Hill clear to Locog.

"Both before and since that time, there has been considerable input from the technical representatives of both bodies into the planning process, and I am pleased that this, together with the public and media pressure, has now resulted in a much more satisfactory situation for cycling fans than had originally been the case."

The Zig-Zag Road is widely regarded as the best place to watch because the cyclists will be passing by more slowly than elsewhere on the 250km route.

Last year world champion Mark Cavendish called for a petition to be launched over the plans to offer only a few thousand fans a chance to watch the action.

“You can’t get on the Mall, you can’t get on Box Hill, which are the two key areas of the race," he said. Everywhere else you will be able to watch it but the two key areas of the race I think it might be quite difficult to see.

“Maybe we can get some petition or something so that people can come and watch the road race.”

Work begins on Jan 30 and the Zig-Zag road will be closed for a week. Strips of land on both sides of the road will be trimmed and occasional "bridges" of overhanging trees will be left in place to allow woodland creatures to cross.

In March BT will lay a fibre optic cable at the top of Box Hill to improve communications during Games-time. This will also provide high-speed broadband capabilities to the area in the future. By April the National Trust will resurface the road.

The final capacity of the spectator areas will be confirmed when the work is completed and a health and safety report is carried out.

• Follow all the latest cycling news with TeleCycling on Twitter.

London 2012 Olympics: overseas athletes face robust border controls on arrival at Games

These cards will be issued after security checks, but will not have biometric data attached to them.

But he warned that because the normal pre-entry biometric details won't have been supplied as a condition of the accreditation card, such personal information will need to be collected at the border. This will be the first Olympics that such levels of biometric checks have been required for athletes.

Smith also warned that some accredited people might be prevented from entering the country. There were diplomatic rows during the Beijing Olympics when some Hong Kong journalists, who had been officially accredited, as well as former US athletes, were prevented from entering China for fear they would protest against that country's human rights record.

"This [accreditation] card is recognised as a visa and work waiver and allows access to venues," said Smith. "Because it is a valid document it confers the entitlement for accredited people to travel between March 30 and November 8, but we do not say you can have automatic entry into the country. We will have biometric scans to ensure details of all Olympic family members are captured."

Smith revealed that in addition to the numbers of those accredited, another 700,000 visitors were expected to arrive for the Olympics. He said 200 people had been prevented from working on Olympic Games sites following adverse findings during security checks.

General Sir Nick Parker, the Commander of Land Forces, Ministry of Defence confirmed 13,500 military will assist with the Olympic security.

"It is entirely proper, as national institutions that serve our country, to be seen to be helping to make the London Olympics a resounding success," he said. A large military exercise rehearsing roles for the Games will take place in May.

London 2012 Olympics: Robbie Grabarz finds the right mental attitude to match his high ambitions

“I was probably a bit unprofessional both away from the track and at the track,” said Grabarz. “It was nothing major but I just wasn’t focused enough on what I wanted to do.

“It was a difficult year. I had a few things in my personal life that changed and I let it affect me at the track and it showed all season. But after the end of the season I just sat down and thought to myself that I was really disappointed with my performance in 2011 and it was my fault and nobody else’s. I said to myself, ‘You’re not going to let this happen again’.”

Since that watershed moment, Ahmed says he has seen a transformation in the way Grabarz approaches training and competition.

“People say he’s improved massively physically, but he hasn’t,” said Ahmed. “He’s had a tiny improvement physically but a massive improvement mentally.”

The test of Grabarz’s new-found mental strength will come at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in March, where he hopes to show his rivals that his 2.34m clearance, a height that qualifies him for the London Olympics and would have earned silver at the 2008 Beijing Games, was no flash in the pan.

“It’s exceedingly important for me to back it up,” said Grabarz. “I’m going there to make the final and be competitive and learn as much as I can ahead of London. I do need to prove that it was not a fluke.”

Another opportunity to cement his new status as a potential Olympic medallist will come on Saturday when he competes for Britain against the United States, Germany, Russia and a Commonwealth Select team at the Aviva International Match in Glasgow.

At the same meet last year, Grabarz finished last with a jump of just 2.14m but has considerably higher expectations this time. “I’m feeling good and looking forward to competing again,” he said. “I want to be battling for first place.”

London 2012 Olympics: watchdog commissioner resigns over Games' sponsorship link with Dow Chemical

Meredith Alexander, who sits on the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012, has quit her unpaid role over the controversial £7 million deal with the chemical giant, which has angered human rights campaigners because of Dow’s links to Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984.

Alexander’s resignation comes after Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, defended the Dow Chemical deal, insisting that the company had no involvement with Bhopal at the time of the disaster or when the final compensation settlement was agreed.

The commission, which is part-funded by Locog, was set up in 2007 to oversee the sustainability standards of the Olympic delivery bodies, fulfilling the promise made by London during the 2012 bidding phase that its sustainability commitments would be independently monitored.

However, the commission’s remit does extend to human rights issues or questioning sponsorship arrangements.

Shaun McCarthy, the commission chairman, said: “While we wholeheartedly agree that human rights are of paramount importance, it is not something we as an organisation are empowered to handle.”

Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, has conceded it is likely there would be drugs cheats at the London Olympics despite a planned 5,000 tests. “To say there will be no positive cases would be naive and misleading,” he told BBC Sport on Wednesday.

Athletes and officials arriving from overseas for the will have to supply biometric, facial and fingerprint data before being allowed entry in a tightening of UK border controls.

London 2012 Olympics: Boris Johnson and Lakshmi Mittal visit ArcelorMittal Orbit tower

The sculpture is the tallest of its kind in the UK and will accommodate up to 5,000 visitors a day, each with the opportunity to take the lift up to the public viewing platforms and down using the 455-step spiral staircase.

"It would have boggled the minds of the Romans. It would have dwarfed the aspirations of Gustave Eiffel, and it will certainly be worthy of the best show on earth, in the greatest city on earth.

"And as the final giant steel loop is swung into place, lifting the ArcelorMittal Orbit to its full height, we are truly witnessing the most significant iconic addition to London’s skyline for decades.”

Estimates suggest that the venue will generate up to £10 million of revenue per year and create up to 50 new jobs once the dust has settled on the Games.

_{An artist's impression of how the Orbit will look in Games-time}

London 2012 Olympics: Phillips Idowu handed boost as rival Nelson Evora pulls out of Games

"Given the necessary recovery time, it is out of the question to take part in the next Olympic Games," Evora, 27, said in a statement.

"Don't anyone think this injury means that I'm finished. I have a lot of competitions ahead of me," said Evora, who beat Idowu to Olympic gold in Beijing by just five centimetres.

"The crack that was heard was a recurrence of the injury I had previously contracted, though not as severe as previously thought."

Evora, who also won World Championship gold in 2007, had surgery on the same injury in 2010, ruling him out of competition for a year.

Idowu, who would have been one of Evora's chief rivals for gold in London, said on Twitter: "I wish him a speedy recovery.

"Nelson Evora's injury is in no way good news for me. I want to compete and win against the best."

London 2012 Olympics: French sprinter Christophe Lemaitre unlikely to double up at Games

We'll make a final decision just before the start of the Games, but I don't see how we could do it, so I'm really not sure about doubling up," he said.

The 21-year-old finished fourth in the 100m at the world championships in Daegu last year, before taking the bronze medal in the 200m a few days later.

"In South Korea, I had five days of rest between the two events, whereas the calendar for the Games is much tighter," added Lemaitre, who won three gold medals at the European championships in 2010.

In London, the final of the 100m will take place on August 5, with heats in the 200m starting just two days later, on August 7.

Lemaitre has already confirmed that he will compete in the 4x100m relay, in which he won a silver medal in Daegu.

The Frenchman was speaking during the announcement of an indoor meeting in Lievin, where he will begin his season on February 14.

He also revealed that he will compete in the Diamond League meetings in Rome on May 31 and Paris on July 6.

"We've started to plan the outline of the summer season and I'll be at Rome and then at Paris," said Lemaitre.

In Rome, Lemaitre will come up against the world's fastest man, Jamaica's triple Olympic champion Usain Bolt, who confirmed his participation in the event on Thursday.

London 2012 Olympics: qualification dream over for Great Britain's rhythmic gymnastics group

A plea from parents and members of the team to the sporting body to consider their superior performance in the final round, rather than the qualifying round, was rejected.

The team had failed to make the self-imposed qualifying mark by just 0.273 in the group all-round competition at the gymnastics test event earlier this week, the performance marked down by a knot in a ribbon.

In a statement, the board of British Gymnastics said it will refuse to nominate the team to the British Olympic Association for selection.

The standard was agreed last May so that the sport could prove it would be able to perform credibly at the Olympics. To date this is the first British sport not to have made the agreed qualifying marks.

"In accordance with the selection process approved by the BOA (which was agreed and acknowledged by all competing group members), British Gymnastics wishes to confirm that in line with this policy it will not be nominating a rhythmic gymnastics group for inclusion into Team GB for the London 2012 Olympic Games," the statement said.

But the board said it would nominate an individual rhythmic gymnast for Olympic selection, likely to be Francesca Jones of Wales.

The officials said to fall short of the qualifying standard was an enormous disappointment for everyone but the team performance will be a catalyst for ongoing development of the discipline within the country.

London 2012 Olympics: Kieran Behan overcame impossible odds to realise gymnastics dream

“He couldn’t walk in a straight line. ‘Come on Kieran, you can do it!’ we shouted and the kids in the ward all cheered. But it was horrendous to look at, like he was inebriated. It broke our hearts. But we couldn’t let Kieran see that. So we’d keep telling him he’d be fine. Then I’d be straight out the room, bawling my eyes out.”

Could that helpless boy really be the supreme athlete who last week qualified for the Games at the London test event and who is now daring to dream of winning a medal in the floor discipline? “It really is like a fairy tale,” smiles the new toast of The Late, Late Show. “The night I qualified, I couldn’t sleep because I was so worried that when I woke up, it wouldn’t all be true.”

It is true but Behan’s story, made in Surrey but a treasure for Ireland, takes some believing. Dublin-born Phil had set up his builder’s business in Croydon and though his lad was a decent footballer at the Crystal Palace academy, this hyperactive eight year-old was only hopelessly besotted by gymnastics.

At 10, a tumour was discovered in his left thigh. The relief that it was not cancerous gave way to horror when the operation to remove it was botched. When he woke from the anaesthetic, he had to cling on to the back of the bed to stop the screaming, so dreadful was the pain from the catastrophic nerve damage. Even today, he has only limited feeling in one foot.

He was wheelchair-bound for 15 months. “The doctors said ‘you’ll never walk again’ and I had to see a psychiatrist who said you have to accept the worst. But that just drove me on; I wanted to prove them wrong. They were saying it was over but I wasn’t having it.”

Bernie gave up work to look after him and, after confounding the physios with his incredible progress, Behan returned to the gym. Within a few months, though, he had slipped from the high bar and smashed his head, suffering severe damage to the vestibular area of the brain that controls balance.

“Then the slightest untoward movement could make him black out,” recalls Bernie. “Literally, he could blink and pass out. It happened thousands of times, terrifying anyone who saw it.”

For the second time in his childhood, Behan was back in a wheelchair, this time not just having to learn how to walk again but how to eat and make the simplest movements. Again, the medics said ‘it’s over’; again, he went back to the gym. Only this time, just to spend hour upon hour trying to retrain his brain, to regain hand-eye coordination like throwing a ball against a wall and catching the rebound. Some days, he could not even manage that.

He missed a year of school and when he returned with a walking stick, the kids taunted him mercilessly. “A terrible time,” Behan recalls. “Days when I was all over the place.” But though it took him a good three years to again become the athlete he had been before the accident, day by slow, painful day this workaholic perfectionist got there.

Further calamities intervened. A broken arm, a fractured wrist, a torn cruciate ligament in his right knee; at one point, he was spending so much time tumbling in and out of A&E, the hospital dispatched a welfare officer to check he was not being abused. Finally, overjoyed at qualifying to make his debut in the European Championships two years ago, the ultimate cruelty befell him when the ACL in his other knee snapped during a training routine.

His coaches, Simon Gale and Demetrios ‘Jimmy’ Bradshaw, point to the gym’s office where they saw their irrepressible mate at his lowest. “I wouldn’t say suicidal but ...” Gale shrugs, his voice tailing off.

“It was the nearest I ever came to quitting,” Behan admits. “Sheer despair really but I’d been through a lot worse and knew that, whatever happened, I could always come back.”

And he has done. Better than ever, as the Challenge World Cup floor champion and now Ireland’s first Olympic gymnast for 16 years, an achievement made even more fanciful in the teeth of practically no financial backing from the country’s sports bodies.

His parents have gone without a holiday for 10 years to help fund the £12,000 a year needed and Behan has had to labour on his dad’s building site or clean the Tolworth gym in the morning before bouncing around it in the afternoon.

On the reception desk stands a “Support Kieran” collection jar, with the club’s members so far having raised more than £2,000. Car washes, cake sales, bacon buttie mornings; you name it, he and his mates have organised it.

“I’m proud to be Irish,” he says but this is an uplifting story of grass-roots British support for the underdog too.

He apologises sheepishly for the odd desperate day when he felt compelled to use his vaulting skills to fare-dodge, bounding over train ticket barriers because he had no money to get to his competition venue. “Oh, don’t tell Boris Johnson,” Mum pleads.

Still, not to worry any more. This week, Ireland’s Olympic chiefs at last allocated €20,000 to help his preparations. “Life-changing money,” sighs Kieran, last seen carrying a vast jar of spare coppers to a bank in the hope there might be enough in there to cover the air fare to an overseas competition.

“That’s Kieran,” Bernie smiles. “Through all this, he’s been the one who’s had the determination, belief and heart. We’ve all just been swept along on his wave. He’s guided us all the way. We believed every day because he believed, because he told us everything would be all right.”

A proud mum’s hero maybe but Kieran is also a universal sporting hero, the personification of the Olympic spirit.

London 2012 Olympics: Lennox Lewis offers to mentor Team GB boxers in bid for gold

“I should really have got a silver medal there in LA. But I was still young, and decided to continue to the 1988 Olympics, where I did win gold.

"I’m glad I took the time to go to two Games, because I gained all the experience I needed in the intervening four years to win the gold the second time around. By the time those four years were up, I really was on top.”

Lewis has wise counsel for Anthony Joshua, Britain’s rising 22-year-old super-heavyweight who surpassed expectation by winning the silver medal at the World Amateur Championships — in only his second major tournament — three months ago in Azerbaijan.

“I have seen Anthony Joshua, and I think he’s got a lot of talent; he’s still a little bit raw but I think he’s got a good chance of winning the Olympics in London,” Lewis said.

“There are a couple of things he needs to work on, but he has time. Getting the silver in the worlds is real momentum for him. Everyone is going to be looking at him because he’s coming off that success.

"Boxing is not only a physical sport, it’s a mental sport as well, and as long as he is strong mentally, he can make it his Games.”

Lewis believes he can bring his vast experience to bear with Joshua and the rest of the team.

“It’s interesting – Audley Harrison won the Olympics [in Sydney in 2000] and I remember speaking to him right before he went into the ring and he came out on top.

“I’m pretty excited about the Olympics coming up, and yes, absolutely, I’d like to be involved with the British team. They will

have a big push behind them. I’m definitely going to be involved in the Olympics in one way or another this year. I’ve been around the world, I was the best in the world, and I believe I have great advice I can pass on to the British crew.

"I will look to do whatever I can to help the team to be successful in the Olympics, in the professional game afterwards, or even in life. It’s all connected.”

In response to Lewis expressing his wish to advise the GB team, Derek Mapp, chairman of the British Amateur Boxing Association, told Telegraph Sport: “It is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of [head performance coach] Rob McCracken and all of our boxers that a figure like Lennox Lewis has been following the progress of the GB Boxing squad and enjoying its success over the last two years.

“The boxers will be pleased to know their successes have been cheered on by such a well respected figure and they will all be looking to emulate his achievement of winning Olympic gold when the London Games get under way later this year.”

London 2012 Olympics: Betfair to share information on suspect gambling with International Olympic Committee

"The interests of sports governing bodies, like the IOC, and Betfair are completely aligned in wanting to ensure consumers can bet on sporting events in a transparent and secure manner," Betfair's chief legal & regulatory affairs officer Martin Cruddace said in a statement on Thursday.

In his opening address at the 123rd IOC session in Durban, Rogge said there was “no room for complacency".

He added: “Protecting the integrity of sport is a priority for the IOC. In all these areas, co-operation with governments is essential.”

The issue of sports betting corruption was brought to the fore last year when former Pakistan cricket captain Salman Butt and bowler Mohammad Asif were jailed after being found guilty of taking bribes to fix parts of a test match against England in 2010.

Earlier on Thursday, a former English county cricketer pleaded guilty to taking money to fix part of a match.

London 2012 Olympics: GB men's coxless four motivated by legacy of past success

Is it hard to keep improving when you win every race?

AG: I think that’s what our coach, John West, was particularly good at. Always pushing us on. Every session he would ask us if we wanted to come off the water a little bit worse or a little bit better. We’d all chime up “a little bit worse!”. That was never an option for him.

He was always on our backs, pushing us on technically and physically. It was a way of keeping the momentum because we had speed in this boat right from the beginning.

_{The Sydney Olympics gold medal winning team of Steve Redgrave, Tim Foster, James Cracknell and Matthew Pinsent}

Being the British coxless four carries a special expectation after what has been achieved in the boat in the past 16 years. Is that inhibiting or inspiring?

TJ: Being in the same event and class as people like Pinsent and Redgrave is an honour. We are trying to continue their legacy and if we do win in London it will be a fourth consecutive gold medal for the British coxless four. It is exciting to be part of that legacy. I don’t think any country has done that before.

ML: When we’re out in the water, paddling around, you feel everyone is looking at us. The legacy of what people have achieved in the boat gives me a buzz.

AG: In 2009, when I was first selected for the four, it was my proudest moment. It was because it was the four and everything that went with it. It’s very special.

RE: Expectation of success has always been there. British rowing has been doing well since 1984 so it’s only natural that people expect us to be very strong.

You spend a huge amount of time together, much of it putting yourselves through a lot of pain. How do you get on?

RE: Having a good sense of humour. We all respect each other enough to be able to take the p--- out of each other. I really like it because it keeps us relaxed, keeps it fun.

ML: At a big championship you are living with each other for so long you tend to get on top of each other a bit. It can get a bit more tense but generally it is a really relaxed boat to be in.

TJ: We complement each other quite well. We each bring something different that the others don’t have, whether it is in our personalities or the way we row. We play to each others’ strengths and cover each others’ weaknesses.

RE: A good example of that is that I was always the late one before, but since TJ has come into the boat he’s even later than me. He takes all the pressure off me.

TJ: It’s for the good of the boat.

_{Great Britain win gold at the World Championships in Bled, Slovenia}

How hard was it getting back in the boat after the Worlds?

RE: It was very, very painful.

AG: It was only three weeks but suddenly we all had baby’s hands. They were covered in blisters.

ML: It felt like starting all over again.

TJ: It was unbelievable. The boat was crashing around, we couldn’t fit in our seats.

It can’t have been as hard for you, Tom, as when you came back to the sport after two years away?

TJ: I came back after a year off but I got injured, which meant I had a very frustrating period for 13 or 14 months. I’d had a hip operation and the rehab from that was punishing. Luckily things went well in selection this year though, and I got in this boat and I have been riding the crest of a wave ever since.

RE: He had a lot of weight to lose.

TJ: I suddenly realised I didn’t quite fit in the boat. And then I was doing the old man rowing, with the fat getting in the way. I was about two and half stone above my race weight. It was pretty painful. When you think about coming back you forget about all the ergs, the hard training, the pain involved before a big race.

AG: I think it’s like women giving birth. They go through a horrendous time and as soon as the baby is born it’s all forgotten. And immediately they want another one.

_{The team from left to right: Tom James, Alex Gregory, Matthew Langridge and Richard Egington}

What does the winter training involve?

TJ: The winter is pretty horrible.

RE: We go out to Sierra Nevada in Spain, 2,300m up in the mountains. Not that we get to see any of it. We take our rowing machines up there and go into a room that has these tiny little windows. It feels like you’re training on a plane.

AG: We spent three weeks there and we can go the whole time without stepping outdoors. Weights, ergo, food, bed.

RE: It’s grim. Even the food is rough.

TJ: When you arrive you come through a really nice ski resort. Your dreams are dashed when you walk into the facility.

ML: It’ll be worse this year because we know what’s coming. As the bus winds up the mountains the feeling of dread will grow.

Who do you see as your biggest challengers next summer?

RE: It can change year on year. Just look at the last Olympics when TJ was in the coxless four — none of the medallists from the previous year’s Worlds made the final. It’s not common but it’s not unusual.

ML: We certainly think the Australians will be up there. We were all expecting they would give us a bit of competition in Slovenia and we were surprised when they didn’t.

AG: They like to talk the talk and write in their own press that they’re going to wipe the floor with the rest of the world.

ML: They will definitely improve from the worlds and they will be a threat.

London 2012 Olympics: Dow Chemical claims decision to withdraw advertising on stadium wrap taken before protests

Indian athletes and some British politicians have been agitating for Dow Chemical to withdraw from the £7 million sponsorship of the wrap on moral grounds because they claim the company has not adequately addressed compensation issues over the Bhopal disaster back in 1984, caused by Union Carbide, which Dow Chemical took over in 2001.

"It was highly unlikely that anyone would see the six panels and that decision not to exercise our rights in that regard was taken well before the issue of Bhopal came onto the radar screen," Hamilton said.

VIDEO: Dow protesters in Trafalgar Square

He said the company had become an Olympic sponsor to access more than £97 billion in new infrastructure spending at future Olympic Games generating incremental sales of £646 million over 10 years. It was also to highlight the company's involvement in sustainable products.

"We want to tell how Dow is more relevant to the world, what we do and how we do it," Hamilton said.

"We will be stressing solutions, how Dow is providing technology, innovations and solutions to the make the Olympics sustainable."

London 2012 Olympics: Fran Halsall shows dynamite comes in small packages

“The important thing is that initial movement through the water, so that’s what I spend a lot of time working on with Ben. I have to do a lot of gym work to make sure I have got the power but then it is also about applying it with the right technique.” The power she gives away in her starts means she always has to play catch-up, which makes her an exhilarating swimmer to watch, as she hauls in her rivals and overtakes them. When the team’s sports scientists broke down her swim in the 100m freestyle final of the World Championships last summer, they found she had the second-quickest swim speed but in terms of her start and turns she came eighth. Halsall is bright and curious – she has continued to study after taking up swimming full time – and learns fast.

_{Winning ways: Fran Halsall's punishing regime may enable the sprinter to replicate her European success}

“I was pretty grumpy when I got back from Shanghai because I came home without any medals,” she says. “But when I got around to thinking about it logically I realised there were a lot of positives. I had an ankle operation in December 2010 so had not been able to train as I wanted, so I’d basically come from being on one leg to the final of the Worlds.

“Before Shanghai I’d just thought about going there and trying to do the best I could. It had never entered my head that I could be in lane four for the final of the 100m freestyle. It took me a bit by surprise. I thought, 'Oh, bloomin 'eck, what’s going on here?’

“After I got back I realised that I wasn’t in the right shape to swim three 100m freestyles that fast [ie, the two heats and the final].

“That’s all it was. I tried my best in the final — I’ve been over that race again and again. I swam a great speed it’s just that I was knackered by the time I got to the last 10m.” At one point while she is demonstrating her quickest speed in the pool, she misjudges her turn – this is not her training pool and there are no lane guides – and smacks her ankles on the end of the pool. Titley winces but Halsall emerges intact. It seems the ankle is robust enough now.

• Fran Halsall: the facts and figures
  - Born in Southport, April 12 1990.
  - She has won 13 national titles since 2006.
  - She won silver at the 2009 World Championships in 100m freestyle.
  - In 2010 she became the most successful British swimmer at a European Championships ever with two golds, two silvers and a bronze.
  - At the 2010 Commonwealth Games she won one gold, three silvers and a bronze.
  - She is the British No1 in sprint-swimming, and British record-holder in 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m and 100m butterfly.

So these are the two areas she is working on this winter – getting her endurance back up to its old levels and sharpening her turns and starts. “I’ve been doing tons of turns and starts and I’ve already started seeing the benefit.” The preconception about swimming training is that it is just about doing lengths. Sure, there is plenty of that but Titley has tried to keep things fresh by helping his Loughborough Intensive Training Centre group get their core fitness outside the pool.

“When we first came back to training after Shanghai, we did a lot of cross training,” Halsall explains. “We do so much swimming during the year so at the start of the season we like to try to do it in different ways. We’ve done a bit of kick-boxing, rock climbing and ballet. It helps our base fitness and develops our core strength.

“We went to Derbyshire to go camping, to Carsington Water. It was the windiest weekend ever and there we were trying to pitch tents. We did lots of running and rock climbing. We did canoeing and made rafts on the lake. They told us we weren’t allowed in the water for safety reasons but we ended up rolling each other’s canoes any way. It was a lot of fun but hard work with it.”

_{Disappointment: Halsall finished fourth at the World Aquatics Championships in 2011}

To refine her technique, Halsall has used various different technological innovations, including a towing system in the pool (essentially attaching the swimmer to a leash) that measures the force of each stroke. “It showed me that I didn’t have the balance I needed in my stroke,” Halsall says. “My left arm was not as forceful when it went in as my right. I have tried to correct that and have already seen improvement.

“At the end of September I went to Tenerife with the Loughborough University team. They have an amazing facility there. There is this pit which you get in and it pushes water at you at the rate you swim at. So you stay still but have to swim at the speed which you would swim at in a race. Then they have all these different cameras pointing at you from different angles. It’s really good for analysing how you are swimming. The only problem is getting out. You get pushed back and stuck to the wall so it’s not easy.”

After a training camp in Florida, Halsall competed in the Duel in the Pool last month, in which the United States take on a combined European team. Halsall is already looking in fine shape – she was part of a 4x100m freestyle relay team which broke the world record. After that competition, though, it is hard graft in the pool until the Olympic trials in March. She had four days off over the holidays – Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day – but has had to up her daily schedule from 6km to 9km in compensation.

For Halsall, training is a trial, a sacrifice she knows she has to make. Her pleasure comes from racing. Fraction by fraction, she is reaching the apex of her ability to swim 100m faster than any other woman in the world. On Aug 1, in the London Aquatic Centre, she will discover if she can.

Fran Halsall is an ambassador for Multipower Sportsfood. For sports nutrition tailored to your individual needs visit www.multipower.co.uk

London 2012 Olympics: British Handball slams venue name change

Paul Goodwin, chief executive of British Handball, said: “Retaining the name of the sport in the title of the venue is important to us. The Olympics has given handball a great opportunity to grow in popularity, and all the indications are that we are achieving that.

“Handball has seen a six-fold increase in participation across England alone, with almost 60,000 children and young people being introduced to the sport last year.

“I think we deserve to have all our good work in developing the sport recognised by the authorities by not giving the venue a generic title which does nothing to reflect its usage.

“Why have they not renamed other facilities in a similar vein?

“Perhaps the Olympic Velodrome will be called ‘the big round wooden building’ or the basketball arena renamed as ‘the marshmallow’?”

After the Games the venue will be operated by London-based Greenwich Leisure Limited and is set to be used as a venue capable of hosting concerts, shows and exhibitions.

London 2012 Olympics: BOA nominate Great British Olympians for torch relay

Jim Redmond clambered over the seats at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona in 1992 to take to the track and help his son cross the finishing line after he tore his hamstring during the semi-finals of the 400 metres.

_{Hero: Jim Redmond helps his son Derek over the finishing line at Barcelona 1992 (Photo: PA)}

Paul Mears's son Chris is in contention for a place in Britain's diving team, but three years ago he was fighting for his life after suffering a serious training accident while competing for Team GB at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival.

The teenager suddenly collapsed in Sydney and was taken to hospital, where doctors found he had ruptured his spleen and was also suffering from a virus they suspected to be meningitis.

He went on to make a full recovery, but the thought of almost losing his son still fills Mears with emotion.

Mears said: “I am truly delighted at being nominated to carry the Olympic Flame during the London 2012 torch relay. It has been a very long road for our son Chris towards the Olympic Games and as parents we have supported him throughout that journey, right from the age of seven when he first began to dive.

"Now that he is on the verge of selection for Team GB it is marvellous that I have the opportunity to participate in this once in a lifetime event, a true honour.”

Redmond added: "I am very, very proud that I was selected.

"Whether it's for five inches or five miles, it's a proud day to be asked to do something like this. I never dreamt that I would be asked to represent the general public as a torch bearer. I can't wait to turn it in to reality."

The London organising committee for the Olympic Games are yet to reveal who will have the honour of taking the Olympic torch on its final lap and lighting the cauldron in the opening ceremony, but bookmakers William Hill have Redgrave as their 8/13 favourite.