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Clare Balding

Liz Thorburn

Olympic Countdown

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Sport: Cycling

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Sport: Volleyball

21/08/2011

BBC Two - Olympic Countdown

Some of Britain's Olympic medal hopefuls compete at test events and World Championships.

Clare Balding presents as the form of some of Britain's top Olympic medal hopefuls goes under the microscope at test events at 2012 venues and World Championships abroad.

With the London Olympics now less than a year away, Clare Balding looks at how London is preparing for the Games. Will Britain hit their target of fourth place on the medal table and who are the stars to look out for next year? The form of some of Britain's top medal hopefuls goes under the microscope at test events at next year's venues and World Championships abroad.

The programme features beach volleyball which takes place at Horse Guards Parade. The world's best female volleyball players take part in the FIVB Beach Volleyball International. After taking bronze at their home Games three years ago, China are strongly fancied to win.

There is also road cycling on the Olympic course. In July, Mark Cavendish raced away from his rivals on the streets of Paris to become the first Britain to win the Green Jersey at the Tour de France. Now his sights are set on winning the Olympic title on the Mall. Jill Douglas reports on the test event.

Shanaze Reade is among a group of BMX riders who have the chance to tackle the new 450m Olympic Park course complete with jumps, bumps and tightly banked corners at the BMX Supercross World Cup event. She was the favourite to win gold in Beijing but the young Brit crashed out in the final. Now aged 22, she is back with more experience and is doubly determined to strike gold in London.

There is canoeing from Szeged, Hungary, where a strong Great British team have been competing at the World Championships. Much of the pre-event attention has been on 25-year-old Paul Wycherley, who beat defending K1 1000m Olympic champion Tim Brabants in July.
 
And also in World Championship action in Lausanne, Switzerland, is 2009 world triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee.

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