Today, Princess Anne showed her support for the British athletes by attending the Judo venue to watch Sophie Cox. Performance Director, Udo Quellmalz, took time out to sit with her and answer questions.

It is an early morning start for six members of the Team GB Judo Team, the support staff and training partners (Karina Bryant and Rachel Wilding fly out on Tuesday 10th).

We all meet at 7.15am for a 9.40am flight. After a short delay the flight takes off for the four and an half hour flight to Larnaca. On arrival, a Team GB bus is ready and waiting to take us on the two-hour journey to Coral Bay, just outside the Paphos.

The holding camp in Paphos is bringing GB competitors from all the sports together in one multi purpose location. The camp at the Coral Beach Hotel is everything you imagine, with the BOA leaving nothing to chance with regard to the training, facilities and the overall comfort, making the athletes job of preparing for the Games as easy as possible.

Being in Cyprus means that the athletes will experience a silimiar environment to Athens with regard to temperature and humidity.

Team GB have a designated area of the hotel with a restaurant, gym, swimming pool, IT room, strength and conditioning area, chill out lounge, help desk and large room converted into a dojo.

Touchingly there is an army of volunteers, mostly made up of the expat community, adding the homely touch to the camp. The volunteers are doing everything to assist and are doing a great job driving the athletes to training venues, running the chill areas and generally being there to provide support

Overall, the holding camp will provide an optimal preparation environment prior to departure to Athens. The idea was to have a seamless training transition from training in the UK to Cyprus and that has happened.

After all the travelling it was just a couple of hours of relaxing in the chill out lounge before an early evening to bed as tomorrow would be the first day training in the Cyprus heat.

Sunday 8th August

It was an early start on Sunday morning with everyone up at 8.30 for the BOA welcome meeting with Camp Director, Richard Simmons.

Following the welcome meeting, the entire judo delegation got together and the squad were each presented with a copy of the good luck messages emailed in to the website. They were greatly touched and spent time reading through each and every message.

Afterwards it was straight to the dojo for a judo session. The first in Cyprus, it went very well.

After lunch, the players worked on their own individual programmes ranging from weight training, sprints and longer distance runs.

There was just a few hours spare for the team before dinner, after which it was on to the challenge of trying to beat Sydney gold medallist, Audley Harrison at pool!

Audley, along with other past Olympians, are reguarly passing through the holding camp for a few days on their way to Athens. This is providing a great morale boost to everyone.

On Sunday evening Judo had taken over the pool table so Audley came over to join in the fun!

Judo also took time out to nominate Kate Howey as the official flag bearer for the entire GB squad at the opening ceremony - fingers crossed she will make the short list.

Monday 9th August

On Monday morning the team met nearly every member of the British press!

The Team GB Judo press conference started at 9.00am when 20 journalists from the UK national press crammed into a room to meet the team. After an hour they had managed to grab a few minutes with each person and it is time for everyone to head downstairs to the dojo for the photograph and broadcast media.

Sky, ITV, three BBC crews and eight photographers hover around the mat in awe at the judo taking place. After all the interviews finish, the journalists leave and the real training began.

A tough judo session followed before a well earned lunch.

After lunch, it was afternoon sessions again for the team. Sophie, Georgina, Sarah and Winston used the strength and conditioning area at the holding camp.

Kate and Craig headed out to the stadium nearby where Craig did sprints with Ben (Naughton, Kate's training partner). They were not as fast as Daniel Caines also training there but they gave it a good go! Kate used some specialist training equiptment in the Team GB weighlifters gym, which is based there.

Back at the holding camp for dinner, we found out that Kate is in the final six for being the GB flag bearer! This is great news. Each sport now has to nominate their choice so we will let you know when we find out!

More tomorrow.

Craig being interviewed for the BBC
(what a view)

After breakfast it was the morning training session in the dojo, which consisted of technique training and randori.

After lunch Sarah and Winston did radio interviews with Radio Five Live while everyone else went back to their room to relax.

As usual it was individual training in the afternoon. Kate, Sarah and Craig did weights/curcuit training. Winston headed off to the track to do sprints while Sophie did agility training and Georgina went for a 40 minute run.

Later in the afternoon, Kate, Sophie, Sarah and Winston were taken on a speed boat by BBC's Grandstand to do some filming. All aboard the boat, they did both group and individual interviews to camera and had fun watching the presenter nearly go overboard on a number of occasions! Three film crews were used, one in with the players, another in a speed boat alongside and a third on the cliff tops. It should make for an interesting piece (to air Sunday/Monday and will be repeated three times). There was a definate emphasis on speed - with one of the engines blowing on the way home! Fun was had all round and gave a bit of light relief after a hard days training.

More tomorrow...

This morning everyone welcomed Karina and Rachel who arrived in Cyprus on a late night flight from the UK.

Udo and Kate also left the holding camp this morning for a flight to Athens. Udo ready to attend the draw (fingers crossed that everyone will get a good one) and Kate will attend the reception where it will be announced on who will carry the flag for Team GB at the opening ceremony. Kate is very close in the running and we are all hoping that Kate will receive the honour, as it will be a great moment for Kate and judo (no judo athlete has ever carried the flag for GB at previous Games).

After breakfast it was the morning judo session with a full squad for the first time. Along with the training partners it looked a busy mat and as usual it attracted the attention of the other GB competitors. The session was mainly techniques but included some randori at the end.

After the morning session it was a quick shower and then lunch. After lunch everyone managed to have an hour off for relaxation, and Karina and Rachel decided to hit the chill out lounge to try and challenge a few people at pool.

In the afternoon, it was the individual training sessions, with most doing strength and conditioning, Georgina doing more judo training and Craig heading up to the track for more sprints.

This evening many of the players and training partners are going on a boat trip organised by Team GB for a bit of relaxation away from training.

Tomorrow afternoon it is on to Athens. Reports will follow once the judo begins on the Saturday.

Here’s to a great Games for judo!