Every day this week we're featuring a different view on London 2012 from a prominent figure within British judo. Today we hear from Jane Bridge (pictured top left), Britain’s first World Champion and now Lead Women’s Coach at the British Judo Performance Institute.

Jane (top left) with some of the women's squad

at the 2009 Tokyo Grand Slam

Each Olympic cycle brings with it important changes and improved performances in our sport. The distribution of medals is spread over more countries at each subsequent Olympic Games, making winning a medal even more special and of course a challenging task for everyone involved in preparing the team and the players themselves.

For the women, the Chinese, Cuban and also the Japanese really made a step up in the early 90’s and have never really lost the leadership since.

Two years down the line from Beijing, everything has moved up a gear. We’ve witnessed the rise of high performing young players just out of the juniors, coming not only from the usual successful European countries, Russia and Asia, but also from Africa and South America. Out of the 15 Japanese women selected for the World Championships only three are over 25 and a 23-year-old Colombian, Yuri Alvear, won a World title in 2009.

In the past two years, the IJF has introduced modifications to the format, refereeing rules and number of international competitions, which has sometimes been difficult to keep abreast of. These have included the new ranking list, removal of the repecharge, two players per category for the 2010 World Championships and probably the most significant change the instant disqualification for leg grabs. Fortunately for Great Britain we had already taken the initiative early in the Olympic cycle to ensure that players focused more on this style of technical development, before the rule changes came in.

Faced with these challenges, and with a home Olympics in perspective, British Judo has begun a process of adaptation and the strategy is very much around a four year periodisation programme, where players can peak to contend for medals at London 2012 and for the younger players a longer term programme into Rio 2016.

With the role models of our more experienced players, such as Karina Bryant, who won a medal in the 2009 World Championships and 2010 European Championships, and Euan Burton who has medalled consistently, another generation of younger players are now progressing through the clubs and Home Country programmes. Importantly they are training with a new determination and professionalism. We are focused on bringing our performance levels up to that of the best in the world.

We began with the foundation phase in which we raised the volume and intensity of preparation to meet the demands of modern day training. This included daily sessions twice and sometimes three times a day and regrouping the best players to train together in a professional environment. We are now into the transition phase of the program and because the foundations have been built we can intensify and individualise the program. The women have just finished a three week stint of three camps and three competitions followed by another weeks training in Ratho and a team building weekend in Kendal.

In my role as Lead Women’s Coach I am excited about how the programme is coming together and the work we are collectively doing with the players. We are actively seeking improvements during this transition phase and more of the players are now starting to connect to the elite levels. With two years to go we are on track and the reality of a home Games is setting in.

The next two years will go very quickly. 2012 is just round the corner and I am constantly reminding the team (and myself) that we cannot waste a session, a day, or a week. Every second counts! The task of bringing back the British women’s judo team to Olympic level is constantly on our minds and we aim to make every decision, every progression, a step towards our Olympic goals.

Beyond 2012 I would like to be able to participate in the building of a legacy for the future of British Judo, so that the talent we have in this country can be consistently developed and fast tracked in a system and process that helps them to reach their true potential and that each individual (and British Judo) deserves. I will be proud when we achieve that and to have taken part in this journey.