大象传媒

Thursday marked the last day of the domestic training camp for before they head to Beijing.

Even though I'm , I was there in my role as mentor and spent a lot of my time either one-to-one or in groups just sharing my experiences of the Olympics.

The team for Beijing is totally different to the one four years ago when 80% had already been to a Games. This time, 80% haven't.

I tried not to scare them, but it is really important that they are forewarned about what they can expect. The Olympics are totally different to anything they will have experienced before.

We've done some team-building exercises too. On Tuesday, we went bowling which was good fun. We pitted the athletes, including me, against the staff. The athletes won the first round but unfortunately the staff won the second.

I can't say there were any outstanding performances but there were a lot of dire ones - from in particular! He came last in the first round and it's not often you hear the name Tom Daley and the word "last" in the same sentence. So I can report that Tom is not brilliant at everything. He's rubbish at bowling - although to be fair he did get his act together towards the end.

So the spirit in the squad is good but I think they're starting to get a bit nervous now. However, they could not be better prepared and they have a great support team in place.

They leave on Saturday and they'll stay in the for a few days so they can get their bearings, unpack their stuff, put the posters on the wall etc, so that means that by the time they leave for the training camp in Xian they'll already be familiar with their surroundings. It's one thing they won't have to worry about as they go through their final preparations.

Once they're out there, I'll be available for anyone that needs me. The thing I'll be careful of is giving Tom too much of my time. He needs to do his own thing and get used to it all.

He seems in really good spirits and very much looking forward to it. Even though he's the youngest on the team by a few years, he fits in well. He and , who's 19, hang out together because they're both from Plymouth but to be honest, Tom's above his years so it's not like having a little kid on the team. It's like having a young adult who just happens to be 14.

As for me, I seem to have taken to retirement pretty well. Once the decision was made back in May, I just had to accept it and throw all my energies into everything else. Every time I start to get a bit down, I go off and do something I wouldn't have been able to do when I was competing - like rock-climbing or something.

Before, I couldn't even say yes to going round to a mate's for dinner because of my training schedule and I've just come back from six days in Ibiza, which is obviously not the kind of thing I could ever have done as an elite athlete - so there are definitely benefits!

Leon Taylor was speaking to 大象传媒 Sport's Caroline Cheese

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