大象传媒

The excitement amongst the here in Beijing is almost palpable.

I went on Friday to the warm-up track to watch the team's final preparations and everything looked great.

You can tell that wheelchair racer is in great shape and pushing well, not only by the speeds that he is hitting on the track, but also the fact that most of the other guys who are there are watching what he is doing.

When he was doing a couple of sprints, a few brave ones tried to sit behind him to test themselves out. Those who were not so brave sat in the lane on the outside of him to try and judge what his top speed might be. They all realised one thing, and that is

The last couple of days before the athletics programme starts is when the psychological fun really begins.

Some people do not want to train on the track at the same time as those they consider their 'rivals'. They avoid each other at all costs. Others want to be there, in case they miss something that is going on.

The reason that there is so much interest in David is that he is the one to fear and it is a great position for him to be in.

For the team, he is also someone who they must be looking to multi-medal and help achieve that all-important target of 30 medals.

However, David is not alone. There is a high degree of expectation on the team, and you could practically list name after name of the athletes who should do well. They all know the level of expectation that they face.

But one of the things that is adding to the anticipation are the rumours going around about the ticket sales.

There are a number of days where the athletics tickets have sold out, and it is not just finals days, it is early on. This has raised the level of the games, and the level of excitement, especially amongst some of the younger athletes on the team who are at their .

Everyone seems to be pretty happy with what they have here, and the things that are important.

The first thing that many of the athletes talk about is the size of the room (better than Athens) and the quality of the food.

After you have been to a couple of major games you can almost forgot that feeling that you get when you walk in to a dining hall designed for 3,000 people, and see all those people in one place!

But the thing that most of the team seem happy with is the speed of the track. It is amazing how many conversations you can have about the shape of the bend, how lane one feels, where the bumps are. This is the point that all those things come out.

Come Monday, none of that will matter and you can almost feel everyone counting down the number of hours, not the days.