COMMENT: Best of luck to our athletes in the Olympics

8:30am Friday 8th August 2008

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According to the Chinese, who regard the number eight as lucky, the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 2008 should be one of the most auspicious times to get the country’s first-ever Olympic Games under way.

But the Chinese are not relying on luck to make the event a success. The reputation of this increasingly self-confident superpower is riding on Beijing 2008 and the country is not leaving anything to chance.

If the impressive infrastructure and sneak peeks at the spectacular opening ceremony are anything to go by, this is shaping up to be one of the more memorable Games of modern times.

Let’s hope it’s also a good one for the local men and women who have travelled to China in the hope of achieving Olympic gold – or at least getting among the medals.

Like China, Worcestershire’s Olympians will be relying on much more than luck as they prepare to take on the world in Beijing – but we wish them the best of it anyway.

These inspirational athletes, profiled in your Worcester News today, have been training hard for the past four years, striving to be on top form for what is the pinnacle in any sportsman or woman’s career.

If they end up standing on the podium in Beijing, they will, of course, be jubilant, as will their friends, families, supporters and, indeed the whole of Worcestershire.

But whatever happens in China, they can return home with their heads held high knowing that they were good enough to take on the best in the world.