LONDON VAUXHALL DEALERS

British race walker Dominic King is aiming to prove he can compete with the world’s best at this summer’s Olympic Games.

King is the only athlete to post the required qualifying time to represent team Great Britain in London after recording a personal best of 4:06:34 in March, at the high-profile Dudinska Patdesiatka event in Dundice, Slovakia.

That time put the 29-year-old well inside the Olympic ‘B’ standard after he shaved eight minutes off his previous best, as he looks to become the first competitor in the event since Chris Maddocks at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Despite the lack of competition for places in the 50km event, the Colchester Harrier is taking nothing for granted.

“All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that the selectors call me with good news, but the recent events involving Aaron Cook show that nothing is guaranteed.

“Unfortunately, politics do play a part in the team that is selected for major events but those responsible have a hard job and every sport is different.

“They are never going to truly admit the real reasons why they aren’t selecting one individual over another. No matter how much we try to believe that the best competitor will always be selected, it isn’t true.”

It has been a successful year for King, who was part of the ten-strong squad for May’s IAAF Race Walking World Cup in Saransk, Russia.

After a four-year absence from the international scene, Dominic posted his second fastest ever time of 4:13:25 to finish in 51st place, ten spots ahead of twin brother Daniel.

King, who took up race-walking in 1994 after encouragement from club coach Jerry Everett, is hoping to better his seventh place finish in the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

He is aiming to follow in the footsteps of the trio of previous medallists in the event, and has mixed feelings about potentially ploughing a lone furrow in London.

“It is good to have someone so close trying to follow the same dreams but sometimes it can be hard because they are a rival as well as a friend and training partner.

“While it would have been good for us to compete together again, it eases some of the pressure on me for him not to be there.

“While I am relishing this chance to perform in front of my family and friends, past experiences have taught me a lot.

“I have learnt a big lesson from the 2002 Commonwealth Games when I let the emotions overcome me and went off too fast, and ended up being disqualified. I will make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Katherine Grainger has a glittering rowing CV that includes six World Championship golds and three Olympic silver medals – but it’s the obvious glaring omission from her list of achievements that is driving her on.

After second-place finishes at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, again in Athens four years later and then agonisingly for a third time in Beijing in 2008 – it’s the lure of finally topping the podium at London 2012 that gets Grainger out of bed every morning.

The 36-year-old, who combines training with studying homicide for a PhD at King’s College, won her first senior international medal back in 1997 at the World Championships.

And Grainger, who carried the Olympic Torch last week at Toryglen Football Centre, admits it will be a career-defining moment in London regardless of the outcome as she adopts a win-or-bust attitude towards her attempt at claiming her missing Games gold.

“Last week brought the Games very close because when we are training we are away from the spotlight and it is in dark sweaty gyms or on windswept and rainswept waters,” said Grainger, who is a Bank of Scotland National School Sport Week ambassador.

“So in a way you feel quite detached from the experience of an Olympic Games.

“We hear about it the whole time on the radio and TV and newspapers but when we go training day-to-day you still feel a little bit away from that.

“London is something that I have been building to for seven years and to be honest the last 15 years of my life has been slightly defined by the Olympic Games.

“This week has been massive with both the official selection, although it wasn’t a huge surprise, and carrying the torch.

“Although you know it’s been coming for a long time it’s the first moment when you know it’s definitely going to happen and you’re definitely going to be a part of it – now I just need to deliver.”

Grainger is certain to be one of the British stories of the Games whether she tops the podium or once again falls short in her quest to win Olympic gold.

Medals are already being hung around her and double sculls partner Anna Watkins’ neck but as she heads to a career defining regatta – Grainger is taking nothing for granted.

“I’m aware of the story but I don’t get caught up in it because I know the only way I can influence that result is what I do every day and the hard work, all the tiny things behind the scenes.

“That’s got to be my focus and if we get everything right, the result will happen and the ending will be there.

“It is my story – I don’t deny it, I don’t try and hide from it. It’s been an emotional build-up because clearly the fairytale ending is gold at last in front of the home crowd on our home course.

“We have counted in years for a long time and then it was months, weeks and now it is days so it does feel like we are getting to the end now.”

Bank of Scotland National School Sport Week took place from 11-15 June 2012 and is Scotland’s biggest school sport event with over 1,800 schools and half a million pupils taking part, staging their own Games. Find out more at www.schoolsportweekscotland.org

Pity the fast Astra. In four generations, history and journalists have not been kind to the poor Vauxhall hot hatch.

Ever since the first Astra GTE appeared in the early 1980s, Vauxhall's offering has been the perennial bridesmaid, the also-ran in many a hot hatch battle. Opel and Vauxhall know this, though, and the new Astra VXR, despite being the most powerful front-drive Vauxhall ever, has had some serious engineering thrown at it. We're at Rockingham today to find out just whether Vauxhall can consign the fast-but-unruly rep of the Astra to history - and we'll tell you whether it's succeeded or not on PH soon - but for now it's worth taking a quick look back at some of the new car's ancestors.

Mk1
The Mk1 GTE certainly doesn't fit the mould of the uncouth fast Vauxhall. In fact it's a bit of a forgotten gem. When was the last time you saw one on the road, for example? Quite - and yet you'll see plenty of 205 GTIs and Golf GTIs on the road (though perhaps not so many Escort XR3is).

Despite the glitzy white wheels, it's a more sophisticated thing than you'd perhaps credit, handling with some aplomb and with a 1.8-litre fuel-injected engine good for 115hp. It was only on sale for around a year or two before the swoopy aerodynamic Mk2 arrived.

Mk2
Of all the fast Astras, perhaps only the Mk2 GTE 16v, with its 150hp power output and consequent susceptibility to theft by the joyriding community, really got to sit with the rest of the gods on whatever the hot hatch version of Mount Olympus is. And even then its reputation was built more on slightly lairy power then anything in the way of finesse, though it more than deserves its place as a PH hero for that alone.

Mk3
This is perhaps the car that got the Astra its rep. Blessed with a solid 150hp from its 2.0-litre motor, it was always quick, but despite the power from the 16-valve 'redtop', and the involvement of Lotus with the handling, the GSi (as it was now badged) was just too stodgy to be considered a hot hatch contender.

And the others...
Vauxhall did of course produce a 200hp turbocharged GSi version of the Mk4 but, umm, we didn't have any of those to photograph. Nor, curiously, did we have an Astra VXR, the new car's direct predecessor.

But that car's fast-but-unruly reputation is what brings us to the latest Astra VXR, a car that now carries a history of wild-but-fun hot hatches on its shoulders with a Drexler limited-slip diff, trick HiPer Strut suspension and a whopping 280hp. Has GM finally tamed its wild-child hot hatch? We'll find out soon...I for one just hope it hasn't gotten too sophisticated.

Riggers