What a night.

Sorry for not posting yesterday but I was not sure what to write. I'm still not sure so i'll just ramble and see how it turns out (hmmmm... no change there then :)

I've heard quite a few comments about the opening ceremony, all of them good thankfully. To me it was yet another mind-blowing experience, this thing just gets better and better. Saturday night surpassed my expectations by miles, the noise was deafening as we were all waiting outside and there were fireworks lighting up the sky, helecopters circling overhead and a rather enthusiastic crowd of mainly chinese cheering at us and waving frantically as we made our way towards the stadium.

We were the 80th country in the queue to enter and the closer we got to the stadium the louder the noise got. I think one of the most exciting moments was when we were in the tunnel waiting to be led in, we could see and hear the crowd and the noise and atmosphere was just unbelievable.

Walking into the stadium was a moment i will never forget, it seemed as though the crowd just errupted, I tried to wave, walk and look around at the same time but i think i was in a mild state of shock. I still can't believe that just four years ago i was watching the Athens opening ceremony on television and never in my wildest dreams could i have imagined that i would be a part of something this momentous.The roar that went up around the stadium when the Chinese team entered made me realise just how good it's going to be parading out in front of a home crowd when the Paralympics come to London in 2012.

The Ceremony itself was very well done i think. It was in no way patronising like i had initially feared and i honestly believe that it was 10 times better than the Olympic ceremony just a few weeks earlier. The displays of mass synchronised dancing, the lighting, the music....well everything was just so classy, and all of the main artists that performed were disabled..incredible.

I took so many photos that my camera bettery was totally flat by the end of the ceremony, so i didn't get to take many of the chinese athlete hoisting himself up to light the Paralympic flame. I'm sure there are plenty of photos of it about so i will try and grab some just in case you missed it. Oh and the part that will stick in my mind the most was the little children dancing, they were simply amazing and how they got that many kids to dance like that and all together is staggering.

Well the ceremony finished at around 11pm and we were efficiently ushered out to the hundreds of waiting buses to bring us back to the village. Everything ran like clockwork and me and one of my team mates stopped at the food hall for a drink and to try and get ourselves back down to earth as my mind was still racing. It really was one of the most memorable nights of my life.

I'll of course post some pictures as soon as i have had time to sift through the hundreds i took, hopefully one or two of them should be worth seeing :)

Now it's down to business and the real reason we are here. We have one more practice session before the ranking round on Tuesday (2:00pm), and that's when it really gets serious. Yesterday (Sunday) we had a 30 minute familiarisation session in each of the Archery courts, it was very exciting. I am not looking further forward than the ranking round, my plan was to take one step at time, lots of "mini" goals if you like that when all succesfully achieved will lead me to Archery court A on the 15th of September. My only goal right now is to finish in the top 8 in the ranking round, this will not only give me a bye in the first round and get me straight into the 1/16ths but it will also mean a day off on Wednesday so i can meet up with Lou and get some last minute words of encouragement. So thats it, if i succeed in that then i will start thinking about my next goal.

Here's a link to an Interview I did for BBC's Spotlight tv programme before I came out here,