John, who is vice president of Archery Australia and a member of FITA’s Board of Justice – the international organisation – was in Beijing as a member of the Jury of Appeal.

What captured his mind the most about the Games, he says, was its organisation and the discipline that was evident in day to day life in Beijing itself.

Having previously been involved in the archery at Athens and Sydney, John says that what we saw on television back here was only one part of the organisation that had gone into their overall presentation.

Certainly, he says, security was tight with plenty of wire fencing along various roads and streets and armed militia also making a presence, but at no stage did he ever feel threatened.

John says his visa into the China was further endorsed on his arrival in Beijing and he had to constantly produce it for inspection even when returning to and leaving his hotel.

And accommodation – wise John didn’t fare to badly with a suite on the 17th floor of a hotel from which he could see the nearby stadium.

Another feature of the Games that “wowed” him was the number of volunteers, an estimated 100 000 in all, and there was also a distinct friendliness from the locals.

John was also surprised by the number of people who spoke English, a factor that spread right down to the many older schoolchildren who helped as volunteers.

“You wouldn’t say they were all fluent in our language, but they made the effort and you usually were able to have a conversation of sorts,” he says.

And it was evident from the organisation of the Games opening ceremony, he suggests, that the Chinese threw people as well as money at the presentation.

Evidence of this, he says, was that there were 2008 drummers – one for each year – who helped make the overall show such a success.

Annoying to read criticisms

John says he was somewhat annoyed to read the reports by some international, and including Australians, media people who went on and on about certain aspects they thought were missing in the overall organisation.

Sure there were empty seats from time to time, he says, but from what he saw the same applied in Athens and Sydney.

He describes the architecture of the main stadium as an engineering masterpiece and athletes who stayed at the Olympic Village were loud in their approval of the venue, which included a 24 hour a day dining room service.

John believes the overall standard of the archery was higher than in previous Games and that quite simply the Australians were left behind because they just didn’t meet the new benchmarks.

There is a need, he suggests, to change the way our archers approach training and for them to get access to higher level competition before the team is picked for the next Olympics, and certainly the team has to be selected earlier to achieve the new standards.

He also believes the newer nations competing at the Games have come to realise the value of international success at this level, and the likelihood of the extra funding that will become available as an outcome of their success.

Good examples of this in the archery, he says, came from Malaysia, India and China and it must be remembered the Gold Medallist came from the Ukraine.

John also estimates the cost needed to send a successful archer to the games is about $250 000, and that maybe a national lottery needs to be established to help better finance our athletes in all sports.

The first Australian to be selected on archery’s international jury panel, John took up the sport as a hobby some years ago as a member of an Archery Club. He is an OAM (Order of Australia Medallist ) and still practices law following his retirement from this role at BHP’s Port Kembla steelworks.

But the international body calls and he’s off to Geneva in November for a meeting of that body.