Gymnast Vlassis Maras arrived yesterday in Beijing ahead of the Olympic Games, full of optimism about what he missed out on last time around.

“I very much want a medal in the horizontal bar and I believe I have the potential to achieve it,” he said. My performances and my general record show I can be on the podium but it will take a great deal of effort,” he said. Maras will also try to win a spot in the final of the horse vault, “which is the most unpredictable of all the events,” he stated.

Maras had been left out of the final of the event in the Athens Olympics four years ago after what he saw as unjustifiably low marks from the judges.