Olympic Hopeful Trains For London In His Shed

One of Britain's best hopes for Olympic success is training for a gold medal in his garden shed.

Taekwondo star Aaron Cook withdrew from the sport's central funding programme two months ago and is now training by himself in a purpose-built shed in his back garden.

Cook began 2011 as the European under-80kg world number one, but slipped to number four and felt the British World Class Performance Programme was partly to blame.

The 20-year-old thinks his new training setup will help him regain the top ranking.

"My dad built it for me two or three years ago, it was just if I needed any extra practice. It's perfect for me now though, because I have nowhere else to train," Cook said.

"This is my commute. I come out to the back garden, train as hard as I can, then go back, eat food and sleep!"

Cook missed out on a medal at the 2011 World Championships in South Korea in May and left the British training programme a month later. He is aiming to put that disappointing showing behind him by winning gold in London next year.

"It's very rare you get to compete at an Olympic Games and to have it in your own country is even more rare," he said.

"Basically, winning (gold) will set you up for life."