Well.....my first year in Pittsburgh went extremely well and i returned home to Southampton for the summer, and enjoyed seeing friends and family again. But now im back to business, playing football and studying hard towards my degree in journalism in my 2nd year stateside.

I returned almost a month ago and my feet have not touched the ground since. The hype surrounding Michael Phelps and team USA in the Olympics was unreal, it was exciting and enthralling viewing every day as a whole host of hyperbole's were used to describe a gold medal…….. in beach volleyball!! ESPN was on overload and every night was spent marveling at arguably the greatest Olympic games of all time. My god does London have a lot to live up to in four years time. The Phelps epidemic was insane, almost unhealthy. For example after every gold medal he won a TV commercial would appear for VISA credit cards starring Morgan Freeman. He would congratulate Phelps in the same way every time, the only difference being, "well done on your 6th gold medal...7th gold medal....8th gold medal!" It was a truly humbling experience to see how passionate every American is about the games. It really does bring out their pride and patriotic feelings, not that they need much encouragement for that anyway. The rivalry between Russia and China was intense, several times i heard repeated calls for the Chinese to be thrown out for alleged cheating and cries of "who do they think they are winning all those gold medals?"

Of course are very own Olympic team achieved great things, to finish fourth behind the three powerhouses of world sport was no mean feat in itself. Everyday i instructed my team-mates on how many gold medals Britain had won, usually to have it thrown back in my face with comments such as "Phelps has won that many medals on his own, tell your boys to quit slacking!"

The whole fanfare surrounding the games was fantastic, and nobody does it like the US.

Im glad to be back in the States, and looking forward to a challenging year of sport and studies. With a desire to be at London 2012 reporting on our Olympians overtaking the dominance of the USA, just as China did. What a thought that is!