Solitary Dog Sculptor I

India's badminton player Jwala Gutta exercises at a gym before a practice session in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on July 12. Gutta thinks it may take India 100 years to emulate China's sporting success but the badminton doubles specialist hopes to bring her country a step closer to that goal by earning a medal at the Games. (Krishnendu Halder/Reuters) 

Austrian table tennis players from left: Chen Weixing, Li Qiangbing, Robert Gardos and Werner Schlager serve the ball during a training session in Schwechat outside Vienna on May 2. Chen, Li, Gardos and Schleger will participate at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. (Leonhard Foeger/Reuters) 

Italian boxer Romina Marenda (right) punches during a training session at the Military Olympic Center in Rome on Oct. 6, 2011. Marenda, a lightweight, will be one of Italy's biggest hopes when women's boxing makes its debut at the Olympics this year, as long as she manages to qualify at the world championships in China in May. (Tony Gentile/Reuters) 

Tom Daley of Great Britain practices at the Aquatic Center on July 17 during previews ahead of the Games. (Paul Gilham/Getty Images) 

Weightlifter Ilya Ilyin of Kazakhstan, three-time world champion and 2008 Beijing Olympic Games gold medallist trains in Almaty on March 20. Ilyin is among Kazakhstan's best hopes for gold at the Olympics. (Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters) 

Olympic hopeful Abdul Rashid Bangura (27) jumps rope while training at the national stadium in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown on April 25. Sierra Leone's national boxing team was scrambling to raise money to send athletes to an Olympic qualifying event starting in Morocco on Friday, but lack of financing and government support means the competition is likely out of reach for most of the national team. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) 

Sarah Finnegan trains on the uneven bars during practice for the US Olympic gymnastics trials on June 27 in San Jose, Calif. Julie Jacobson/Associated Press) 

Flavio Marazzi (left) and Enrico De Maria (right) of the Swiss Star class sailing team exercise during a training session with their coach Leo Held at the Swiss National Sport Center in Magglingen on April 26. The Swiss Star class race sailing team are preparing their boat at the shipyard in Leissigen before leaving for the Star Class World championship in Hyeres in France and for the 2012 Olympic Games. (Pascal Lauener/Reuters) 

Brazilian Ronald Juliao applies chalk on his discus during a training session at the Athletics Center in Sao Caetano do Sul, near Sao Pauloon in May. Juliao will be taking part at the Olympics. (Nacho Doce/Reuters) 

US trampoline gymnast Michael Devine trains for the Olympics at his home gym, the J and J Tumbling and Trampoline Team Center in Pecatonica, Illinois on May 7. (Jeff Haynes/Reuters) 

Austria's synchronized swimming duet Nadine Brandl (left) and Livia Lang perform during a training session in Maria Enzersdorf on May 12. Brandl (22) and Lang (18) practice seven hours a day six days a week and will participate at the Olympics. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters) 

Olympic wrestler Tonya Verbeek of Canada lifts weights during her training in Niagara Falls on May 12. (Mark Blinch/Reuters) 

Kim Yeon-koung of South Korea's women's national volleyball team undergoes an acupuncture session with Park Ji-hun the doctor in charge of the team, at a gym in Jincheon on July 5, 2012. South Korean athletes looking to stay in peak shape for the London Olympics are turning to asian rather than western medicine to stave off aches and sprains that could derail their medal chances. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters) 

Young Somali athletes exercise on July 7 in Mogadishu as they prepare themselves for the upcoming Olympics. The athletes training facilities are pock-marked with bullet holes from years of brutal conflict but as the four athletes, two men and two women, offer a glimmer of hope for the war-ravaged nation. The athletes, aged between 18 and 20, have spent the last six months in camp, but life has been far from easy. The two female athletes were often forced to exercise indoors after threats by extremist Shebab insurgents. (Mustafa Abdi/AFP/Getty Images) 

Mongolian Olympic boxer Tugstsogt Nyambayar prepares to train in a gym in Ulan Bator on Oct. 27, 2011. While the elite of the sporting world tune up for the London Olympics in world class facilities, other gold medal hopefuls are forced to make do with less salubrious surroundings. In Mongolia, Nyambayar trains alongside children playing basketball in an old gym with paint peeling from the walls. Children play on ancient free weight machines, climb ropes and roll around on the floor mimicking their wrestling hero as he warms up for his training session in the corner. (Kieran Doherty/Reuters)

Marathon runner Gladys Tejeda, the first Peruvian athlete who qualified for the London Olympic Games, runs during her training in the Andean province of Junin on May 14. A private company will take Gladys' mother Marcelina Pucuhuaranga (69) to London as part of the "Thank you Mom" program. The program will take about 120 mothers of different athletes around the world to attend the games. Tejeda, the youngest of nine children, returned to her hometown to visit her mother and to focus on training where she will run more than 20 km every day in the highlands. (Pilar Olivares/Reuters) 

Britain's Olympic women's basketball team warm-up with active stretches during a training camp in Guildford, southern England on May 25. This is the first time Britain has sent a women's basketball team to the Olympics. (Olivia Harris/Reuters)

US marathon runner Meb Keflezighi stretches during training for the London Olympics in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. on May 30. Keflezighi (37) is the oldest American ever to qualify for the Olympic marathon. He trains at around 9,000 feet in Mammoth to increase his red blood cells and boost his endurance. (Lucy Nicholson /Reuters) 

Rose Anderson (left) adds ice to the bath which teammates Rachael Vanderwal and Natalie Stafford of Britain's Olympic women's basketball team use to regenerate muscle tissue after practice in a training camp in Guildford, southern England on May 25. (Olivia Harris/Reuters) 

Costa Rica's 400m hurdles runner Sharolyn Scott jumps a hurdle during a training session in Sabanilla, near San Jose, on June 14. Scott is one of nine athletes who will represent Costa Rica at the Olympic Games. (Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters) 

US Olympic fencer Nzingha Prescod (right) spars with fellow Olympic fencer Nicole Ross at the New York Fencer's club in New York on April 24. A first time Olympian, first generation American and student at Columbia University in New York City. (Mike Segar /Reuters) 

Turkish Olympic gymnast Goksu Uctas trains at Murat Canbas sports hall in Bolu, western Turkey, on May 29. So excited was Uctas at the thought of becoming Turkey's first Olympic gymnast, she wanted the five Olympic rings tattooed on her arm. For now, though, the London-bound athlete has settled for a silver necklace of the famous symbol, which she twirls excitedly in her fingers. (Murad Sezer/Reuters)

Portuguese judoka Telma Monteiro speaks with her coach during a training session in Lisbon on June 12. Falling out of trees and sliding down stairs on old window blinds are more than a warm childhood memory for Portugal's best female judoka, they shaped Telma Monteiro into her nation's top medal hope at the Games. (Rafael Marchante/Reuters) 

Members of the Vietnam female boxing team practise at a training center in Hanoi on Feb. 17. Vietnam plans to send it's boxers to North Korea for training in preparation for the London Olympics. (Kham/Reuters) 

Gaza runner Bahaa al-Farra stretches during a training session in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on March 25. The 19-year-old trains for three hours a day in Gaza's Yarmouk soccer stadium, along the dusty streets and on the beach in well worn trainers that were donated to the Palestine Olympic Committee by wealthy Gulf state, Qatar, as he prepares to race at the London Olympics. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters) 

Britain's Nick Robinson-Baker (left) and Chris Mears practice their synchronized diving during a training session at the Aquatics Center in the Olympic Park in east London on July 16. (Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

US men's water polo team captain Tony Azevedo trains in Thousand Oaks, near Los Angeles, Calif. on April 12. The team won the silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) 

South African Oscar Pistorius tries a start during a training session in Gemona on July 13 near Udine, Italy. Pistorius needed a track in Europe to train at so the mayor of Gemona built him one. The double-amputee runner will take his final few steps to the London Olympics and history at his training camp in northern Italy, running lap after lap on those carbon fiber blades and focusing on his new goal of making the semifinals at the world's biggest meet. (Paolo Giovannini/Associated Press)

US Olympic rowing hopeful Genevra "Gevvie" Stone leaves the boathouse for an early morning training session on the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. on March 28. Stone, the top-ranked US female single skuller, narrowly missed a spot in the 2008 US team for Beijing but is on the team this year. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

US Men's National Team guard Kobe Bryant (10) works against guard Russell Westbrook (7) during practice on July 14 in Washington. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)

Mongolia's Olympic freestyle 60kg wrestler Mandakhnaran Ganzorig limbers up at a wrestling gym in Ulan Bator on Oct. 27, 2011. (Kieran Doherty/Reuters) 

Brazilian swimmer Poliana Okimoto attends a training session at the Maria Lenk Olympic Center in Rio de Janeiro on March 8. Okimoto, who won a bronze medal in the open water race at the swimming world championships in Rome 2009, will take part in the 2012 London Olympics. (Sergio Moraes/Reuters)