Last summer, The Northern Echo launched Dreams of Gold, a six-year project that will follow six NorthEast youngsters as they attempt to win a place at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Over the next six weeks, Chief Sports Writer SCOTT WILSON will catch up with the hopefuls and learn of their hopes for 2007 FOR most British youngsters, the Olympic experience remains more than five years away.

But for Paul Drinkhall, the Loftus-based teenager who has taken the table tennis world by storm, this week marks the start of the countdown to 2012.

The 16-year-old Teessider is one of 106 British athletes currently competing in the Australian Youth Olympics, a 21-nation event that aims to replicate the experience of a full Olympic Games.

Competitors will live in the same Sydney accommodation that housed senior Olympians in 2000, be subject to formal drug testing procedures, and experience the pageantry of an opening and closing ceremony.

And for Drinkhall, who started playing table tennis for the Ormesby club at the age of seven, the Youth Olympics will introduce him to another experience he is almost certain to encounter in 2012.

After finishing fourth in the Commonwealth Games last season, the British No 1 began this week's tournament expecting to win.

Despite the immense table tennis pedigree of countries such as China and Chinese Taipei, it is a scenario that is likely to be repeated when London hosts the Olympics in five years time.

"I don't know which Chinese players are going to be competing in Sydney, " said Drinkhall, who won the Under-18 Award for Sporting Excellence at The Northern Echo's Local Heroes Awards in November. "But even if they send the best, I will still be confident.

"I'm just going to play my own game and hope to win it. It's a big thing and hopefully it will help with funding towards 2012.

"I went to the Commonwealths and the atmosphere and village there was amazing. This will be equally unbelievable and will help to get me ready for an Olympic Games."

To further aid his preparation for next summer's Games in Beijing, Drinkhall has spent most of the last month training in China.

A regular visitor to the powerhouse of the table tennis world, Drinkhall's latest Chinese visit began when he travelled to Fuzhou on December 27.

He will make another monthlong trip later this year and, while he admits it is hard to be away from home for such a lengthy period, he insists the quality of the Chinese training methods makes such a sacrifice more than worthwhile.

Speaking before the event, Drinkhall said: "The Chinese are the best in the world. They arrange their school around table tennis and train twice a day.

"In Europe, the style is different. It's more relaxed whereas, in China, it's very fast and powerful. When I play in Europe now, they say I'm like a Chinese player and they get a bit scared.

"The Chinese think I play like a European, so I suppose I'm getting the best of both sides of the coin."

He is also getting a crash course in Oriental culture from his new-found Chinese friends.

As he spends more and more time in Asia, the language barrier is gradually being broken down.

The difference in food, however, is proving a rather harder hurdle to overcome.

"The food is a lot different to Chinese food in England, " Drinkhall explained. "I love Chinese food at home, but I still find some of the stuff over here a bit strange.

"I really struggled for the first few times, but I tried to eat as much as possible. I had to eat or I couldn't train. Luckily, the food seems to be becoming a bit more European now.

"When I first came over, I was with four other Chinese lads but the coach was European. He would speak to me, but we wouldn't communicate between all of us at all.

"Now, I have a Chinese coach out here (Jia Yi Lui) so there's not so much of a problem.

"I'm living out of a suitcase and I guess I'm working hard.

But, hopefully, it will all be worth it in the end. I want to be Olympic champion and you have to go through all of this to get there."

Drinkhall and Darius Knight are assured of a medal after dominating the first day of the men's team event, winning each of the day's four rounds - against Oceania, New Caledonia, Hong Kong and New Zealand - 3-0.

The final three rounds today's against China, Australia and Chinese Taipei will determine which medal they win.