I went to Peru for two weeks vacation before starting the preparation period for the Olympics. My vacations were amazing. Kestus, my boyfriend, came to visit me and my father was so excited he even prepared a new room in the house for him. We cooked typical Peruvian food for him, which he absolutely loved. I’m biased but I must say Peruvian food is some of the best in the world.

Feeling the stretch with a little help.

Looking glamorous on the court for a shoot.

We went to the beach almost every day, went dancing (Peruvians love to dance), to the movies and to meet my family. It was the first time we were not thinking about badminton but we still had to do some running so we didn’t lose all our physical condition.

We wanted to go to Cuzco that is the most famous historical place in Peru, but I had so many interviews to do.

The president of the Peruvian Olympic Federation announced that I officially qualified for Olympics so all the media wanted to talk to me. Don’t think I am famous in my country, it’s just because there are only 9 Peruvian athletes going to Beijing. In Peru sport is not very popular.

People don’t see sports as a way of living because you can not make money out of it and the government doesn’t support sports very much . The only sport Peruvians care about is football and we are not even good!

As for my interviews… at the beginning they were OK but after some time they really got in the way of me being able to do all the other things I wanted to do. But I know that badminton needs more publicity so that people can see that is a beautiful sport and hopefully they want to play it.

There was a special photo shoot for a magazine that I liked; I had to pose with different cocktail dresses and pretend I was playing badminton. It was hard and it took forever to do the make up and everything, but it was fun getting my hair and make up done and to wear the dresses.

In a few days I am going back to Germany to start practicing again. I’m really looking forward to that especially because we will have only one tournament before Olympics, so I can focus on correcting a few things in my technique and build up my stamina.

I am a little bit sad also because there are some friends who can’t make it to Olympics and will not be there when I come back to Germany, but I will have them always on my mind.

I feel lucky to be one of the few people in the world who can experience the Olympics games and I will practice as hard as I can to be there in my best shape.