High hopes this New Year for Olympic hopefuls.

Victoria Thornley and Gemma Akers have endured more than their fair share of teasing. At 6ft 3in, Thornley has been nicknamed 'Twin Towers' - she's not sure where the 'twin' fits in - and, more upsettingly, 'Yeti', while Akers, who stands just half an inch shorter, has been tormented with the more conventional 'Lanky'. But now the two 20-year-olds are having the last laugh.

 High hopes: athletes Victoria Thornley and Gemma Akers The pair are among the lucky few who are dreaming of a place in the British team at the 2012 London Olympics after responding to a nationwide appeal for young men and women of "extreme height" to come forward and be tested for their athletic ability. The Sporting Giants Appeal, first revealed in the Sunday Telegraph in February and launched in London's Trafalgar Square by Sir Steven Redgrave, had two stipulations: candidates had to be between the ages of 16 and 25 and, more specifically, men had to be at least 6ft 3in tall and women a minimum of 5ft 11in. The prize was the chance to take part in the 2012 Games in one of the so-called 'tall sports' of volleyball, handball and rowing. Organisers of the appeal were astonished to receive more than 4,000 applications from men and women who met the height criteria.
Now, after months of tough physical and psychological assessment, just 73 Olympic hopefuls remain in the running - 23 picked for handball, 18 for volleyball and 32 for rowing. For Thornley and Akers their athletic prowess in two rounds of testing means they are now six weeks into their new lives as full-time rowers in Bath, combining fitness sessions with sculling lessons on the River Avon. Meanwhile, other successful candidates are learning the basics of volleyball while some will soon take up scholarships at Britain's new handball academies in Denmark and Germany. Thornley, from Chester, has given up a university course in London to pursue her Olympic dream, despite never having seen a rowing boat before. Akers, a former county swimmer from Harlow in Essex, has quit her job as a nursery nurse and shed three stone since the appeal was publicised. "I never imagined I would be doing this," said Akers. "My weight was around the 16 to 17-stone mark, but my dad has always been a bit of fitness freak. "He read about it in The Sunday Telegraph and rang me straight away to tell me about it. I got online and applied for it that day."
The two women have undergone radical lifestyle changes. Alcohol is out and bedtime is 9 o'clock to cope with early-morning fitness sessions. "That's the biggest change," said Thornley. "It's not so much the training but the lifestyle. Friends of mine at home are going out and not getting in until seven in the morning. But that's when I'm in the gym every day." According to their coach, Paul Stannard, both women are adapting well to life as an elite athlete but it is too early to tell whether they or any of the successful "sporting giants" will make the grade. "They are all beginning from a similar physical starting point so a lot of it is how organised they are and how they approach their training," he said. UK Sport performance consultant Chelsea Warr, who came up with the idea for the appeal, said she had been amazed by the size of the initial response and the high calibre of many of those who were tested. "What we've learned is not to underestimate the draw of a home Olympics to awaken the sleeping giant of talent that we have in this country," she said. "We didn't think we'd get anything like the numbers we did. It just shows how much a home Olympics means to the British public." Of the 4,000 candidates, 1,200 were tested specifically for rowing in X-Factor-style auditions around the country. The assessment included a brutally difficult, timed exercise on an "arm-leg bike" that tested physical endurance and psychological willpower. Many failed to finish.
"The whole thing's been fantastic," said Stannard, who has been involved in the Amateur Rowing Association's much admired talent ID programme in schools and universities. "We've tested more people for rowing in the last few months than we've tested in the last five years." For Thornley, one of the most satisfying things has been the realisation that her height can be an asset rather than a burden. "There were days when I used to wish I wasn't so tall," she said. "It got me down I would stand out all the time and people would look at me. But we were all saying at the testing that we couldn't believe we were finally able to look people straight in the eye. Normally when you're having a conversation with someone you're looking down at them. "I just felt normal."