Expectations are high for Team GB at the Paris Olympics. UK Sport, the Olympic funding agency, expects British athletes to win at least 50 medals and achieve a top-five finish in the overall table. That must count as the bare minimum and there is every chance that Britain could do even better than this.
Why the confidence? Britain boasts 41 current World Champions across all the main Olympic disciplines. Paris is also the first games in a European time zone since the London 2012 Olympics, which helps with preparation and conditioning. Performing well at the Olympics is becoming routine: Team GB won 51 medals in the Beijing Games in 2008, followed by 65 medals at London 2012, 67 medals in Rio 2016, and a tally of 64 medals at the delayed Tokyo Games three years ago.
Who to watch out for? The list of British hopefuls is long and exciting. The swimmer Adam Peaty is challenging for a third successive gold medal. He has dominated his event for the best part of a decade and boasts the fastest time in the world this year, despite injuries and grappling with personal issues.
Britain is punching well above its weight
Diver Tom Daley has come out of retirement after winning gold in the Tokyo 2020 Games. He will be a favourite to win the Men’s 10m synchro. The rower, Helen Glover, is chasing her third Olympic gold medal in the Women’s Four. Jade Jones is bidding to become the first fighter to win three taekwondo gold medals: she won gold at London 2012 and Rio 2016, only to fall to a shock first-round defeat in Tokyo.
Then there’s Andy Murray, the only tennis player to win two Olympic singles gold medals (2012 and 2016). He will be hoping to sign off with another triumph before retiring from playing professionally. Another hoping for one last hurrah is gymnast Max Whitlock in the Men’s pommel horse event. If he successfully defends the title he won in Tokyo, he will become the first gymnast to win four Olympic medals on the same apparatus.
The sprinter Dina Asher-Smith is on a fine run of form, winning the British 200m title in a championship record 22.18 seconds. She will be competing in the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay – and could become Britain’s first individual sprint champion since Linford Christie in 1992. It would be an extraordinary achievement in what is arguably the most competitive era of women’s sprinting in history. Another hot favourite is Keely Hodgkinson, who is lining up in the Women’s 800m event. She set a new national record at the Diamond League meeting in London recently. It has to be gold or nothing for Hodgkinson.
It is not just the established stars that give Team GB hope of setting new records in Paris. Emily Campbell, who became the first British woman to win an Olympic weightlifting medal with silver in Tokyo, is heavily fancied to go one better this time. Others to keep an eye out for include Molly Caudery in Women’s Pole Vault and the track cyclist Emma Finucane. In the signature event of the Games – the Men’s 100m – Britain’s Louie Hinchcliffe is a real prospect. He won the UK Athletics Championships to qualify for Paris, and has linked up with the legendary American sprinter Carl Lewis, winner of nine gold medals and widely recognised as one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Paris 2024 marks the latest staging post on Britain’s journey from Olympic also-ran to a medal-winning power. It is a far cry from the dismal performance at the Atlanta Games in 1996: that year Team GB won just a single gold medal. It sparked massive changes. Sports such as cycling, rowing and sailing that would propel Britain further up the medals table were targeted for increased investment. Other Olympic disciplines where Britain performed poorly were sidelined and starved of financial support. It was a ruthless approach aimed at picking winners, with little room for sentimentality. As a result, Britain is punching well above its weight when it comes to the Olympics. Long may it continue!
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