Stars from both ends of the experience spectrum are among those boasting gold medal hopes for Great Britain at next year’s Paris Olympics.
With one year to go before the Games, we’re picking out five of the potentially biggest Team GB Olympics headline-grabbers to look out for.
Tom Dean
While Adam Peaty takes a well-deserved back seat, Dean has splashed into focus as he bids to better his historic haul from Tokyo 2020, at which he became the first British swimmer to claim more than one gold medal at a single Games in 113 years.
Keely Hodgkinson
Silver linings are no longer enough for the 800-metre star who was pipped by American rival Athing Mu at both the Tokyo Olympics and the subsequent World Championship. Gold at this year’s European Indoors in Istanbul will have whetted her appetite to go one better when her rivalry with Mu resumes in the French capital.
Carl Hester
After three straight Olympic medals in team dressage – including gold at London 2012 – 56-year-old Hester is targeting a fourth in what will be his final Games. Having missed last year’s team world silver in Denmark due to an injury to his horse, Hester will be determined to go out on a high.
Sky Brown
Aged just 13 when she won skateboard bronze in Tokyo in 2021, Brown is back and looking better than ever ahead of Paris, having scooped X Games and Dew Tour titles in 2022 and followed them up by being crowned women’s park world champion in Sharjah in February.
Jessica Gadirova
The precociously talented 18-year-old gymnast won world all-around gold in Liverpool last year and followed it up by winning this year’s European crown. Having been part of GB’s stunning bronze medal team triumph in Tokyo, Gadirova is well equipped to target her sport’s ultimate individual prize.
Team GB Olympics boss in bullish mood
Team GB Olympics chef de mission Mark England is confident the building blocks for success are being put in place for what is set to be the closest thing to a home Games for a generation.
“This will feel like a home Games and I think we need to talk about it as being a home Games,” England said.
“We won’t have all the home advantages that the French team will have but we’re very, very confident in what we’ve got in place.
“I think (the athletes) will find it the most inspirational and exciting Games they have ever been in. There’ll be a smattering of London 2012 Olympians there, but this will be a knock it out of the park spectacular for those in their first or second Games, which is the lion’s share of them.
“They are in Europe, in their own time zone give or take, and with an opportunity to move quite freely between Paris and the rest of Britain.”
Asked whether the ‘home’ environment might be the catalyst for a bigger medal haul than Tokyo, where the team finished fourth, England added: “I think we’ve got a great opportunity to be the top European nation again, despite the fact that the home nation is very, very strong and getting stronger for a whole variety of reasons.
“So, top European nation, top five are our aspirations. I know that we are medal-competitive in a significant number of sports. I think we’ve got all of those building blocks, notwithstanding we’ve got another 12 months to build on that.”
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