The full Olympics schedule begins on Saturday and there are plenty of Team GB athletes to keep an eye on.
Telegraph Sport has picked out the 12 key British competitors to follow in Paris.
Adam Peaty
Age: 29
Event: Swimming, 100m breaststroke
When is Peaty competing?
Peaty will defend his Olympic title in the breaststroke final on Sunday, July 28 at 20:44 (BST).
Previous honours and Olympic record
Already a triple Olympic champion, Peaty is aiming to become only the second swimmer after Michael Phelps to win an event three times in a row after 100m breaststroke golds in 2016 and 2021. He also won mixed medley relay gold in Tokyo and has two other Olympic relay silvers.
World Championships
2024: Bronze in 100m breaststroke and 4x100m mixed medley
2019: Golds in 100m and 50m breaststroke, bronze in 4x100m mixed medley
2017: Golds in 100m and 50m breaststroke, silver in 4x100m mixed medley
2015: Golds in 100m, 50m breaststroke and 4x100m mixed medley
European Championships
2020: Golds in 100m, 50m breaststroke, 4x100m mixed medley and 4x100m medley
2018: Golds in 100m, 50m breaststroke, 4x100m mixed medley and 4x100m medley
2018: Golds in 100m, 50m breaststroke, 4x100m mixed medley and 4x100m medley
2014: Golds in 100m, 50m breaststroke, 4x100m mixed medley and 4x100m medley
Commonwealth Games
2022: Gold in 50m breaststroke
2018: Gold in 100m breaststroke, silvers in 50m breaststroke and 4x100m medley
2014: Golds in 100m breaststroke and 4x100m medley, silver in 50m breaststroke
Most interesting background information
Peaty is the greatest breaststroker in history and one of the most dominant and successful British Olympians ever. He has been the 100m world record-holder since 2015, becoming the first swimmer under both 58 and 57 seconds, but has endured a roller-coaster three years since Tokyo during which he has repeatedly contemplated retirement. The period since 2021 has variously included appearing on Strictly Come Dancing, breaking his foot, losing for the first time in eight years, being diagnosed with ADHD, problems with alcohol, depression, splitting with his partner Eiri, becoming a practising Christian and falling for Holly Ramsay, the daughter of celebrity chef Gordon.
How likely to win a medal?
It looked doubtful as recently as December, but Peaty has enjoyed an encouraging comeback in 2024, swimming to bronze at the World Championships (albeit in a field that did not contain his main rival Qin Haiyang) before going under 58 seconds for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics at the British trials in April. Peaty’s world record has not been seriously threatened during his absence but the younger Haiyang has established himself as the world’s dominant breaststroker, winning over 50m, 100m and 200m at the World Championships last year. Haiyang’s 100m personal best time of 57.69sec is also now moving within range of Peaty’s Olympic winning times, suggesting that the Briton will need to be back close to his best for further gold.
Keely Hodgkinson
Age: 22
Event: Athletics, 800m
When is Hodgkinson competing?
Hodgkinson will begin her Paris 2024 campaign on Friday, August 2 at 18:45 in the opening round of the women’s 800m.
Previous honours/Olympic record
A silver medallist at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, aged 19, when she finished just behind the American Athing Mu.
World Championships:
2023: 800m silver
2022: 800m silver
European Championships:
2024: 800m gold
2022: 800m gold
Commonwealth Games:
2022: 800m silver
European Indoor Championships:
2023: 800m gold
2021: 800m gold
Most interesting background information
A precocious talent, who set a world under-20 record in 2021 and improved upon her British record last September, when she was only fractionally outside breaking 1min 55sec for the first time en route to again winning the Diamond League. Hodgkinson has now run more than a second faster over 800m than Kelly Holmes, Britain’s 2004 Olympic champion, ever ran. Coached by Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, who was herself a world championship medallist over 800m, Hodgkinson is part of an outstanding Wigan-based training group with as many as eight athletes who have been vying to make the British team in Paris.
How likely to win a medal?
There is a wonderful three-way rivalry just now in women’s 800m running between Athing Mu, the defending Olympic and 2022 world champion, Kenya’s Mary Moraa, who won the world championship last year and Commonwealth gold in 2022, and Hodgkinson, the dominant European force. Hodgkinson has beaten both Mu and Moraa at major global championships but never the two of them together and so has a collection of three silvers. They are all of a similar age and so this rivalry could easily extend through another Olympic cycle. Hodgkinson has a major chance of gold but her British team-mate Jemma Reekie – who was just outside the medals in Tokyo – will also be aiming for the podium.
Tom Daley
Age: 30
Event: Diving 10m synchronised platform
When is Daley competing?
Daley begins his Olympic campaign on Monday, July 29 at 10am.
Previous honours/Olympic record
This will be Daley’s fifth consecutive Olympics after first reaching the Beijing Games in 2008 aged 14. Daley won bronze medals in the 2012 individual 10m platform and the 2016 10m synchro, before synchro gold and platform bronze in 2021.
World Championships
2024. Gold in team event and silver in 10m synchro (with Noah Williams)
2019: Bronze in 10m synchro (with Matty Lee)
2017: Gold in 10m platform, silver in 3m mixed synchro (with Grace Reid)
2015: Gold in team event,bronze in 10m platform
2009: Gold in 10m platform
European Championships
2020: Gold in 10m synchro (with Matty Lee), silver in 10m platform
2016: Golds in 10m platform and mixed 3m synchro (with Grace Reid), silver in 10m synchro (with Daniel Goodfellow)
2014: Silver in 10m platform
2012: Gold in 10m platform
2008: Gold in 10m platform
Commonwealth Games
2018: Gold in 10m synchro (with Daniel Goodfellow)
2014: Gold in 10m platform and silver in 10m synchro (with James Denny)
2010: Gold in 10m platform and 10m synchro (with Max Brick)
Most interesting background information
Daley will be only the ninth diver in history to appear at a fifth Olympics this summer and, at the age only of 30, there is a chance still of him making a sixth Games in 2028 in Los Angeles, where he now lives. Daley only decided last year that he would make a comeback following encouragement from his son Robbie and he has clearly maintained fitness and flexibility in the two-year break from competitive action since Tokyo, where he won his first Olympic gold. He has chosen to remain based in Los Angeles but has been back competing regularly and has been making frequent trips to the team’s training base at the London Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park. He is also back working with long-time coach Jane Figueiredo.
How likely to win a medal?
Daley has previously won major titles in both individual and synchronised events but will be focused in Paris on trying to defend the Olympic 10m synchro title with new partner Noah Williams following injury to Matty Lee. The early signs have been encouraging, with the duo taking silver at the World Championships in Doha in January before winning the World Cup event in Berlin in March and then finishing runners-up to the Chinese at the World Cup finals in China in April. Williams is the sixth different diving partner with whom Daley had won a major international medal. It all suggests that a fifth Olympic medal is a distinct possibility and, although Daley is one of the few divers to consistently challenge China’s dominance over the past 15 years, the duo of Hao Yang and Junjie Lian will be gold medal favourites.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson
Age: 31
Event:Athletics heptathlon
When is Johnson-Thompson competing?
The women’s heptathlon gets underway on Thursday, August 8 at 9am – starting with the 100m hurdles.
Previous honours/Olympic record
Competed at her first Olympics in London, aged only 19, where she finished 13th. Improved to sixth at the Rio Games but then endured a nightmare in Tokyo as the reigning world champion when, recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon, she pulled a calf muscle in the 200m and was disqualified before she got the chance to withdraw after stepping out of her lane.
World Championships
2023. Gold
2019: Gold
World Indoor Championships
2018: Silver (pentathlon)
2014: Silver (long jump)
European Championships
2018: Silver
European Indoor Championships
2019: Gold (pentathlon)
2015: Gold (pentathlon)
Commonwealth Games
2022: Gold
2018: Gold
Most interesting background information
Great Britain has a particularly proud history in this event, dating back to Mary Peters winning what was then the pentathlon in 1972 before Denise Lewis and then Jessica Ennis-Hill became Olympic champions in what evolved into the heptathlon. Mary Rand and Kelly Sotherton also took respective silver and bronze in 1964 and 2004, with British athletes winning 15 medals in world and Olympic heptathlons since 1996. The Olympics is the one obvious missing medal from Johnson-Thompson’s stellar CV and, at 31, she knows that this may be her last shot at the ultimate prize.
How likely to win a medal?
Johnson-Thompson has made a remarkable comeback since the Tokyo Games where she was offered a wheelchair to leave the track after tearing her calf. She feared that she would never again compete at the highest level of her sport. “I just thought I’d fade into the background and be one of those athletes who’s there to make up the numbers,” she said. A first step was winning gold in the Commonwealth Games of 2022 before returning to truly world-leading level in Budapest last summer when a brilliant personal best in the final 800m allowed her to hold off the American Anna Hall. With Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam absent last summer and going for a third straight Olympic gold, the challenge in Paris is likely to be even greater again.
Emma Finucane
Age: 21
Event: Cycling, sprint, team sprint and keirin
When does Finucane compete?
Fincane must wait until Monday, August 5 to begin her bid for Olympic glory. The team sprint takes place that day with the finals scheduled for 18.46.
Previous honours/Olympic record
This will be her first Olympic Games after only winning her first national title in 2022.
World Championships
2023. Gold in sprint, silver in team sprint
2022: Bronze in team sprint
European Championships
2024: Gold in sprint, silvers in keirin and team sprint
2023: Silvers in keirin and team sprint
Commonwealth Games
2022: Bronze in team sprint and sprint
Most interesting background information
Finucane is continuing a fantastic recent tradition in women’s track sprinting after former world champions Victoria Pendleton and Becky James. She rates her Welsh compatriot Nicole Cooke, a rider who won world and Olympic titles, as her hero in cycling and has a secret ambition to become a Formula One driver. “That’s what I would love to do, in a magical world,” she says. “I want to drive, but I don’t know if that’s realistic. I like going fast, and I like that you can show your personality on the track, and you have your style on the track.” Finucane is also a distant relative of Brendan ‘Paddy’ Finucane, the legendary RAF World War Two fighter pilot, about whom several books have been written.
How likely to win a medal?
Has only reached the very top of world cycling in the last year but, after four golds at the British Championships last year and then setting a national record en route to becoming world champion, her career has been peaking at the perfect time. Dame Laura Kenny, no less, has suggested that she could even become the first British woman to win three golds at one Olympics. Kenny twice won gold while Pendleton’s best was her gold and silver in London. Finucane will compete in the same three sprint disciplines as Pendleton and, while there is plenty that can go wrong in such tactical and high-speed events, she was a convincing winner last year of the world individual sprint title. She has Sophie Capewell – a multiple world medallist – to back her up in the team sprint and is gaining more and more experience of the keirin. Finucane’s big rival is likely to be the German Lea Friedrich.
Tom Pidco*ck
Age: 24
Event: Cross-country mountain biking, road race
When does Pidco*ck compete?
Pidco*ck will ride the mountain bike event in Elancourt on Monday, July 29 at 13:10. He will then lead Great Britain’s men’s squad in the road race on Saturday, August 3 which starts at 10am.
Previous honours/Olympic record
Won gold at his first Olympics in Tokyo in the cross-country mountain biking event.
World Championships
2023. Gold, mountain bike cross-country
2022: Gold, cyclo-cross
2020: Silver, cyclo-cross
European Championships
2022: Gold, mountain bike cross-country
Tour de France:
2022, winner stage 12 to Alpe d’Huez.
Best overall finish: 13th (2023)
Classics:
Winner: Amstel Gold Race (2024), Strade Bianche (2023) and Brabantse Pijl (2021)
Most interesting background information
A rider of phenomenal style and versatility, Pidco*ck has excelled on the road, on mountain bikes, in cyclo-cross, cobbled classics and the Tour de France, where he won the most prestigious stage of the 2022 race to the iconic Alpe d’Huez climb. His big priority this season was the three-week Tour de France, in which he has twice finished in the top 20 overall, but he was forced to withdraw with Covid. As well as his physical qualities on a bike, Pidco*ck is renowned for his showmanship and exceptional bike-handling skills which allow him to descend mountains at speeds touching 100kph.
How likely to win a medal?
Pidco*ck’s priorities lie with his professional Ineos Grenadiers team and he will be hoping to further improve on promising Tour de France performances which suggest he could eventually challenge to win cycling’s most prestigious race. The Tour de France finished just eight days before Pidco*ck will attempt to defend his Olympic cross-country title on a mountain bike. While that may not sound like ideal preparation, he has proven adept previously at quickly switching between the various cycling disciplines. He could yet also feature in the Olympic road race, a more unpredictable discipline that follows the cross-country and in which he has also had a top-10 World Championship finish.
Helen Glover
Age: 38
Event: Rowing, women’s four
When does Glover compete?
Two-time Olympic champion has already begun her quest for a third Olympic title. Glover and her Team GB team-mates Rebecca Shorten, Sam Redgrave and Esme Booth are through to final after a comfortable win in their heat on Sunday.
Glover now has the opportunity to go for gold with the women’s four final taking place on Thursday, August 1 at 10:50.
Previous honours/Olympic record
Won Olympic golds in 2012 and 2016 in the women’s coxless pair with Heather Stanning. She then took more than four years out of the sport before announcing in January 2021 her plan to return for the Tokyo Games. She teamed up with Polly Swann where they finished just outside the medals in fourth.
World Championships
2024: Gold, women’s four
2023: Bronze, women’s four
2015: Gold, women’s pair
2014: Gold, women’s pair
2013: Gold, women’s pair
2011: Silver, women’s pair
2010: Silver, women’s pair
European Championships
2024: Gold, women’s four
2023: Silver, women’s four
2021: Gold, women’s pair
2016: Gold, women’s pair
2015: Gold, women’s pair
2014: Gold, women’s pair
Most interesting background information
Glover’s all-round sporting prowess continues the family tradition after her father played junior Wimbledon as well as football and rugby for Penzance. Glover herself reached county level or better at athletics, hockey, tennis and swimming before winning every major global title as an international rower. Her range of talents were especially evident when she took part in the BBC Olympic Superstars programme in 2012. Glover duly romped to the women’s title, winning the running, swimming, cycling and gym rounds.
How likely to win a medal?
This is Glover’s third comeback but, after so narrowly missing out on an Olympic medal in Tokyo to add to her golds from Rio and London, the omens are rather better this year. Glover had returned to compete in the delayed 2021 Games after giving birth to three children between 2018 and 2020 and only had a seven-month build-up. She is now competing in the women’s four rather than the coxless pair and has had a significantly longer period back in top-level competition. Her team took world bronze and European silver last year but have upgraded that in 2024 to European gold. They also won the World Cup event in April.
Sky Brown
Age: 16
Event Park skateboarding
When does Brown compete?
Brown will star in Paris on Tuesday, August 6 from 11:30. The preliminary rounds begin as each athlete will aim to secure a spot in the final. And if they do, they will appear in the final at 16:30 on the same day.
Previous honours/Olympic record
Brown became the youngest British summer Olympian and medallist in Tokyo, winning bronze in the park event at the age just of 13 years and 28 days.
World Championships
2023: Gold
2019: Silver
X Games
2022: Gold
2021: Gold
Most interesting background information
On top of her records as Team GB’s youngest Olympian and medallist, Brown also wants to become the first Briton in more than a century to compete at the same Games in two different sports. As well as being one of the best skateboarders in the world, Brown also excels in surfing and competed at the World Surfing Games in March where she just missed out on qualifying for this year’s Olympics. She will still attempt to double up in Los Angeles in 2028. Brown lives and trains in California, where she surfs and skateboards daily with her friends (and without formal coaching) while still being home schooled.
How likely to win a medal?
Brown is among the favourites for a competition that will be staged on the Place de la Concorde but her preparations have been disrupted in recent months by a knee ligament injury. This meant missing the Shanghai Olympic qualifier event in May. Brown, though, did win the world championships last year – a first for any British skateboarder – and has dominated other major competitions over recent years, notably both the X Games and the Dew Tour event. Voted the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year in 2021, Brown has also proved adept at producing her very best performances on the biggest stages.
Zharnel Hughes
Age: 29
Event: Athletics 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay
When does Hughes feature?
Hughes will begin his Olympic campaign in the 100m final on Sunday, August 6 at 20:50.
Previous honours/Olympic record
Was part of the 4x100m team that finished second in Tokyo, only to be stripped of the silver medal after CJ Ujah was charged with a doping violation. A false start in the final also put paid to Hughes’s hopes in the 100m.
World Championships
2023: Bronze 100m
2022: Bronze 4x100m
2019: Silver 4x100m
European Championships
2022: Gold 200m, 4x100m relay. Silver 100m.
Commonwealth Games
2022: Gold 4x100m, silver 200m
2018: Gold 4x100m relay
Most interesting background information
Announced himself last year as a major contender for global individual medals when he beat Linford Christie’s British 100m record. Christie had run 9.87sec in winning the world title in 1993, but Hughes lowered that mark to 9.83sec in June. He then followed that up by improving John Regis’s national 200m record when he ran 19.73sec at the London Diamond League meeting. Hughes’s 100m time was tied with world champion Noah Lyles as the fastest in the world last year. He could not quite peak at the world championships, however, where he was respectively third and fourth in the 100m and 200m. It is 32 years since Christie became the last British Olympic 100m champion and it will be exactly 100 years this summer since Harold Abrahams took the same blue riband title in Paris.
How likely to win a medal?
Hughes has excellent chances in all three events. He regards the 200m as his favoured distance but, with Noah Lyles so dominant and several emerging African and American sprinters, the 100m may offer his best chance. Lyles will also be the man to beat in this race but Christian Coleman regained the world indoor championships earlier this year and the 18-year-old Christian Miller looks a major talent. Hughes has again based himself this winter in Jamaica with Usain Bolt’s long-time coach. Notwithstanding the loss of their Olympic silver in Tokyo, Great Britain have also been consistent in the sprint relays over recent major championships.
Jake Jarman
Age: 22
Event: Men’s artistic gymnastics
Previous honours/Olympic record
This will be Jarman’s first Olympics after being selected as a reserve for the Tokyo Games.
When does Jarman feature?
Jarman has a chance to win four medals after Team GB qualified for Monday’s team final which takes place at 16.30. GB qualified in third place behind China and Japan. He will also contest the all around final on Wednesday, July 31 at 16:30.
Jarman is also the leading qualifier for the floor final and finished fifth in vault qualification. The floor final is scheduled for Saturday, August 3 at 14:30 with the vault final on Sunday, August 4 from 15:25.
World Championships
2023: Gold vault
2022: Bronze team
European Championships
2024: Gold vault, silver team
2023: Silver all-around and vault. Bronze team
2022: Gold vault and team. Bronze floor
Commonwealth Games
2022: Gold all-around, vault, team and floor
Most interesting background information
At the 2023 World Challenge Cup Series in Paris last September, Jarman created a major innovation in gymnastics by becoming the first person to perform a 3.5 twisting double layout salto on the floor exercise. Now known as ‘The Jarman’, the skill was officially named after him in the gymnastics’ Code of Points judging document. Jarman also became the first English gymnast to win four gold medals at one single Commonwealth Games in Birmingham two years ago and then followed that up with gold medals in the vault at both the European and World Championships.
How likely to win a medal?
Jarman has won every other major title in the vault, but his versatility means that he is a contender across disciplines, including the team event where Britain were fourth at last year’s World Championships. Jessica Gadirova, who won the worlds on the floor and took bronze in the all-around in 2022 following her team bronze at the Tokyo Games, was another major contender but was forced out of the world championships last year with a torn knee ligament. The United States, Japan and China are the powerhouses of gymnastics but Jarman and Gadirova have regularly challenged their best over recent years.
Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix
Age: 19
Event: Diving 10m platform and 10m synchronised platform
When does Spendolini-Sirieix compete?
Spendolini-Sirieix will compete in two events during the games, with her first event – the women’s synchronised 10m final taking place on Wednesday, July 31 at 10am.
Previous honours/Olympic record
Competed in her first Olympics at Tokyo in 2021, aged only 16, where she finished seventh in the 10m platform.
World Championships
2024: Team gold, 10m platform bronze, 10m synchro bronze (with Lois Toulson)
2023: 10m synchro silver (with Lois Toulson)
2022: Team bronze
European Championships
2022: 10m platform gold, 10m synchro gold (with Lois Toulson)
Commonwealth Games
2022: 10m platform gold, 10m mixed synchro gold (with Noah Williams), 10m synchro silver (with Eden Cheng)
Most interesting fact/background information
Her father is the television celebrity Fred Sirieix, who is best known for appearing on Channel 4’s First Dates and the BBC’s Million Pound Menu. He is also part of the BBC’s Olympics coverage. “Life is not just diving, it’s school, it’s her friends, it’s family, it’s being a rounded, balanced and kind person which, as a parent, I’m very happy about,” said Fred, who can often be seen supporting his daughter at competitions, last year. A graduate of the Crystal Palace Diving Club where she started at the age of eight, Spendolini-Sirieix was voted the BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year in 2020 when she won the senior British title and the international Fina Grand Prix, aged just 15.
How likely to win a medal?
The Chinese dominate the world of diving but Spendolini-Sirieix was the next best in Doha this year individually and will be eyeing another podium place. However, with the Chinese only taking up one place in the 10m synchro, this event provides an even better chance of an Olympic medal alongside her long-term diving partner Lois Toulson. A multiple World and European medallist herself, the 24-year-old Toulson adds greater competition experience to an outstanding partnership.
Josh Kerr
Age: 26
Event: Athletics 1500m
When does Jarman compete?
Jarman will begin his Paris 2024 campaign on Saturday, August 3 at 18:15, in the opening round of the men’s 1500m.
Previous honours/Olympic record
A bronze medallist at his first Olympics in Tokyo three years ago behind Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot.
World Championships
2024: Gold 3,000m, world indoor record in two miles
2023: Gold 1500m
World Indoor Championships
2024: Gold 3,000m
World Junior Championship
2015: Gold in 1500m
Most interesting fact/background information
Has sparked up quite the off-track rivalry with Ingebrigtsen following his shock World Championship victory over the Norwegian in Budapest last year. Ingebrigtsen is a prodigious talent who believes, with some justification, that he could become the greatest endurance runner of all-time and blamed his defeat against Kerron being laid low with a virus. Kerr was clearly irked by Ingebrigtsen referring to him as “just the next guy” and described his rival as “disrespectful” and flawed both on the track and “in the manners realm”. Kerr then broke the world two-mile indoor record in February to which Ingebrigtsen claimed that he would have beaten him “blindfolded”. The truth is that these two alpha-male personalities are probably far more alike than they realise and that their showdown should be a highlight in Paris this summer.
How likely to win a medal?
For all the build-up and the result of last year’s World Championships, Ingebrigtsen has been dominant over 1500m during the past three years. But he was also beaten by Jake Wightman to a world title in 2022 and there are genuine questions over his ability in events that do not have a pacemaker to ensure a consistently fast pace. Kerr has also grown in confidence and stature over the past years and has long looked upon the Paris Olympics with a sense of destiny. He expects to win and should medal, even if Ingebrigtsen remains the favourite for gold.
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