Inside the Olympic medal factories: how Team GB are shaping up in key sports

Athletics

Star name : Keely Hodgkinson (women’s 800m)

For all the financial strife at UK Athletics, which lost £3.7m last year, its high-profile stars and strong relay squads should ensure that it hits its target of six to eight medals in Paris.

There appears to be three medal bankers. The most certain? Keely Hodgkinson, who smashed all her main rivals in Eugene in May and should win gold in the women’s 800m – especially in the absence of the Tokyo champion, Athing Mu .

The breakout star? The 24‑year‑old pole vaulter Molly Caudery, who won the world indoor championships in March and has jumped higher than anyone else this year. Her bubbly personality has also helped her attract nearly 300,000 followers on Instagram. But gold would catapult her into the mainstream.

Then there is Josh Kerr in the men’s 1500m. His showdown with the Norwegian Olympic champion, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, will be one of the races of the Games.

Don’t be surprised either if Matt Hudson-Smith equals or betters the 400m silver medal he won at the 2023 world championships – an event in which Charlie Dobson could also take a medal.

Elsewhere, Britain’s relay teams usually deliver at least two or three medals – with the women’s 4x100m relay team most likely to win gold. Finally, watch out for the incredible 17-year-old Phoebe Gill , who could make the women’s 800m final and perhaps even sneak a medal. Sean Ingle

Swimming

Star name : Adam Peaty (men’s 100m breaststroke)

British Swimming has come a long way since London 2012, when they won just one silver and two bronze medals between them. They won eight, including four gold, at the Tokyo Games, which was their most successful in more than a century. Adam Peaty has done as much as anyone to bring about this change in fortune and he will be the centre of attention again in Paris. But Peaty has spent a hard three years searching for his best form and will need to find something close to it to beat China’s Qin Haiyang and win his third consecutive Olympic title in the 100m breaststroke.

The Olympic champion, Tom Dean, didn’t even qualify for the 200m freestyle. He was beaten in qualifying by Wales’s world champion, Matt Richards, and Duncan Scott, who will also compete in the 200m individual medley. Their strength in depth in that event makes them clear favourites for the 4x200m relay, and they have good chances in the shorter relay events, too. The head coach, Bill Furniss, admits that the women aren’t quite at the same level as the men, but the world champion Freya Colbert will be a contender in the 400m individual medley. Andy Bull

Cycling

Star name : Emma Finucane (women’s track sprint events)

The dominance of British cyclists on the world stage may have stalled at the Tour de France but at Olympic level the medal factory remains unrelenting. Team GB have topped the cycling medal table at the past four Olympics and, at Paris 2024, it would be a shock if that were to change.

Six gold medals at the Tokyo Games – across track, BMX and mountain biking – revealed the breadth of talent across the disciplines and that is to continue in Paris. British Cycling’s new platform of social change, achieved through diversity, inclusion and tackling social inequality, has led Stephen Park, the Team GB performance director, to suggest that “winning itself is not enough, it’s about the impact of winning”.

Some well-known names from previous Olympics – such as Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald, for example – are not competing. However, buoyed by the development of yet more new technologies – including faster skinsuits, new bikes and 3D printed products – allied to the surge of fast-rising young talents such as Emma Finucane and Josh Tarling, both from Wales, Park has reason to be optimistic.

But the golden boy may well be Tom Pidcock, gold medallist in his debut Olympics , reigning world mountain biking champion , and stage winner in the Tour de France . The Yorkshire terrier withdrew from the Tour de France after testing positive for Covid-19 but in the men’s Olympic road race and the mountain biking disciplines, he remains a contender for gold. Jeremy Whittle

Boxing

Star name : Delicious Orie (men’s super-heavyweight)

Boxing was one of the great success stories for GB at the Tokyo Olympics where the most talented and experienced British squad in history won six medals. Their successors face an immensely difficult task to reach even a third of that haul. Rob McCracken, the performance director of GB Boxing, says: “Paris has been a very challenging Olympic cycle – as it is shorter and we’ve had to deal with the legacy of Covid and political issues that have prevented us from competing at certain events. So to qualify six boxers is a great achievement.”

Winning one or two medals is a respectable goal for a programme deep in a rebuild. Three would be a dream. Charley Davison, a 30‑year‑old mum of three, is the only team member with Olympic experience and she lost in the second round in Tokyo. She fights in the extremely competitive bantamweight division but remains a medal contender. Pat Brown, at heavyweight, and the welterweight Rosie Eccles could do well with favourable draws.

The star is undoubtedly Orie, a charismatic super-heavyweight. He is the lone British fighter to be seeded but in the semi-finals he is likely to face Bakhodir Jalolov, the formidable Uzbek who won gold in Tokyo and has since been campaigning as an unbeaten professional. Orie would love to emulate his hero, Anthony Joshua, who won the Olympic title in 2012 and became a money‑spinning pro. But he and the entire team face the hardest test of their boxing lives. Donald McRae

Rowing

Star name : Helen Glover , (women’s four)

The inquest was long and searching after Team GB flopped so dismally in Tokyo. Back then they managed only a silver and a bronze in rowing: scant return for a bumper £24.6m investment that had promised a new golden era. But insiders were adamant that the situation was far from terminal and that a few tweaks, along with the benefit of experience, would turn near misses into podium finishes.

That has been borne out and there is a buoyancy in the camp that suggests the good times are ready to roll again. Excellent performances in last year’s world championships were backed up by a table-topping show at the European equivalent in April; there is genuine momentum and a palpable confidence that the ghosts of three years ago will be banished.

The appointment of Louise Kingsley as British Rowing’s director of performance has been fundamental to the uplift: the former Paralympic team guru has struck the right balance between a winning mentality and a happy, relaxed environment.

A number of her charges look primed to thrill in Paris, the seasoned Glover leading the challenge in an exciting women’s four while a formidable men’s eight will be among those to watch closely. Tom Ford and his sister, Emily, are among the Tokyo team returning for another crack; Lola Anderson, in the quadruple sculls, is one of the new breed who have added a tantalising shot of dynamism before this summer. Nick Ames

Artistic gymnastics

Star name : Max Whitlock ( men’s pommel horse )

Over the past three years Great Britain’s women’s artistic gymnastics team has gone from strength to strength. They followed their Olympic bronze with a silver medal at the Liverpool world championships , their greatest team performance at a world championship. After positioning themselves perfectly as one of the top medal contenders going into the Paris Olympics, injuries have complicated things: Jessica Gadirova, Jennifer Gadirova and Ondine Achampong have all been forced out of the Games due to injury.

The British team still have the ability to contend for a team medal but they will be significant underdogs. Individually, Alice Kinsella could challenge for a women’s all-around medal. Becky Downie’s bar routine is complex enough to compete among the best bar workers but it has now been a few years since she was able to do so.

GB’s best medal chances will come in the men’s events. Whitlock will be looking for an unprecedented pommel horse three-peat in his final Olympics. Jake Jarman, the vault world champion , stacks up among the best on vault and floor. Joe Fraser, meanwhile, will be looking to work his magic in the all-around after some recent injury struggles. Tumaini Carayol

Triathlon

Star name : Alex Yee (men’s race and mixed relay)

Triathlon has been one of Team GB’s medal bankers over the past three Olympics and should be again in Paris, despite there being no Brownlee brother for the first time since Athens 2004 . That speaks volumes for the supply line of talent, as well as the culture installed by the performance director, Mike Cavendish.

On the men’s side, Yee has a favourite’s chance of upgrading the silver he won in Tokyo. The 26-year-old was a talented enough runner to compete at the 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin when barely out of his teens and has continued to improve his swim and bike since coming so close to Olympic glory in 2021. He will be joined by Sam Dickinson, who was in the England team that won the 2022 Commonwealth Games gold.

If anything, the women’s side looks even stronger with Beth Potter, having won last year’s test event in Paris, two-time Olympic medallist Georgia Taylor-Brown, and world championship silver medallist Kate Waugh in the squad.

With GB having a strong shot of a gold medal in the mixed relay, there is a hope within the squad that they might even outdo their Tokyo performance, where Taylor-Brown and Yee claimed silver in their individual events, before the team gold that followed. Sean Ingle

Other sports

Star name : Tom Daley ( men’s 10m synchro diving)

A meaty chunk of Britain’s success from London 2012 onwards has been built on having medal winners in between 15 and 20 sports, and Team GB officials expect that trend to continue in Paris. Daley, naturally, will get a lion’s share of the headlines after coming out of retirement to compete in his fifth Games, where he will defend his 10m synchro title. However, the expectation is that sports such as diving, canoeing, equestrian, taekwondo, sailing and shooting will all contribute substantially to the medal target of 50‑70 set by UK Sport.

The statistical wizards at Gracenote predict that Team GB will get five diving medals – with Daley and his partner, Noah Williams, taking bronze, and Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix winning another two. They also forecast four canoeing medals, including golds for Joe Clarke and Kimberley Woods.

The equestrian events are usually strong for Team GB and Paris should be no different with Oliver Townend the favourite for gold and three other medals predicted. Meanwhile, if Charlotte Dujardin gets a medal of any kind in the team or individual dressage she will go ahead of Laura Kenny as GB’s most decorated female Olympian with seven medals (though Kenny is likely to have more gold medals).

There is likely to be more success in the sailing, where four medals are forecast, and in the modern pentathlon, where Joe Choong is favourite to retain his Tokyo 2020 title. In shooting and taekwondo, GB will hope to win three and four medals respectively. Sean Ingle