Josh Kerr
Athletics, men’s 1500m
Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s confidence levels are so high that it might seem a shock whenever the Olympic 1500m champion loses. Yet he was beaten by Kerr at the 2023 world championships (and by Jake Wightman in 2022). Their showdown promises to be a race for the ages, and Kerr will have the psychological advantage of defeating his Norwegian rival in their sole meeting of 2024, when he broke the British mile record.
Sky Brown
Skateboarding, women’s park
Brown has long looked a sure bet to upgrade her history-making Olympic bronze from Tokyo – earned when she was only 13 – to gold in Paris. She became Britain’s first skateboarding world champion and was routinely victorious whenever competing. But injury and a failed attempt to also qualify for Olympic surfing meant a long absence from top-level skateboarding competition until returning at the final Olympic qualifier in late June. Gold remains the aim if she can heal her knee and shake off rustiness.
Keely Hodgkinson
Athletics, women’s 800m
Habitually the bridesmaid, Hodgkinson has contested three Olympic and world 800m finals, and finished with silver every time. In Paris the gold medal is hers to lose. Sadly, the reigning Olympic champion, Athing Mu, is missing after falling at the US trials, and Kenya’s world champion Mary Moraa now looks her main bar to the gold medal.
Delicious Orie
Boxing, men’s +92kg
Born in Moscow to a Nigerian father and Russian mother, Orie’s family moved to the UK when he was seven. The reigning Commonwealth and European champion has been compared to Anthony Joshua throughout his boxing career and is attempting to become Britain’s first Olympic super-heavyweight champion since Joshua in 2012. After starting 2024 with three unexpected defeats he insisted: “It’s about being able to perform when it really matters … that’s the Olympics.”
Joe Clarke
Canoe slalom, men’s KX and K1
Clarke knows what Olympic success tastes like after claiming K1 gold at Rio 2016. But he then experienced a controversial omission from Team’s GB’s Tokyo Games squad despite the Covid pandemic causing selection to take place almost two years before the postponed event. Undeterred, he has roared back in dominant fashion, not only winning the world K1 title last year but also becoming a triple world champion in the new Olympic discipline of kayak cross (KX).
Emily Craig and Imogen Grant
Rowing, women’s lightweight double sculls
Craig and Grant came within 0.01sec of the podium when finishing fourth at the Tokyo Olympics. That near-miss has fuelled some remarkable performances from them since, including two world and two European titles, which led to them being crowned the World Rowing women’s crew of the year in 2023. Their dominance and wide victory margins in recent years are such that defeat in Paris would come as a big surprise.
Bethany Shriever
Cycling, women’s BMX race
After winning Britain’s first Olympic BMX title in Tokyo, Shriever added world gold in 2021 and 2023, along with the 2022 European crown. All was going to plan until she fell and broke her collarbone in May. How much that has dented her Olympic dreams will only become clear on the startline.
Bryony Page
Trampoline, women’s
Over the next few years Page has grand plans of fulfilling a lifetime’s ambition by joining Cirque du Soleil. Before then there is an Olympic title to win. Page claimed silver in Rio and followed up with bronze in Tokyo. At three subsequent world championships she has won two golds and one silver to ensure she heads to Paris with real aspirations of completing her set.
Men’s 4x200m freestyle
Swimming
Given that Britain won individual 200m freestyle gold and silver courtesy of Tom Dean and Duncan Scott in Tokyo, it was perhaps no surprise when that duo combined with Matt Richards and James Guy to claim the relay title. The same quartet from Tokyo will link up again in the relay, where they should prove imperious.
Alex Yee
Triathlon, men’s race
After earning silver and bronze respectively at the Tokyo Olympics, Britain’s Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde, of New Zealand, have spent recent years battling it out for superiority. Yee prevailed at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2023 Paris Olympics test event, and has regularly come out on top of his big rival, including at their two most recent meetings in 2024.
