Britain’s best chances for Olympic gold
IT’S a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and for these British sporting stars, it is now just two years away. From diving prodigies to record-breaking sailors, they are Team GB’s best hopes for a medal when the Olympic Games return to London in 2012.
Last time out in Beijing, Britain hoovered up 47 medals in total, including 19 golds. It was their best performance for a century and saw them end a lofty fourth in the medals table.
But it has only further inflated expectations for a Games on home soil, so there will be even more pressure on the shoulders of our top prospects. One thing is for sure, however: illegal substances aside, nothing provides that extra lift to performance better than competing in front of a partisan crowd.
JASON KENNY
Age: 22
Sport: Cycling
Best achievement: 2008 Olympic Team Sprint Champion
TWO years ago, Sir Chris Hoy blasted his way into British Olympic history with a triple gold performance in Beijing.
Now, with the veteran Scot expected to retire before London 2012, it could be the turn of his young protégé Jason Kenny to make his mark.
The 22-year-old from Bolton has already staked his claim, helping Britain to gold in the team sprint with Hoy and Jamie Staff in Beijing in 2008 – breaking the world record in qualifying – and was then pipped by Hoy in the final of the individual sprint.
Kenny’s rise to the top has been rapid to say the least, progressing from the domestic junior series to Olympic champion in just three-and-a-half years.
Indeed, he is living proof of the work Dave Brailsford and his merry men have put in to make Britain the dominant force in world cycling.
JESSICA ENNIS
Age: 24
Sport: Athletics
Best achievement: 2009 World Champion
WAS cruelly robbed of her chance at Olympic gold two years ago when a fractured ankle ruled her out of a place on the British team bound for Beijing. Now, however, having swept to heptathlon gold at both the indoor and outdoor world championships – the first British woman ever to do so – Ennis is at the very top of her game and has some unfinished business to attend to. With fellow Brit Kelly Sotherton and Swede Carolina Kluft unlikely to rival her in 2012, Sheffield-born Ennis, 24, is clearly the athlete to beat – and will take plenty of stopping. Her personal best points tally of 6,731 to win the 2009 World Championship in Berlin took her profile to a whole new level, and she finished third in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. She then followed that up with personal bests in the shot put, long jump and 800 metres to win the World Indoor Games in Doha with a Championship record performance in the pentathlon, and now has her sights set on emulating Denise Lewis’ success at the 2000 Sydney Games.
BEN AINSLIE
Age: 33
Sport: Sailing
Best achievement: Three Olympic golds and one silver
AINSLIE is Britain’s most successful sailor of all time and widely regarded as our best medal hope in 2012. He started sailing aged nine, won his first Olympic medal – a silver in the Laser class – at the 1996 Atlanta Games 10 years later, and has conquered all since.
After snaring Laser gold in Sydney in 2000 he switched to the more
physically demanding Finn class and promptly became world champion. He defended that title a record three times, won his first Finn class gold at the 2004 Athens Games and then overcame illness and adverse weather conditions to defend his title in China two years ago.
If a barrier to Ainslie claiming a fifth medal exists it may be his
increasing focus on his America’s Cup efforts with British outfit Team Origin. He hasn’t raced a Finn since Beijing, but is set to in Weymouth next month.
LOUIS SMITH
Age: 21
Sport: Gymnastics
Best achievement: Bronze medal in pommel horse in Beijing
SMITH shot to fame two years ago in Beijing when, at the tender age of 19, he became the first Briton to win a medal in gymnastics for 80 years. That bronze medal came after a sterling performance on the pommel horse, which is the Peterborough pin-up’s speciality. His first success in the event came at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where he won gold, and he proved that was no fluke by claiming bronze at the World Championships in Stuttgart the following year. But he had to settle for silver at this year’s European Artistic Gymnastics Championships as fellow Brit Daniel Keatings snatched gold. Smith will miss this year’s Commonwealth Games, however, after British Gymnastics decided to withdraw its athletes from the event in India. Chiefs were worried their stars would not have enough time to recover for the World Championships, which will take place in October.
TOM DALEY
Age: 16
Sport: Diving
Best achievement: 2009 Fina World Champion
DESPITE just turning 16, diving champion Tom Daley has quite simply, been there, done that. Two years ago, the Plymouth-born schoolboy created history when, at 14 years and 81 days, he became Britain’s youngest Olympian since 1960 when he leapt off the 10m platform into the pool at the Beijing Games. Since then, Daley has shot to fame as one of Britain’s best-known sporting talents and has not let anyone down in his efforts to fulfil his huge potential. Exactly 12 months ago this week, he leapt into the record books again by becoming the Fina World Champion, while also shooting to No1 in the world rankings.
Ever the showman, Daley has already started work on some new dives to showcase in London 2012, but first he has his sights set on bringing more silverware back home, this time in the Commonwealth Games medal, in Delhi, this October.