Team GB set sights on Tokyo 2020 glory... but matching Rio medal haul will be no easy task

Women are set to outnumber men in Team GB for next summer’s Olympic Games
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Inside the British Olympic Association’s new offices on New Cavendish Street today, the clock in reception counting down to Tokyo 2020 will read one year to go.

Even before the last summer Games began in Rio de Janeiro, preparations for Tokyo had already begun in earnest at the BOA, UK Sport and the various sporting governing bodies.

It is a mere seven weeks before the first British athletes from the sailing team will be selected for Team GB, the first of what is expected to be as many as 380 athletes to represent Britain at the XXXII Olympiad. That is more than the 366-strong contingent that travelled to Brazil and, for the first time in a British team at a Games, women are set to outnumber men. While there are more athletes, the funding has been lower for this four-year cycle, albeit only marginally: £345million has been allocated for the 31 Olympic and Paralympic sports, £2m shy of the £347m made available in the lengthy build-up to Rio.

Three years ago, Britain finished an astonishing second in the medal table, behind only the United States and ahead of China, with 27 golds and 67 medals in all.

This time, the expectation is to be strong contenders again, with UK Sport having set an initial target of 51-85 Olympic medals and a Paralympic target of 115-162.

Yet, China will be more formidable and, potentially, Russia, as they slowly emerge from their doping saga. Before Liz Nicholl stepped down earlier this month as chief executive of UK Sport, which funds the individual sports for each Games cycle, she said Team GB’s desire to punch above their weight remained as powerful as ever.

“There’s no reason why, if this nation wanted to be the No1 nation in the Olympic table, we couldn’t be,” she told Standard Sport. “I really think we could if we have the right resources. We’re a small nation and we work collaboratively and collectively.

“We know how to win. Nobody would ever have thought we could be second, and similarly no one will think we can come first.”

Nicholl and director of performance Chelsea Warr have repeatedly pushed the medal-first mantra, and to great effect, given the rise up the table from the nadir of the 1996 Atlanta Games, when Team GB won a solitary gold medal, after which the current funding model was put in place. But while that principle has not been abandoned entirely, there has been a push for better athlete welfare — a nod to a series of bullying rows and suggestions of a climate of fear across various Olympic disciplines. In addition, a new Aspiration Fund was launched late last year, aimed at bridging the gap for those sports not currently in Olympic medal contention but which aspire to be.

The message from the BOA is quietly optimistic but realistic. Chairman Hugh Robertson said: “It is absolutely possible to improve again in Tokyo but I think, for a number of reasons, it will be a tougher Games for us.

“It’s very hard to continue on the trajectory we are on at the moment, and I think the home team challenge in Tokyo is going to be very strong. We are expecting a very considerable challenge from Japan.” Part of the reason for the slightly diminished prospects is the absence of what Robertson calls the athletes who “peaked for London, many of whom came around for one final go in Rio”, only to be replaced by a new generation for Tokyo.

In athletics, gone are the likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford, with the third gold medallist from London 2012 Super Saturday, Mo Farah, having shifted from the track and playing catch-up to Eliud Kipchoge in the marathon.

But in their place have come Dina Asher-Smith (below), a triple European sprint champion last summer, and Laura Muir, tipped by Sebastian Coe to clinch Olympic gold, while Katarina Johnson-Thompson is also finally stepping out of the shadow of Ennis-Hill.

Medal hope: Dina Asher-Smith impressed at the Anniversary Games last weekend
PA

In Doha, at the World Championships from the end of September, the target is seven to nine athletics medals, a step up from the home Worlds of London 2017, where the team achieved six medals, the only individual ones coming from Farah.

Team GB have habitually looked to track cycling for a gold rush. In Rio, the team won six out of a possible 10 golds, and only failed to pick up a medal in one event, the women’s team sprint.

But a medal count of four at this year’s World Championships, a tally which performance director Stephen Park called “a little disappointing” and with the only gold coming in a non-Olympic event, suggested the cyclists were not quite at the same velocity in the velodrome as in past Olympiads.

Yet, British Cycling has a history of peaking at the right time and it is worth noting that in the year before the last Olympics, the team finished 10th in the Track Cycling Worlds medal table, with a trio of silvers. It was a similar situation for GB Rowing at last year’s World Championships, as the team that accounted for three golds and two silvers in Rio finished 12th in the medal table, with a gold and three bronzes. At next month’s Worlds, the UK Sport target is four to six medals.

In Pictures: Team GB's medal run at Rio 2016 Olympics

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Current evidence from Gwangju, South Korea, would suggest that British Swimming — after the particularly dire showing at London 2012 — could fare even better than in Rio, when the medal haul was a gold and five silvers, spearheaded by the newly-crowned 100metre breaststroke world champion Adam Peaty.

There is also encouraging news of two of Britain’s other mainstays at recent Olympics. Gymnast Max Whitlock is heading back towards his double gold form of Rio and is hoping to prove that in October’s World Championships. And Giles Scott is planning to lead the sailing gold rush, having recently stepped away from Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup campaign to be crowned European champion for a third time in the Finn class.

There will also be a women’s football team, which was missing in Rio, after England qualified by virtue of their semi-final berth at the recent Women’s World Cup, while some of Britain’s biggest sporting names, such as Andy Murray and Justin Rose, could find themselves back in contention, form and fitness permitting.

With one year to go, the feeling is that Team GB are well placed for a successful Games, although much can change in the next 365 days.

As Warr put it: “We’re not behind, we’re not in front. I’d probably say we’re holding our own.

“We want to see Team GB and Paralympics GB in the upper echelons of the medal table and we want to see more medals and more medallists… but staying in the upper echelons of a medal table is no mean feat.”

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