Sprinter Dwain Chambers selected for London 2012
Chambers will compete for Britain in his first Olympic Games for 12 years after a ban for systematic drug use, but bronze medallist Jenny Meadows is left out in favour of Lyndsey Sharp.
The 71-strong athletic squad was announced by the British Olympic Association on Tuesday afternoon, bringing the total number of Team GB athletes to 502 across 25 sports.
Chambers, who finished fourth in the 100m sprint during his last Olympic race in Syndey in 2000, will compete in the same event this year. The 34-year-old sprinter was given a two-year suspension for systematic drug use and a liftetime ban by the BOA. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban earlier this year.
Edinburgh athlete Lyndsey Sharp won last month’s trials in Birmingham and then went on to win silver at the European Championships in Helsinki. But her selection for the women’s 800m was a surprise move in that it usurped other athletes, including former World Championship bronze medallist Jenny Meadows and three other A standard athletes.
Because Sharp has a B standard, her selection means that no-one of an A standard can be chosen and her selection leaves two Team GB spaces effectively empty.
Cream of the crop
Mo Farah: Won world championship gold in 5,000m and silver in 10,000m and is going for the double again. He is the 2012 world best at 5,000m but has not competed much over the longer event.
Dai Greene: The Welshman surprised his more illustrious rivals to clinch gold at last year’s world championships. This year he is ranked only 16th in the world.
Jessica Ennis: The year started disappointingly for the heptathalete with a silver in the world indoor pentathlon. But she is now ranked world number one after beating her main rivals at an event in May with a British record breaking score.
Phillips Idowu: The Beijing silver medallist’s aspiration to go one better in London looks ambitious with a 2012 world ranking of 10 and recent rumours of an injury.
Christine Ohuruogu: The local girl is ranked just ninth in world this year at 400m. But she is a championship performer with a knack of upsetting the odds and has succeeded under more adverse circumstances.
Jemma Simpson will be making her debut appearance in the heptathlon and 100mh. But despite being second at the Birmingham trials, she was also left out of the 800m, along with the British number one and two, Marilyn Okoro and Emma Jackson, who performed poorly at the trials.
Chambers will be joined in the 100m by teenager Adam Gemili, the British number one this season, and James Dasaolu, who were second and third at the trials and have both run the A standard of 10.18 seconds.
Chambers said being part of Team GB was “a real honour” and “a privilege that should never be taken for granted”.
“To be given the opportunity to do so in my home town has been a dream that at times has seemed very distant and is now a reality,” he added.
Ambitious targets
UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee has made it known that his team’s 2012 target is eight medals, including one gold. This would not double the four medals won in Beijing, and if achieved, would represent Team GB’s best result since the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games, when a squad featuring Daley Thompson, Linford Christie, Colin Jackson and Steve Cram won eight medals in total, but no gold medals.
The coach, Mr Van Commenee said he is bracing himself for a “heap of appeals” from desperate athletes who have been left out of Team GB. Meadows, who has not raced in 2012 because of an Achilles injury, said she would appeal if left out and is unlikely to be the only one to do so.
Up and coming
Robert Grabarz: The 24-year-old made his international breakthrough this year and recently won the high jump at the European Cup. He is ranked joint second in world this year.
Lawrence Okoye: This 20-year-old is Britain’s first world-class discus thrower for years. He set a British record of 68.24m in May and is ranked fourth in world this year.
Tiffany Porter: Another British record holder, Porter has had a great 2012 with a second in the 60m hurdles at the World Indoor Championships. Her 100m hurdles performance places her sixth in world this year.
Holly Bleasdale: The pole-vaulter broke through in 2012 with a national record and she became the fifth best vaulter in the world at the British trials.
Greg Rutherford: The Milton Keynes-based long jumper is the joint world leader in 2012. Despite bad luck over injuries Rutherford has medalled in both the Commonwealth Games and European Championships.
Team GB includes Carl Myerscough, another athlete previously barred for a drug ban, who will compete in the shot put event.
At 18-years-old, Adam Gemilli is the youngest member of the team, while World Indoor Champion Yamile Aldama is, at 39, the team’s oldest athlete. She will be just 11 days shy of her 40th birthday when she competes for the women’s triple jump competition on 3 August.
Following in her mother Liz McColgan’s footsteps, who won 10,000m gold for Britain at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships, Eilish McColgan was selected for the 3000m steeple chase.