Great Britain's Olympic summer sports review of 2023
The first officially selected athletes for Paris 2024, world champions, record holders, and returning Olympic icons, 2023 has been quite the year for British athletes so we take a look at some of the top moments from the past 12 months.
What an appetiser 2023 proved to be for Team GB athletes ahead of the main course of the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games, starting in less than seven months' time.
The drama and emotions of even trying to qualify for an Olympic Games is quite the rollercoaster in itself. Take, for just one example, England women's footballers.
The squad reached the World Cup final for the first time ever in August, but were unable to qualify a team on behalf of Great Britain for the Games in France after not quite making the grade in the Nations Cup tournament, which doubles as qualification for Paris.
While talking on the pitch minutes of their game, thinking they'd done enough to go through to the next phase and potential Olympic qualification, the Dutch scored a last-gasp goal in their own group match to usurp the English side, who went from celebratory to gutted in the space of seconds.
And that's just one team in one sport.
The next half year until the Paris Games starts on 26 July will be exhilarating, devastating, and every emotion in between, as Olympic Qualification Tournaments, ranking lists, quota berths, and athlete selection by National Olympic Committees (NOCs), dial up the tension.
NOCs have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, so athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024. Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.
So, to a review of Great Britain's athlete's sporting achievements in 2023 in a no way exhaustive list.
Let's start with those who will be having the most festive of Yule-tide periods having officially been selected by the British Olympic Association to represent their nation at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
First athletes selected to represent Team GB at Paris 2024
Sailing was the first sport to select GB athletes for Paris 2024, quite the feat for the sailors concerned who will be tasked with adding to the medal haul of 64 Olympic medals, including 31 gold, from 'the most successful national Olympic sailing team of all time' as stated prominently on the British Sailing website.
With just one place for each nation in each of the 10 disciplines at the Olympics, Micky Beckett (men’s one person dinghy), John Gimson and Anna Burnet (mixed multihull), Saskia Tidey and Freya Black (women’s skiff), James Peters and Fynn Sterritt (men’s skiff), Emma Wilson (women’s windsurfing), Sam Sills (men’s windsurfing), and Ellie Aldridge (women's kite) can just focus on training as they eye the XXXIII Olympiad.
Canoe slalom also confirmed their athletes with a group of paddlers who secured eight medals, five gold, at the 2023 World Championships, which took place at the London 2012 venue, Lee Valley White Water Centre.
Joe Clarke claimed a third consecutive kayak cross world title, which bodes well for the Rio 2016 Olympic K1 champion, with kayak cross making its debut at Paris 2024. He is joined in the men's squad by Tokyo 2020 Olympian Adam Burgess.
Olympic silver medallist and now seven-time world champion, Mallory Franklin, also claimed gold alongside Kimberley Woods – herself the world's best in kayak cross and will join Franklin in France – alongside Ellis Miller for gold in the women’s team event.
Triathlon, another strong sport for the Brits at the Olympics, sitting atop the Games' all-time table with eight medals including three gold, confirmed both Alex Yee and Beth Potter as the first representatives selected for the nation.
Yee is the defending Olympic mixed relay champion, and Potter, who last competed at an Olympic Games at Rio 2016, albeit as an athlete competing in the 10,000 metres, is among the world's best. The pair also stormed to gold at the Triathlon Olympic Test Event in Paris in August showcasing the stunning views in France's capital to come.
As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
Beth Potter of Great Britain wins the triathlon Paris Test Event
Great Britain's world champions and world-record holders in 2023
Jake Jarman made British gymnastics history by claiming a first-ever world vault title at the Antwerp-hosted event in October. In trampoline, Bryony Page secured a second world title in the women's individual event. The Cheshire native became Team GB's first-ever trampolining Olympic medallist when she won silver at Rio 2016, adding bronze in Tokyo.
Two Brits topped the world of athletics this year, with Katarina Johnson-Thompson securing a second-ever heptathlon gold, and Josh Kerr a first title in the 1500m, emulating compatriot Jake Wightman from the 2022 worlds in beating the seemingly unbeatable Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the final throes.
In the pool, Matt Richards secured the men's 200m free world crown, doubling up with gold in the men's 4x200m free relay alongside Duncan Scott, James Guy, and Tom Dean.
A first-ever combined cycling World Championships took place in Glasgow in August with BMX racing, BMX freestyle, track and road cycling, mountain bike, all featured during an 11-day festival featuring the best bike riders on the planet.
The Brits topped the podium in a number of disciplines.
Kieran Reilly, famed for being the first BMX freestyle rider to land the world's first-ever 'Triple Flair' - three full backflips with a 180-degree rotation at the end – in 2022, won world gold for the first time in 2023.
In BMX racing, reigning Olympic champion, Beth Shriever added world gold to her burgeoning medal collection.
Taking to the track and Emma Finucane made history, storming to sprint gold and securing the fastest-ever 200m by a woman at sea level in the qualifiers, while also smashing the British record with a new time of 10.234s. Ethan Vernon claimed gold in the elimination race.
Elinor Barker left the championships with two gold medals, alongside Neah Evans who won gold in the women's Madison, and with Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Katie Archibald in the women's team pursuit. The quartet will be out to reclaim their title from Rio 2016 in Paris, and that's a fifth world gold medal for Archibald.
Arguably the most versatile cyclist of them all, Tom Pidcock, secured mountain bike gold in Scotland to add to his Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion label.
Joe Choong was back in business at the Modern Pentathlon World Championships on home soil in Bath where the Olympic champion retaining his title.
Archer Ella Gibson chose an auspicious day to break an eight-year-old world record. The Brit scored 715 at the European Games in Poland on 23 June, Olympic Day, bettering Colombia’s Sara Lopez's previous compound record by two points.
Bradley Sinden, the first British male to become a world taekwondo champion, repeated his 2019 gold-medal feat in the 68kg category.
Teenager Sky Brown won the park event at the 2023 World Skateboarding Championship, to become the first British world champion, still only 14.
After a 13-year break, Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw won gold in the women’s quad sculls, at the Rowing World Championships in Serbia in September, the first podium toppers in the event for Britain since 2010.
Matt Aldridge, Dave Ambler, Freddie Davidson and Oli Wilkes, won gold in the men's four, while the men’s eight retained their crown the following day courtesy of Jacob Dawson, Rory Gibbs, Sholto Carnegie, Morgan Bolding, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin, Tom Ford and coxswain Harry Brightmore.
Lightweight double scullers Emily Craig and Imogen Grant have not been beaten since missing the Olympic podium by a whisker in Tokyo and claimed the W yet again.
Facts and firsts for GB athletes in 2023
– Andrea Spendolini Sirieix and Lois Toulson became the first British divers to reach the World Championship podium in a women's event with 10m synchro silver at the Fukuoka-hosted event in Japan in July. British divers secured nine quota places for 12 divers for Paris 2024, the second most behind People's Republic of China.
– Artistic swimming had quite the renaissance in 2023, pre-empting the involvement of men for the first time come Paris, in the team event. Ranjuo Tomblin became GB's first ever male soloist in Fukuoka. Kate Shortman, meanwhile, became the first-ever Brit to win a global artistic swimming medal with solo free bronze.
– Toby Roberts won the European continental sport climbing qualifying event in Laval, France in October in the boulder and lead combined discipline, securing GB's first men's Olympic spot in the sport that made its debut at Tokyo 2020. Shauna Coxsey competed for Britain in the women's edition.
– Three-time Olympic equestrian champion Charlotte Dujardin won gold at the Royal Windsor Horse Show just nine weeks after welcoming daughter Isabella into the world, her mini-me watching from the dressage event from sidelines.
– B-Boy Sunni and B-Boy Kid Karam became the first-ever breakers to represent Team GB, in a sport making its debut at Paris 2024, after competing at the European Games in Krakow in June.
– Two-time Olympic rowing champ and mother of three Helen Glover returned to the water in the women's four alongside Rebecca Shorten, Rowan McKellar and Heidi Long at the European Championships in Bled, Slovenia, in May, the quartet picking up a silver.
Team GB icons eyeing Olympic return at Paris 2024
A plethora of British sporting icons revealed they would return to the field of play in a bid for more Olympic glory, to the delight of fans.
Gymnast Max Whitlock announced his return to the fray in February, after detailing his struggles post Tokyo 2020 to Olympics.com, the first time he'd contemplated leaving the sport having competed in three Games. However, his love for gymnastics won out and a slow return proved stabilising. A tilt at Olympic history is on the cards, too if selected for the five-person men's team. Should Whitlock win a fourth Olympic medal on his specialist apparatus, the pommel horse, he’ll be the first gymnast in history to claim four medals on the same apparatus. Not even Simone Biles can claim that.
Another London 2012 debutant, Laura Kenny, then Laura Trott, also announced a return in 2023 for a bid for Paris. The track cyclist is the most successful female GB Olympian of all time but six Olympic medals – five gold – is not quite enough for the mother of two. Maybe she just wants to claim parity, at least, with another member of her household, husband Jason Kenny, the retired cyclist who has seven Olympic gold medals to his name, plus two silvers. Bragging rights are important!
World record holder in the 50m and 100m breaststroke, Adam Peaty, is back after taking some time out to manage his mental health and injury. The swimmer was the first Brit to ever defend an Olympic title in the pool, claiming gold in the 100m in both Rio and Tokyo. The eight-time world champion also won gold in the 4x100m mixed medley at Tokyo 2020 and is eyeing more medals for his collection in Paris.
Tom Daley's young son Robbie, meanwhile, wanted to see 'papa' compete in the Olympics so back to the pool the Olympic champion did go, officially announcing his return in July after two years away from diving. With a first Olympic Games at Beijing 2008, at just 14 years old, Daley has grown up in front the public eye. To see him return as a proud husband, and father of two, to continue his Olympic journey is music to the ears of British sports fans who have a plethora of sporting stories to follow as we get inexorably closer to the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games.
