ATHLETICSLocation: Olympic Stadium
Events: 47
GB MEDAL RECORD:
1986: 0-1-1
1900: 3-3-2 (Alfred Tysoe, Charles Bennett, John Rimmer)
1904: 1-1-0 (Tom Kiely*)
1908: 7-7-3 (Wyndham Halswelle, Emil Voigt, Arthur Russell, George Larner x2, Tim Ahearne, 3 miles team race - William Coales, Joe Deakin, Archie Robertson)
1912: 2-1-5 (Arnold Jackson, 4x100m relay - Wille Applegarth, Victor d'Arcy, David Jacobs, Henry Mcintosh)
1920: 4-4-4 (Albert Hill x2, Percy Hodge, 4x400m relay - Cecil Griffiths, Robert Lindsay, John Ainsworth-Davies, Guy Butler)
1924: 3-3-5 (Harold Abrahams, Eric Liddell, Douglas Lowe)
1928: 2-2-1 (Douglas Lowe, David Burghley)
1932: 2-4-2 (Tommy Hampson, Tommy Green)
1936: 2-5-0 (Harold Whitlock, 4x400m relay - Freddie Wolff, Godfrey Rampling, Bill Roberts, Godfrey Brown)
1948: 0-6-1
1952: 0-1-4
1956: 1-4-2 (Chris Brasher)
1960: 1-3-4 (Don Thompson)
1964: 4-7-1 (Ken Matthews, Lynn Davies, Ann Packer, Mary Rand)
1968: 1-2-1 (David Hemery)
1972: 1-1-2 (Mary Peters)
1976: 0-0-1
1980: 4-2-4 (Alan Wells, Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe, Daley Thompson)
1984: 3-7-6 (Sebastian Coe, Daley Thompson, Tessa Sanderson)
1988: 0-6-2
1992: 2-0-4 (Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell)
1996: 0-4-2
2000: 2-2-2 (Jonathan Edwards, Denise Lewis)
2004: 3-0-1 (Kelly Holmes x2, 4x100m relay - Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish, Mark Lewis-Francis)
2008: 1-2-1 (Christine Ohuruogu)
Total: 49-78-61
*GB didn't send a team to the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis but medals were won by Irish athletes and as Ireland was still part of the UK at the time, the IOC credits these medals to GB.
Athletics is the heart and soul of the Olympics, taking place below the Olympic flame inside the stadium. Most Olympic viewers look forward to the athletics more than any other sport and it tends to be the sport that provides most of the enduring memories as time goes by.
Historically, athletics is GB's strongest Olympic sport, with 49 gold medals won and at least one medal of any colour at every Games. There have only been six Olympics where GB didn't win an athletics gold medal with Atlanta in 1996 the most recent.
Many of the Britain's greatest Olympic moments came in track and field, such as David Hemery's world record run in Mexico, the Coe-Ovett battles in Moscow, Christie and Gunnell racing to victory in Barcelona and Kelly Holmes' golden double in Athens. It is a sport where winning a gold medal makes you a household name in this country and propels you to the higher echelons of sporting superstardom.
GB had a disappointing athletics campaign four years ago in Beijing. Christine Ohuruogu was the only gold medal winner, adding the Olympic 400m title to her world crown. The only other medal winners were Phillips Idowu in the triple jump, Germane Mason in the high jump and Tasha Danvers in the 400m hurdles. All four have suffered injury problems since then, and only Ohuruogu and Idowu are scheduled to compete in London, with question marks still hanging over Idowu's fitness.
However, after picking up seven medals at last year's World Championships in Daegu, including two golds, GB appears to have a very good chance of improving on their showing in Beijing.
GB's would-be golden girl is undoubtedly Jessica Ennis. This will be the heptathlete's first Olympics after missing Beijing due to a stress fracture in her foot. She won the world title in Berlin the following year and looked set to dominate the event. However, she lost out to Russia's Tatyana Chernova, largely due to a poor performance in the javelin. This year, Ennis has looked better than ever, breaking Denise Lewis's British record in May and even winning the national 100m hurdles title, beating Tiffany Porter.
Of the men, the star name is Mo Farah. Farah won gold in the 5000m in Daegu, bouncing back from the disappointment of having to settle for silver in the 10000m just days earlier and he is well fancied to win at least one gold in London. He will face tough opposition from Africa as well as Bernard Lagat and will probably have to rely on his fast finish to beat athletes who have run faster times than him at the lucrative Diamond League meetings. But since winning his world title, Farah has oozed confidence whenever he's competed and this year he even became the first ever person to win £250,000 on ITV's The Cube. Farah donated the prize to his own foundation, which helps provide food, water, medication and education to people in East Africa, including Somalia, the country of his birth.
GB has another world champion in the shape of Dai Greene. The Welshman, won gold in Daegu, topping off a fantastic season which saw him elevate himself into the world's elite. 2012 started slowly for Greene, but he has improved as the season has gone on and set a new personal best, narrowly missing out on breaking Kriss Akabusi's 20-year-old British record. His main rival will be Puerto Rico's Javier Culson, the fastest man in the world this year, but it's Greene who has the big championship experience with world, European and Commonwealth gold medals in his collection and he has a genuine chance of completing the set in London. He will also captain the athletics squad at the Games.
High jumper Robbie Grabarz has made the breakthrough to a top class athlete this year and showed he can cope with the pressure when winning the European title. He goes into the competition ranked four in the world and in an event where anything can happen on the day, he could be a medal contender.
Christine Ohuruogu is GB's only defending champion in London and she has her work cut out to repeat her Beijing triumph, with the likes of Sanya Richards-Ross, Russian duo of Krivoshapka and Gushchina and Botswana's world champion Amantle Montsho all running faster this year than Ohuruogu has. However, she has a knack peaking at exactly the right time and saves her best for the major championships. Another gold medal looks unlikely but she can't be completely ruled out of winning a medal in London.
Phillips Idowu was devastated after only winning silver in the triple jump in Beijing but bounced back by becoming world champion a year later. Since then, he's had a mixture of injury problems and public spats with GB boss Charles van Commenee and those issues have come to the surface again just before the Olympics. Idowu hasn't competed since early June and despite initially claiming he wasn't injured he has now admitted to having a hip injury and opted to miss the squad's pre-Olympics training camp. However, BOA officials have asked to see Idowu's medical records, which has upset the triple jumper. As it stands, Idowu is still set to compete but if he does, who knows what shape he will be in? The preparation has not been one of potential gold medallist.
Perri Shakes-Drayton is one of GB's rising stars and a huge personal best at Crystal Palace two weeks ago has put her right into medal contention in the 400m hurdles.
Other outside medal hopes include Yamile Aldama, Greg Rutherford, Shara Proctor, Goldie Sayers and Holly Bleasdale. There's also World Championship medal winners Lisa Dobriskey, Hannah England and Andy Turner, though none have looked like possible medal winners so far this year. After the disappointment of the last two Olympics, Paula Radcliffe will have one last go at winning an Olympic medal in the marathon.
However, despite the array of British talent on offer, many will be there to see one man: Usain Bolt. The world's fastest man is arguably the biggest global star in sport today with the level of attention received comparible to legends like Muhammad Ali and Pele. But after storming to gold medals and world records in 2008 and 2009, Bolt has lost his sense of invincibility. The drop in form seemed to begin with his sensational disqualification from the 100m in Daegu last year and since then, his starting has been noticeably poor. Injuries and car crashes haven't helped and combined with the rise of fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake, who won the 100m in Bolt's absence in Daegu, he suddenly looks like a man under pressure. Blake beat Bolt in both the 100m and 200m at the Jamaican Olympic trials and having once looked like being a Bolt victory parade, the 100m could now be one of the most unpredictable races of the Games. Former world record holder Asafa Powell is still one of the best in the world but has crumbled under the pressure of a major championship several times. Tyson Gay has run some amazing times but always trailing in Bolt's wake. The disgraced champion from Athens, Justin Gatlin, is back after a drugs ban and is the third fastest man in the world this year, behind Bolt and Blake. Europe could have a couple of men in the final as well, with double European champion Christophe Lemaitre and Britain's Adam Gemili, who has exploded onto the scene this year after switching from football to athletics and won gold at the World Junior Championships.
The women's race could be even more competitive with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price, Carmelita Jeter, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Kelly-Ann Baptiste and Allyson Felix all in contention.
Many more stories will unfold. Can David Rudisha continue his 800m dominance? Can Sally Pearson break the 100m hurdles record? Which Yelena Isinbayeva will show up in the pole vault? Can GB get the baton round in the sprint relay? With 47 gold medals to be won, we are about to witness thousands of those stories being told inside the Olympic Stadium.
GB MEDAL CHANCES
Jessica Ennis
Mo Farah
Dai Greene
Phillips Idowu
Robbie Grabarz
Perri Shakes-Drayton
Christine Ohuruogu
OTHERS TO WATCH
Usain Bolt (Jamaica - 100m & 200m)
Yohan Blake (Jamaica - 100m & 200m)
David Rudisha (Kenya - 800m)
Sally Pearson (Australia - 100m hurdles)
Ashton Eaton (USA - decathlon)
GB SQUAD
MEN
100m: Dwain Chambers, James Dasaolu, Adam Gemili
200m: James Ellington, Christian Malcolm
400m: Nigel Levine, Martyn Rooney, Conrad Williams
800m: Andrew Osagie, Michael Rimmer, Gareth Warburton
1500m: Andy Baddeley, Ross Murray
5000m: Mo Farah, Nick McCormick
10000m: Mo Farah, Chris Thompson
110m hurdles: Lawrence Clarke, Andrew Pozzi, Andy Turner
400m hurdles: Jack Green, Dai Greene, Rhys Williams
3000m steeplechase: Stuart Stokes
4x100m relay: Dwain Chambers, James Dasaolu, James Ellington, Adam Gemili, Mark Lewis-Francis, Christian Malcolm, Danny Talbot, Simeon Williamson
4x400m relay: Richard Buck, Jack Green, Dai Greene, Luke Lennon-Ford, Nigel Levine, Martyn Rooney, Rob Tobin, Conrad Williams
Discus: Abdul Buhari, Brett Morse, Lawrence Okoye
Hammer: Alex Smith
Javelin: Mervyn Luckwell
Shot put: Carl Myerscough
Long jump: Greg Rutherford, Chris Tomlinson
Triple jump: Philips Idowu
High jump: Robbie Grabarz
Pole vault: Steve Lewis
Decathlon: Daniel Awde
50km walk: Dominic King
Marathon: Lee Merrien, Scott Overall, David Webb (withdrawn due to injury)
WOMEN
100m: Anyika Onuora, Abi Oyepitan
200m: Margaret Adeoye, Anyika Onuora, Abi Oyepitan
400m: Shana Cox, Lee McConnell, Christine Ohuruogu
800m: Lynsey Sharp
1500m: Lisa Dobriskey, Hannah England, Laura Weightman
5000m: Julia Bleasdale, Barbara Parker, Jo Pavey
10000m: Julia Bleasdale, Jo Pavey
100m hurdles: Jessica Ennis, Tiffany Porter
400m hurdles: Eilidh Child, Perri Shakes-Drayton
3000m steeplechase: Eilish McColgan, Barbara Parker
4x400m relay: Shana Cox, Emily Diamond, Lee McConnell, Christine Ohuruogu, Marilyn Okoro, Nicola Sanders
Hammer: Sophie Hitchon
Javelin: Goldie Sayers
Long jump: Shara Proctor
Triple jump: Yamile Aldama
Pole vault: Holly Bleasdale, Kate Dennison
Heptathlon: Jessica Ennis, Louise Hazel, Katarina Johnson-Thompson
20km walk: Johanna Jackson
Marathon: Claire Hallissey, Paula Radcliffe, Mara Yamauchi