Who to look out for and when: The 54 south west London athletes in 14 sports going for gold at Rio 2016

Mo Farah, Joe Joyce and Joanna Rowsell-Shand will lead the south west London charge of Olympians looking for gold when the Rio 2016 Olympics begin on Friday.

There are 54 athletes, across 14 sports, with links to our area that have flown out to Brazil to take part in the 31^st Olympiad, all harbouring hopes of a medal.

Farah, who lived in Teddington and trained at St Mary’s University before moving to America, will hope to replicate his London 2012 double gold success in the 5,000m and 10,000m.

Earlsfield’s Joyce is one of the favourites in the men’s super heavyweight category having won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games and European Games, while Sutton’s Rowsell-Shand will be hoping to spearhead the women’s British team pursuit as they look to defend their gold from four years ago.

Athletics has the most representatives from south west London, with 14 athletes including Croydon’s James Dasaolu and James Ellington in the 100m.

There are 10 rowers from our area, with Moe Sbihi and George Nash filling two of the much sought-after seats in the men’s four boat, eight hockey players from Wimbledon and Surbiton, and six of the rugby sevens squad have links.

Here’s a full list of who to look out for and when.

Feature image courtesy of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, with thanks