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Who are Team GB s athletes to watch
Team GB is represented by its largest ever delegation for an Olympic Games on foreign soil, with 376 athletes and a further 22 reserve athletes competing across 26 sports at the Tokyo 2020 Games. It is second only to the 541 athletes selected for the London Olympics in 2012.
For the first time in its 125-year history, Team GB has also taken more women than men to a summer Olympic Games.
Of the 376 athletes selected, Team GB took 201 female (53.5%) and 175 male athletes (46.5%) to Tokyo thanks to impressive qualification performances from British female athletes across sports and an increased number of female events at the Games.
The lack of international competition during the COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainty for every team.
A night after Fiji’s men clinched back-to-back Olympic golds, the Pacific island nation’s women’s team shocked Canada 26-12. Fiji piled on 21 points before the 2016 bronze medalists could respond.
The British women took an equally unexpected lead with three quick tries against New Zealand, but the Black Ferns responding like competition favorites should and rallied for a 26-21 victory.
Three tries to winger Michaela Blyde and one to Tyla Nathan-Wong quickly restored order and New Zealand finished Thursday atop Pool A.
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“It was our mistakes that kept them in the game. When you don’t have the ball, you can’t score,” Nathan-Wong said. “That’s something we will clean up going into tomorrow. We know what it is, it’s not something we’re trying to guess: ‘Oh my gosh, what happened here?’