West Country athletes gear up for Paris 2024
More than two dozen athletes from our region are due to compete
More than two dozen athletes with links to the West Country are preparing to begin their Olympic journey at the 2024 Games in Paris.
The latest edition of the Games will formally begin in the French capital on Friday evening, with an Opening Ceremony which, for the first time ever, will not be held inside a stadium.
Instead, the traditional curtain raiser for the world's biggest sporting event will be held along the banks of the River Seine, with the athletes being paraded to crowds in boats along the water.
Below you will find more information on many of the athletes with West Country links, who are due to compete.
A proud Olympic history
The University of Bath is known as a centre of excellence for sport and this year 22 athletes with either current or past connections to the university, are due to compete in Paris.
Amazingly athletes from the university have won medals at every summer and winter Olympic Games dating back to Sydney 2000.
Of the 22 due to compete this year most will represent Team GB, but others will also feature for Angola, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria and the United States.
Among them are four current students: Charlie Brown who will compete in modern pentathlon, swimmers Henriques Mascarenhas and Ridhwan Mohamed and Kate Shortman, who will go for a medal in artistic swimming (formerly known as synchronised swimming).
Additionally Leah Crisp will compete for Team GB in marathon swimming. She was a student at the time of her selection, but graduated from the university this summer.
Most notably perhaps, Olympic gold medalists Freya Anderson and Tom Dean who both train in Bath, will also compete in the pool.
Stephen Baddeley, Director of Sport at the University of Bath, said: “Huge congratulations to everyone who has been selected to compete in Paris.
"It is always an incredible achievement to represent your nation at an Olympic Games and we are proud, as a UK Sport-accredited Elite Training Centre, to have played an important part in supporting these athletes to achieve their goals."
Bristol represented
Like Bath, Bristol has also been represented at many of the recent editions of the Games.
Track and field athlete Emily Diamond, who won a bronze medal as part of Team GB's women's 4x400m relay team at Rio 2016, has retired since the Tokyo Games in 2021.
However another 400m runner from Bristol has been selected this year, in Ben Jefferies.
A member of athletics club Bristol and West, Ben could first feature from 2nd August, with athletics always taking place in the second week of the Games.
He has officially been selected as part of the men's 4x400m relay squad, but could also feature in the mixed 4x400m relay.
Elsewhere, Bristolians Kate Shortman (who as already mentioned is also a student at the University of Bath) and Isabelle Thorpe are set to compete in artistic swimming and are genuine medal hopefuls, having won gold at an artistic swimming World Cup event in May, which was held in the new Olympic Aquatics Centre in Paris.
And elsewhere?
Wiltshire and Gloucestershire will also be represented in Paris, largely through equestrian events.
Tom McEwen, Kitty King and Louis Carrier from Wiltshire will all compete on horseback, while Tom now lives in Gloucestershire.
Multiple Olympic gold medallist Charlotte Dujardin who lives in Gloucestershire was also due to compete, but recently announced her withdrawal from the Games after a video emerged of her whipping a horse during a coaching session.
If you want to take a look at the Olympic schedule or find out more about the Paris Games in general, you can do so here.