Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Women set to outnumber men in Team GB’s biggest overseas team ever

The total number of British athletes looks set to surpass the record of 371 at Barcelona in 1992

The British Olympic Association is preparing to send its biggest ever team to an overseas Olympics next summer, with the latest estimate suggesting Team GB will number 378 athletes.

The current record is 371 at Barcelona in 1992 and, with just over a year to go to Tokyo’s opening ceremony, it looks like women will outnumber men in the team for the first time ever.

Following the recent qualifications of the women’s football team – thanks to the Lionesses’ fourth-place finish at the Women’s World Cup – and both rugby sevens squads, Team GB have already booked 77 quota places at Tokyo 2020.

If all goes as predicted, the team’s gender split will be 187 men and 191 women. The first time the Olympics were held in Tokyo in 1964, there were only 44 women in the British team, a fifth of the total.

Speaking to reporters at the Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, the BOA’s chef de mission for Tokyo 2020, Mark England, said: “To use a cricket analogy, we’ve got runs on the board in terms of athletes already qualified for Tokyo – we’re up to nearly 80 now and we’re shooting for about 380.

“And we are on the cusp of securing more women (than men) in the British Olympic team for the first time ever.”

The equation could be tipped even more in favour of female athletes if the women’s basketball and softball teams take the unprecedented step of qualifying for an Olympics in the coming months, although both still have much to do.

Penny Briscoe, England’s opposite number at the British Paralympic Association, explained it should be a similar story for ParalympicsGB in Tokyo, as the current projection is for a team of about 250, which would be slightly smaller than the team in Rio but bigger than any other sent abroad.

She added that female athletes should make up “45 to 48 per cent” of the team, which would be the highest proportion of female athletes ever.

In terms of how the teams will fare, both chefs de mission and UK Sport director of performance Chelsea Warr were confident the remarkable run of success since National Lottery funding came on stream in 1997 will continue.

In 2016, Great Britain and Northern Ireland became the first nation to follow a home Games – London 2012 – by winning more Olympic and Paralympic medals at the next one.

Both teams finished second in their medal tables, while Team GB won gold medals in more sports than any other country and ParalympicsGB won their best share of the total gold medals available since 1968.

England’s World Cup performance secured a place at Tokyo 2020 (PA)

Warr said it was too early to reveal specific medal targets but explained that the elite funding agency was certain the teams would finish in the “upper echelons” of the medal tables, with a broader ambition of “creating a dynasty of success” for future Games.

UK Sport constantly benchmarks British performances on the global stage and Warr said the Olympic and Paralympic teams are in very similar positions to where they were a year out from Rio.

Looking at world medals in Olympic and Paralympic disciplines in this cycle, Team GB have 81, compared to 78 in 2015, while ParalympicsGB have 145, compared to 154 in 2015, although their numbers will increase after September’s delayed World Para Swimming Championships in London.

“We’re not behind, we’re not in front – we’re holding our own,” said Warr.

“But we can see that new sports in Tokyo (baseball/softball, climbing, karate, skateboarding and surfing) are playing into our rivals’ strengths, although these only account for about 10 per cent of the total medals.”

This is illustrated, she said, in the significant uplifts both Australia and the United States have seen in their pre-Games world medal counts. Other nations expected to do well in Tokyo include Japan, as every host does, and France, which is hosting the next Games.

Warr said it was important that GB played to its “super strengths”: an unrivalled ability to get medallists to repeat and the happy knack of helping Games ‘first-timers’ to succeed, something only the US do better, largely thanks to their prowess in the pool.

Dina Asher-Smith will be one of the biggest stars for Team GB (Getty)

She explained this is a testament to UK Sport’s policy of funding athletes for two Olympic cycles, and its ability to spot talent, as well as the quality of the country’s coaching and sport science.

Warr also pointed out that GB’s “spread of opportunity” has increased as the nation has won world medals in 20 Olympic and 16 Paralympic sports over the last three years, compared to 14 for both in the period before Rio. Success in archery, badminton, judo and para taekwondo, for example, mean Britain will have “more sports in play” in Tokyo.

But England said there was another cause for confidence when looking ahead to Tokyo: world-class preparations.

“I would say with confidence that our preparations are better than any other national Olympic committee’s and I think that gives our athletes the confidence to know they’ll be better prepared than athletes from any other country,” he said.