STARS HEADING FOR RIO GOLD

WE HAVE rounded the final bend and are heading down the home straight in the countdown to the Olympics in Rio, with 99 days until the biggest sporting event on the planet starts in Brazil on August 5. Following Team GB’s 65-medal haul in London, Sportsmai

ADAM PEATY (SWIMMING)

AGE: 21. PREVIOUS GOLDS: 0. PHENOMENAL athlete who not only possesses pure speed but raw power that can take him away from the field. His time of 58.41sec for the 100metres breaststroke at the British Championships would put him in contention now. Peaty holds the world record of 57.92 and if, as he believes, there is more to come by Rio, then he should be too strong for reigning champion Cameron van der Burgh.

VERDICT: Will be a national hero if he manages to do what no British man has achieved since Adrian Moorhouse won a swimming gold in 1988.

LAURA TROTT (TRACK CYCLING)

AGE: 24. PREVIOUS GOLDS: 2. TROTT only started cycling when her mum took up the hobby to lose weight. Now she is the finest female cyclist of her generation, with 23 major gold medals to her name. In a team that could win at least four titles on the track, Trott could claim two of them herself, in the omnium and team pursuit. That would put her level with Sir Matthew Pinsent and Sir Ben Ainslie on four, with a couple of Olympics ahead of her.

VERDICT: Britain fell short in the recent World Championship team pursuits, but that was using their 2012 kit. Expect more come Rio.

MO FARAH (ATHLETICS)

AGE: 33. PREVIOUS GOLDS: 2. SINCE winning his Olympic 10,000metres and 5,000m titles in a delirious stadium four years ago, Farah has spoken of the loneliness of the long distance runner — pounding the roads when he could have been with his children, three of whom have been born since London 2012. There will be no lack of hunger, but his age and the Kenyans are catching up with him. VERDICT: Gold in the 10,000m, bronze in the 5,000m. One cloud hanging over his preparations is the US Anti-Doping Agency’s report into the methods of his coach Alberto Salazar.

MAX WHITLOCK (GYMNASTICS)

AGE: 23. PREVIOUS GOLDS: 0. QUIET and focused to the extent he does nothing outside the gym that might damage his performance inside it, the Hertfordshireborn star is already a reigning world, European and Commonwealth champion. To win an individual gold in Rio, he will have to beat Japanese legend Kohei Uchimura, as well as fellow Brit Louis Smith, who criticised the judges after he lost to Whitlock in the British Championships recently, comments for which he later apologised.

VERDICT: The pommel horse offers Whitlock’s best chance of becoming the first Briton to win a gymnastics gold medal.

JESSICA ENNIS-HILL (ATHLETICS)

AGE: 30. PREVIOUS GOLDS: 1. THE ultimate big-day performer. As if to prove the point, she made the ‘mother of all comebacks’ at the World Championships in Beijing last year by winning gold just 13 months after giving birth to son Reggie. She kept her nerve as the pretender to her crown, the talented and rapidly improving fellow Brit Katarina Johnson-Thompson, flunked it with three fouls in the long jump. Another threat is Canada’s Brianne Theisen-Eaton, the new pentathlon world champion.

VERDICT: Ennis-Hill’s know-how should deliver a second gold.

GILES SCOTT (SAILING)

AGE: 28. PREVIOUS GOLDS: 0. DESPERATELY unlucky to come up against the immovable object that was Sir Ben Ainslie for the one Finn place at London 2012. Otherwise Scott would most likely already be an Olympic champion. His form over the last three years has been nearly impregnable. His only defeat came earlier this month when a broken rudder in Majorca condemned him to silver. Unlike Ainslie, who had to tuck into the steaks to be big enough for the Finn, Scott’s 6ft 5in and 16st make him a natural.

VERDICT: If there is one GB competitor you can put your life savings on, Giles Scott is the man.

HELEN GLOVER AND HEATHER STANNING (ROWING)

AGES: 29 and 31. PREVIOUS GOLDS: 1. IT IS hard to remember now, but Great Britain went five days without winning a gold medal at London. Who broke the duck? The women’s coxless pair of Glover (left) and Stanning. And they have been beating the world ever since. They are undefeated as a pair in 30 races across four years and pulverised everyone at the last World Championships. And they are still improving.

VERDICT: Dominance of near Redgrave and Pinsent proportions. Favourites for gold.