The young stars to follow at the Paris Olympics

At the age of 17, Phoebe Gill is set to become the youngest British track athlete to compete at an Olympic Games for more than 40 years.

The 800m sensation beat Jemma Reekie, who finished fourth at Tokyo 2020, to win her first British title in June and confirm her Olympic debut.

Gill broke the European under-18 800m record by clocking one minute 57.86 seconds two weeks after her 17th birthday in May and will now seek to emulate team-mate Keely Hodgkinson by winning a medal as a teenager at her first Games.

Record-breaking 17-year-old Summer McIntosh is ready to make a splash at her second Olympics.

The Canadian is the world record holder in the 400m individual medley and second-fastest woman in history in both the 400m and 800m freestyle, and ended three-time defending Olympic champion Katie Ledecky's 13-year unbeaten streak in the 800m freestyle in February.

In Paris she will contest the 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley - she is a two-time world champion in both - along with the 200m individual medley, 400m freestyle and probably several relay events.

Lola Tambling will join fellow teenager Sky Brown - who became Britain’s youngest Olympic medallist by winning park bronze aged 13 in 2021 - in the skateboarding at Paris 2024.

Tambling's journey to the Games began when she was just seven years old - inspired after her parents opened a skatepark in Saltash, Cornwall.

The 16-year-old finished sixth at last year's World Championships, proving she is ready to be a contender when she makes her Olympic debut at the Place de La Concorde.

Toby Roberts was the first British man to qualify for Olympic climbing, and the 19-year-old will be joined by Hamish McArthur, 23, in making history in Paris.

Roberts, who made his first recorded climb at just three years old, clinched his first lead World Cup title at the Chamonix World Cup in July last year - three weeks after winning his first Word Cup title with Bouldering gold in Italy.

That made Roberts the first British climber to triumph in two different World Cup disciplines before his first Olympics, where Erin McNeice, 20, and Molly Thompson-Smith, 26, complete GB's climbing squad.

Quincy Wilson is the youngest man in history to be selected to represent Team USA in track and field, aged just 16.

The American broke an under-18 world record in the 400m that had stood for 42 years when he clocked 44.66 seconds in the heats at the US trials in June, reducing that to 44.59 in the semi-finals two days later.

He was named on the USA's 4x400m relay squad for Paris after finishing sixth in the final in 44.94secs - a third successive sub-45 run - to make US history.

Twelve years after being inspired to try archery after watching the film 'Brave', 19-year-old Penny Healey will make her Olympic debut.

Healey will compete in the women's individual and team events in Paris after helping GB win bronze at the final Olympic qualifying event in Antalya in June.

She was shortlisted for BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year following a 2023 season in which she claimed two European golds, and already this year she has won European Grand Prix gold on home soil and her first individual World Cup title.

Anna Hursey began playing table tennis at the age of five, first represented her country aged 10, and in Paris will become an Olympian at 18 years old.

Born in Wales, Hursey moved to China - where her mother is from - to train full-time in 2019. Three years later, she won women's doubles bronze at the Commonwealth Games.

Not only a soon-to-be Olympic athlete, Hursey hopes to help save the planet as a United Nations Young Champion on climate change - a role she accepted when she was 13.

Despite being just 17, this will be Quan Hongchan's second Games - and the Chinese diver will start as the defending champion in the women's 10m platform.

Then 14, Quan set a world record in Tokyo to beat 15-year-old team-mate Chen Yuxi to gold, earning perfect scores from all seven judges on two of her five dives.

China have won all but one of the diving golds at both the past two Olympics and Quan will once again be favourite after collecting five World Championship golds since winning the Olympic title.

Emma Finucane heads to Paris as a world and European champion and has been compared to former British cyclist Victoria Pendleton, who won two Olympic golds and six world sprint titles.

The Welsh 21-year-old, who started cycling at eight years old, was crowned Britain’s first world women's sprint champion for a decade in Glasgow last year, before becoming Britain's first female European sprint champion in Apeldoorn in January.

Finucane follows Becky James and Pendleton as only the third British woman to win world sprint gold, which came after she recorded the fastest-ever 200m by a woman at sea level en route to the final.

Artistic gymnast Abigail Martin has only just completed her GCSEs and won't know her results when she competes at her first Olympic Games.

The 16-year-old will be GB’s youngest gymnast in Paris but she already boasts a European silver medal as part of the British women's team at this year's championships in Rimini.

In her first year as a senior, Martin has won three medals at the British Championships and clinched floor bronze at the 2024 Osijek World Cup to make the grade as a member of Team GB.

-bbc