The inaugural Japanese Marathon Grand Championship offered the top two finishers in the men’s and women’s races qualification places for the Games. It served as a test event for the marathon at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and several top Japanese athletes secured places for a shot at gold-medal glory next summer.

Michael Johnson’s 200m Olympic and world record was one of the standout performances of Atlanta 1996. But it took years of work and planning to get it right…

For Isabell Werth, the most decorated Olympic equestrian athlete of all time, it is simple: the horse is everything. “Without a top horse you have nothing, you are just a rider, nothing more,” said the German who has won six gold and four silver medals in dressage during a career which has, to date, spanned five Olympic Games.

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) continue to provide a springboard to the international stage, with a succession of former YOG athletes clinching world and continental titles throughout August.

Turkey has never won an Olympic medal in archery but Yasemin Anagoz and Mete Gazoz are determined to change that, starting at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

Pamela Rosa is desperate to compete at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and be the kind of role model she never had as a young, female skateboarding fanatic growing up on the tough, inner-city streets of south-eastern Brazil.

Over the course of a stellar career that spanned 20 years and took in both his native Japan and the United States, two-time Olympian Koji Uehara won just about every title there is to win. But, with his sport back on the Olympic programme at Tokyo 2020, Uehara has just one regret...