Dame Katherine Grainger
Olympic rowing gold medallist on BBC TV

It's at this time we know we are going to see the most amazing performances - we've waited five years for this - but for most of us it's not just the iconic but the stories behind it.

We all put athletes on a pedestal and think they are incredible but it's the human side that we just love so much.

Three-time world champion Helen Glover says she thought it was an "impossible mission" this time last year to make Tokyo 2020.

"I always had this day in my sights and I feel really proud that it's here and that I've made the Olympic team," she added.

Racing partner Polly Swann, 33, will be looking to build on their recent European title. Swann, who took time out of the sport in 2020 to work as a junior doctor for the NHS during the pandemic, said she cried when she found out she would be returning to the Olympic team.

"I've been on such a journey. Being in the boat with Helen takes me full circle," she added. "I love that the two of us have chosen to come back after time away."

They're expecting typhoon conditions in the next day or two at the Sea Forest Waterway which is staging the rowing events.

Fortunately it's calm and clear today. Helen Glover and Polly Swann are due to go in the next few minutes.

Mark Hunter
Olympic rowing champion on BBC Radio 5 Live

Helen's daily training schedule to get to this stage will have been relentless. She will have been getting up at 05:30 every morning to feed the kids, get them ready, and then her first session will have been about 20km on the water.

She'll have a second breakfast after that and then some downtime before 16km on the rowing machine or on the water.

Then lunch followed a weights or physio session in the afternoon.

That's just one day. Every two weeks you get one day off. You have got to admire the commitment.

Image source, Getty Images

Sport's list of great comebacks is a long one. Think Tiger Woods winning the Masters in 2019. Think Michael Phelps returning for the 2016 Rio Olympics to add another five gold medals to his haul.

British rower Helen Glover could be about to join that list. After Rio, Glover retired, with another gold medal in the women's pairs, to add to her success at London 2012.

It was time for her to start a family and five years, and a boy plus twins - a boy and a girl - later she is back doing the sport she loves.

Read: Glover's return a 'stupendous achievement'.

Not long now before one of the great Olympic comebacks as Helen Glover takes to the water with Polly Swann in the women's pairs.

Natalie Pirks
BBC Sport correspondent in Tokyo

Overall I think we are going to see quite a few upsets in the next couple of weeks and some strange results, but hopefully plenty of wonderful moments for Team GB.

Katie Falkingham
BBC Sport

There will be a record 339 medal events held across 33 sports, with five new sports - and 34 new events in total - added to the Tokyo 2020 programme by the IOC.

Some 48.8% of athletes competing at the Tokyo Olympics are women - a record figure. The five new sports are karate, skateboarding, sport climbing, baseball/softball and surfing. Baseball and softball technically aren't 'new' sports on the Olympic programme, but they haven't been contested at a Games since Beijing 2008.

New events have been introduced to the boxing, canoe slalom, canoe sprint, cycling, rowing and swimming programmes, while there are new mixed-gender events including a 4x100m mixed medley relay in swimming and a mixed relay in triathlon.

Team GB are already celebrating an early win...

Joshua Bugajski, who will be taking part in men's eight heats at around 04:10 BST, has just found out that he and his team-mates had their own library trolley at Cardiff University.

Victory.

Image source, Getty Images

The debilitating effects of rheumatoid arthritis left Edinburgh-born Seonaid McIntosh on crutches at some competitions from her mid-teens until it was brought under control in 2017.

She hasn't looked back, becoming world champion in the non-Olympic 50m rifle prone in 2018, finishing fourth in her favoured 50m rifle 3 positions a few days later and then winning gold in that event at the 2019 World Cup final to end the year as world number one.

Competing in both the 50m rifle 3 positions and 10m air rifle events at the Olympics, the girl with blue hair can still dream of having gold around her neck in Tokyo.

Read: Shooter McIntosh follows in family footsteps.

Qualification for the women's 10m air rifle competition is already under way. With the final scheduled to start at 02:45 BST, this event could deliver the first gold of the Games. And there is STRONG GB interest.

Max Whitlock's daughter Willow is ready and waiting to watch her dad take part in the artistic gymnastics qualification later on.

Do you think Willow will still be awake at 02:00 BST?

It's approaching 8.45am in Tokyo and a busy day of heats in the rowing is under way. This will be the first look at two-time defending champion Helen Glover, who has had three children since winning gold in Rio five years ago. The 35-year-old and Polly Swann, also returning to the sport after working as an NHS doctor, are unbeaten this season - but have only raced twice. They're due in action in the women's pairs in about an hour's time.

Read: Polly Swann on working the wards, training in her shed.

What were you doing when you were 12-years-old?

Syria's Hend Zaza was just five when she first picked up a table tennis bat, and seven years on she is the youngest person to compete at the Tokyo Olympics.

Zaza's home city of Hama was destroyed by war, and table tennis has offered her an escape.

"Table tennis gave me everything and taught me to be a strong human being, a confident one. It gave me patience,” said the Syria flagbearer, who now trains in Damascus.

Zaza is in action at 01:45 BST in the women's singles preliminary round.

Her opponent is Liu Jia, who was born in China but now represents Austria.

Image source, Getty Images

Tokyo is eight hours ahead so it's approaching 8:35am in Japan's capital but the temperatures are already soaring. It's currently 27C.

By 2pm local time it's expected to rise to 31C. It's going to be a hot one at the Ariake Tennis Park. Naomi Osaka was due to open proceedings on Centre Court at 03:00 BST but her match has now been moved to Sunday after her starring role in the opening ceremony, where she lit the Olympic flame. Heather Watson is first up on Court One against Germany's Anna-Lena Friedsam.

Natalie Pirks
BBC Sport correspondent in Tokyo

Team GB won 67 medals in Rio - 27 of which were golds - finishing second in the table. This time the target has been revised to between 45 and 70. Individual targets for each sport have been scrapped.

There are two reasons for that. We're in the middle of a pandemic, we've not really had a possibility of gauging where these athletes are at in terms of real potential over the past 18 months because so many of their events have been cancelled.

The second thing is we used to have this 'win at all costs' approach to funding because sports would lose their funding if they did not deliver medals. That approach has been hugely softened.

Team GB
Team GB

There are 11 medal events as more than 20 Olympic sports roll into action over the course of the next few hours.

Here's a flavour of what to look out for as far as Team GB is concerned (all times BST).

• 01:50-02:10 - Helen Glover and Polly Swann in women's pair rowing heats.
• 02:00-11:30 - Artistic gymnastics qualification featuring Team GB's double Olympic champion Max Whitlock.
• 02:45 - Who will win the first gold of these Games? The women's 10m air rifle final takes place. Will Team GB's Seonaid McIntosh be involved?
• 03:00 - Team GB cyclists Geraint Thomas, Simon Yates,Tao Geoghegan Hart and Adam Yates in action in the men's road race.
• 11:30 - Team GB's women's football team take on hosts Japan.
• 12:40 - Adam Peaty competes in the men's 100m breaststroke heats.

Team GB
Team GB

Image source, Getty Images

Team GB has more than 350 athletes in Tokyo, including more women than men for the first time in 125 years. Their mission is to return next month with between 45 and 70 medals.

Some of the big guns are being wheeled out over the next few hours - including Helen Glover, Adam Peaty, Max Whitlock, Andy Murray.

Proper headline acts.

Carl Littlejohns: Just watched the Olympics opening ceremony. Quietly beautiful. Filled me up. Really well done.

Ped: The #BBCOlympics, external studio is boss, it's all green screen but looks amazing.

Evil Batman: You better not show the opening ceremony, I have only just got over it.