It's here at last, a year's delay, taking place behind closed doors because of a Covid-19 spike in the host nation, but for 53 Scottish competitors, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is a sporting pinnacle.

The action begins on Wednesday with group matches in the women's football and softball competitions and runs through to 8 August.

So who are those Scots within Team GB's largest-ever delegation for an overseas Olympics?

Here's your guide to who and what to look out for...

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Will Tokyo justify Laura Muir's decision to throw her all into the 1500m?

Having been selected for the 800m despite finishing third in the Team GB trials, and before beating training partner Jemma Reekie with the second fastest time ever by a British woman, she chose to concentrate on the distance at which she has won European titles both indoors and out.

The qualified vet will hope she isn't barking up the wrong tree as she looks to improve on her seventh place in Rio 2016.

Having finished fifth in the most recent World Championships in 2019 and having the fourth fastest time in the world this year, she is one of Scotland's main hopes of a medal on the track.

Nine years after carrying the Olympic torch ahead of the London 2012 Games as a 14-year-old, Jemma Reekie will hope to burn brightly in her own right as a competitor.

Since bursting on to the scene by setting new British records for the indoor 800m and mile in 2020, she and Laura Muir have been difficult to separate in their performances and, during lockdown, Reekie and her dog, Dollie, even moved into her training partner's Glasgow home so the duo could continue to train together.

Indeed, it was her finish ahead of Muir at the British trials that maybe persuaded the latter to concentrate on the 1500m. Both finished behind Keely Hodgkinson, but they have faster times this year than the English 19-year-old, with Reekie recording the sixth fastest in the world, one spot behind Muir.

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In June, Albuquerque-based Josh Kerr jumped to prominence and became GB's latest middle-distance hot dog by beating Seb Coe's 37-year record with the fastest-ever 1500m time on US soil. (Apologies to Prefab Sprout).

That run in Portland was the second fastest in the world this year and has only since been surpassed by the top seven finishers in an incredible Diamond League race a month later.

Kerr consolidated his own emerging status by edging out clubmate Jake Wightman in Britain's Olympic trials. Having already beaten Coe's 1984 Olympic mark, can he make his own in Tokyo?

Jake Wightman will be dreaming of a unique double - winning an Olympic medal and having his name read out by his dad and coach, Geoff, who is working at the Tokyo Games as a stadium announcer.

However, he might have his work cut out to do so. While Wightman remains ranked ninth in the world, he was not only edged into second in the British trials by compatriot Josh Kerr but his best 1500m time this year is only the 44th fastest in the world.

He also finished a disappointing fourth in this month's Emsley Carr mile, a long way behind English 800m specialist Elliot Giles and Welshman Jake Heyward, who has been selected at 1500m along with Wightman and Kerr.

Everything should be coming up roses for Andrew Butchart, with fellow athlete Lynsey Sharp expecting their first child in October after his participation in his second Olympic Games.

However, his build up was shrouded in controversy when UK Athletics issued a suspended ban and fine over alleged comments he made in a subsequently deleted podcast that he faked a Covid-19 test in order to return to the UK after an international event.

Despite the furore, the San Diego-based Butchart broke his own Scottish 3000m record when finishing third in a fast race at the Diamond League meeting in Gateshead.

Although his 2021 best at 5,000m is only 65th fastest this year, he remains ranked 16th and will hope to improve on his sixth place behind a triumphant Mo Farah in Rio.

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Eilish McColgan will contest the 5,000m and 10,000m in the Japanese capital 30 years on from mum Liz McColgan's Tokyo World Championship win at the longer distance.

While her 10,000m best this year is only ranked 19th in the world, she booked her Team GB spot by taking gold in the European Cup in Birmingham and immediately targeted her mum's Scottish record, set on that day in 1991.

She will also hope to improve on her 13th-place finish in the Rio 5,000m as she becomes just the third Scottish woman to compete at three successive Games in track and field.

McColgan underlined her potential by breaking Paula Radcliffe's 17-year-old 5,000m British women's record - the seventh fastest time this year - in finishing fourth at the Diamond League meeting in Oslo.

The Hawkins family runs the Marathon Project, designed to bring more athletes into the discipline at grassroots level.

But, while brother Derek and coach and father Robert were cross-country champions in their own right, it is Callum who has made it right to the top.

Hawkins was ninth on his Team GB debut at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio but will be wary of the Tokyo heat having collapsed near the finish while leading at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Fourth in the marathon at the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships, will symmetry mean another finish just outside the medals after another two-year gap?

Stephanie Davis is a late arrival on the marathon scene, her experience having consisted of charity fun-runs until moving to London and joining the Clapham Chasers club.

She's still a part-time athlete - and without a sponsor - despite combining her athletics with a job in finance.

Yet she banked a place on Team GB even though she has only run the distance three more times since her first marathon in 2018.

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The older Steph Twell gets, the longer her Olympic distance.

Having narrowly missed the 1500m final in Beijing in 2008, she competed in both the 3,000m and 5,000m in Rio four years ago.

She only ran her first competitive marathon in 2018 to see how it felt, yet she broke Liz McColgan's long-standing Scottish record a year later and has conquered hamstring issues to gain selection this time round at 26 miles.

Fourteen years after suffering an epileptic seizure so severe it left her unable to walk or talk, Beth Dobbin will make her Olympic debut at 200m.

She has lowered the Scottish record six times since breaking the mark that stood for 34 years until 2018, but her best this year ranks just 46th in the world, with Britain's best hope of a medal being England's Dina Asher-Smith in ninth.

However, together they will bid for medal glory in the 4x100m relay and Dobbin knows all about teamwork as the daughter of former Celtic, Barnsley and Grimsby Town footballer Jim Dobbin.

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Having kicked for her high school's boys' American football team before taking up athletics five years ago, Nicole Yeargin has come from left-field to secure a place in Team GB after finishing second behind Jodie Williams in the 400m trials.

Based in Los Angeles, she perhaps wisely chose to compete for her Dunfermline-born mum's home nation, considering 13 Americans have already ran faster than her this year, after posting an Olympic qualifying time at the NCAA Championships.

However, having just completed a degree in real estate development at the University of Southern California, she will surely build now on already being third on the Scottish all-time list at the distance.

Zoey Clark missed out on individual selection. However, having already won silver and bronze at world level as part of Team GB's 4x400m relay team, she will join Nicole Yeargin with high hopes of securing a place on the podium in Tokyo.

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Kirsty Gilmour entered 2021 on crutches and admitting she had to tread carefully to avoid injury and secure a second successive Olympics appearance.

A serious foot injury had also hampered her progress in Rio, where she was seeded 11 but failed to qualify from the group stage.

However, while she is now ranked 26 in the world, she heads to Tokyo on the back of a bronze medal at this year's European Championships in Ukraine.

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All three of the Scottish contingent within Team GB's canoeing team are making their Olympic debut amid some controversy about team selections being made before more recent results, but there are good omens at play with Bradley Forbes-Cryans.

He is following in the wake of former Olympic medallists Campbell Welsh and David Florence, who both started the sport at the CR CATS Club, the same as Forbes-Cryans.

The Olympic newcomer grew up idolising Welsh in particular and could eclipse his hero's achievements with gold in the K1 slalom in Tokyo.

Having narrowly missed out on a place with Team GB in 2016, Kerr returned to earn bronze at the World Cup in Hungary.

She still travelled to Brazil through the Team GB Ambition programme so is not a complete stranger to an Olympic atmosphere as she heads out in that K1 500m sprint.

Having previously been Scottish karate champion, Katie Reid has only been involved with canoeing since 2014.

Despite that lack of experience, within a year of switching, she was selected to compete in the U23 World Championships and has gone from strength to strength to qualify for Tokyo.

Can Reid land a knockout blow to her competitors in the C1 200m sprint?

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Katie Archibald has been a key part in keeping Britain a dominant force in track cycling over the last decade.

She followed up gold in Rio with a collection of silver medals from the World and European Championships in 2017-18 then capped it off with a Commonwealth Games win.

With Archibald returning alongside Laura Kenny and Elinor Barker, who were a part of the team pursuit triumph in Rio, Team GB will again be a force to be reckoned with.

Olympic debutant Jack Carlin was initially keen on becoming a footballer but shifted towards cycling after breaking both his ankles.

During his first track session, he also broke his wrist, but despite those injury setbacks, he has become a formidable talent.

Winning gold at U23 European Championships in 2016 before clinching silver at the 2018 Commonwealth games, Carlin poses a serious threat for silverware in the men's sprint.

The daughter of Olympic cross-country skier Ros, Neah Evans only took up cycling full-time in 2017 at the age of 27.

Undeterred by that relatively late start, she has medals at the World Championships, Commonwealth Games and is a four-time European champion.

She joins the illustrious endurance team who got top spot in Rio.