Tom Daley and Helen Glover leading candidates to be Team GB flagbearers

Tom Daley and Helen Glover are leading contenders to be chosen as Team GB flagbearers for Friday’s opening ceremony.

It will be diver Daley’s fifth Olympics and he has won four medals – one gold and three bronze. Rower Glover won gold at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics before retiring and having children, then made a comeback in Tokyo. She is competing at her fourth Games.

Speaking at the diving team announcement in May, Mark England, the Team GB chef de mission, said that Daley, who competes on Monday, was “a talisman” as a “five-times Olympian, four-time medallist, Olympic champion”.  England added: “He desperately believes in Team GB. He’s a sponge – speaks to lots of other athletes, a real leader. Absolutely understands the team culture. Very giving and very generous in that regard.”

Daley was pictured in Olympics training with a Pride flag towel, after Paris 2024 promised to give athletes a platform to speak up for LGBT rights.

Political gestures on podiums remain banned, but organisers said last year they would make the most of the Olympic spotlight to push a broader message on diversity.

Daley, who used a Union Flag towel for his last two Olympic appearances, switched to a rainbow-coloured flannel in Paris yesterday after organisers previously put rainbow colours into their logo to mark an international day against homophobia. Organisers dismiss suggestions, however, that Paris 2024’s pink and pale blue colour palette is inspired by the trans flag.

Paris 2024 said last year that athletes would be given “plenty of opportunities” to speak for LGBT rights. “We strongly believe that Paris 2024 has a fantastic opportunity to communicate and demonstrate that this situation has to evolve,” said Tony Estanguet, the organising committee president.

In 2021, the International Olympic Committee relaxed how it implemented a rule which historically had stopped athletes from making any political, religious or other statements of belief or identity at the Olympics.

It allowed the wearing of rainbow colours at the Tokyo Games in 2021. In Paris, athletes will also be “free to speak and to share their messages” when they are not competing, Estanguet pledged.

“There are plenty of opportunities for athletes to use the platform of the Games to demonstrate that there are some situations that are not acceptable,” he said.

LGBT activists who waved rainbow flags in Moscow’s Red Square were arrested during the 2014 Olympics in Russia.