Callum Wilkinson (coach: Rob Heffernan, club: Enfield and Haringey) kickstarted British interests in the first race of the Paris 2024 Olympics athletics programme and finished 16th in the men’s 20km race walk.

The 27-year-old clocked 1:20:31 on the course around Paris at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and secured a top 20 finish among a start list of 49.

Wilkinson smashed his own national 10,000m record at the Microplus UK Athletics Championships to seal his place in Paris and followed up from a 10th place finish at Tokyo 2020.

Securing a time just seconds outside of his 20km personal best (1:20:27), Wilkinson was proud of his efforts after coming back from a calf tear at the start of the year.

“It was good,” he said. “It was hard. It was an amazing, amazing course. I was feeling really good when about 12K it started to bite.

“I was thinking ‘stay with these and relax, stay with these and relax. Then I saw my teammate Persy (Karlstrom) (SWE) coming back to me and I thought ‘great, try and drive on just the two of us and see how many places we can get in the second half.’ I think apart from the top four we were amongst the fastest on the course for the second half.

“By rights I shouldn’t be here, but I’ve worked really hard to be here. It has been really difficult, but since I tore my calf in January we have nailed every single training session.”

Wilkinson followed up from surgery to fix an issue with his shins last year to power to victory in Manchester.

And, at his second Games, he savoured making it to the Olympic stage once more with a new perspective on his on the past few years.

He said: “I came 10th at the last one in Tokyo and it took me – without exaggeration – three years to realise what an achievement that was.

“I came away, and perhaps because Tokyo was the Games it was, and we were in Sapporo without crowds, that it hit me hard that 10th didn’t really make me feel like I thought it would do.

“A lot of soul-searching and a lot of work has been done by really good people in my team who believed in me.

“Every day, I’ve had to work really hard to believe in myself and to fight to get to a point I feel I really belong.

“It is something I’ve lacked for a few years in training when it’s come to really hurting myself in sessions that I knew were really going to hurt.”

Josh Kerr leads the 64-strong squad as team captain with our athletes set to dazzle further on the track, field and in the remaining road events.

More British Athletics stars are in action tomorrow with Morgan Lake first up in the women’s high jump (9:15am BST) before heats start to get underway on the track.

For Olympic Games results, click here.