[1]   If it doesn't say 'men's' or 'women's' as a prefix to an event i.e. 'Swimming - 100 metres freestyle' it indicates that men only competed in that sport or event in question at the time. The exceptions to this being equestrianism where men and women compete together in all events.

[2]   All athletes included are those who have represented Great Britain irrespective of place of birth. It does not include those who were born in Britain but represented other nations.

[3]   Athletes who won medals as part of mixed teams are included, even though their partner or team mate(s) were not British.

[4]   The database of results of the International Olympic Committee has been used to source all the British medallists in this book but some records from early games, notably 1900 and 1904 are incomplete and even the IOC records cannot be guaranteed as being definitive so, a bit of private 'detective' work has come into play!

[5]    Athletes who were part of a team that only won one gold medal between them are each deemed to be gold medal winners. The British trio of Danny Nightingale, Jim Fox and Adrian Parker in the 1976 Modern Pentathlon is a classic example of this. Because there was an individual competition going on at the same time as the team event, the team winners only received one medal between them.

[6]   All winners are deemed to be gold medallists even though in the first Modern Olympics in 1896 the winners of each event received a silver medal and olive branch, and the runner-up received a bronze medal and olive branch. In 1900 cups were generally given to winners and runners-up. It was not until 1904 that the current practice of giving gold, silver and bronze medals for first, second and third place started.

[7]   In the early Olympics many Irish competitors entered believing they were representing their own country but, because there was no Irish Olympic Council (not formed until 1922) their athletes actually represented (the United Kingdom of) Great Britain and Ireland. Some chose to represent the United States of America.

Since 1924 Ireland has entered the Olympics in its own right and whilst British athletes are said to represent Great Britain, or Team GB as they are know called, they are actually representatives of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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