Daley Thompson: Team GB's Athletes Can Handle Home Pressure [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

It's been a breathtaking first week of the Olympic Games, but for many sports fans the main event, or seeing as we're in London the Crown Jewels, is the athletics. With events at the Olympic Stadium now under way, one of Britain's greatest Olympians, Daley Thompson, has backed Team GB to thrive on track and field.

Two-time decathlon gold medal winner Thompson sat down for an exclusive interview with the IB Times UK and told us what events he was looking forward too.

Team GB's triathlon trio

"Jesicca Ennis, Mo Farah, Dai Greene are three of the guys that you could probably say are our best chances in the athletics, but to be honest i'm really looking forward to the men and women's triathlon. I think that in Helen Jenkins and the Brownlee brothers we have not only fantastic opportunities to win medals but they're all really great people."

Scottish star Jenkins won the World Championship Series in Beijing in 2011, and will be desperate to make up for the disappointment of the last Olympics, where she slumped to 21<sup>st position in the hot and humid conditions.

Meanwhile, the Brownlee brothers could provide us with one of the most fascinating stories of the games. The two, raised in Yorkshire, have been a revelation to the sport in the UK. Alistair is the current world triathlon champion, whilst younger brother Jonathan is the world sprint triathlon champion. There's a strong chance the siblings could do a one-two on the podium, but the question remains as to which one will have the gold medal draped around their neck.

The endurance-testing triathlon is staged in three successive events. Athletes will first swim 1.5km around the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, then cycle a 43km course past Buckingham palace, before a 10km finale on the lakeside running course. The location in the middle of London will make it one of the most stunning sports of the games, and with organisers allowing spectators into large sections of the park for free, it's likely to be one of the most highly attended events.

Jessica Ennis under heavy pressure to perform

No question the poster girl of the 2012 London Olympics is Jessica Ennis. The heptathlon star adorns billboards across the capital and the country, and with so much expectation to succeed on home soil, there are fears she could buckle under the pressure. But Thompson believes that pressure is positive for the majority of athletes.

"Everybody reacts differently to the pressure and obviosuly if you're at home then the pressure is a lot greater. But the pressure is positive to probably 90 percent of the athletes and detrimental to 10 percent. That's just one of those things because sometimes it can be really difficult but for most people it's a real positive and an incentive, and they're going to perform well on it."

The future of British atheltics

As well as our medal hopes in Ennis, Farah and Phillips Idowu, what will be fascinating is the impact the games will have on British athletics will have on our up and coming stars such as Desiree Henry, winner of the 200m in the 2011 World Youth championships, 18-year-old Adam Gemili, and the fastest man in the country who broke the British national junior record by running a time of 10.05 seconds.

Thompson hopes these young athletes can give the sport greater exposure in the UK.

"I'd like to think that athletics is going to pick itself up because obviously it hasn't had the same kind of headlines that it had back in my day and it would be nice to see those two guys [Henry and Gemili] dragging it by the scruff of its neck and making sure that it gets on the television and people start talking about it."

Support for Team GB at the Olympics has been incredibly strong, with lesser known sports such as canoe slalom and handball garnering national attention. Many will hope that London hosting the games will leave a lasting impression, and that the British public will still be brimming with enthusiasm when the Olympic Stadium hosts the World Athletics Championships in 2017.