From Adam Peaty to Noah Lyles, Keely Hodgkinson to Simone Biles, the biggest names in Olympic sports are in Paris for the next 16 days for the greatest sporting extravaganza on the planet.

Sporting immortality awaits those who can win gold medals and take their place on the medal podiums.

Lives will be changed, for better or for worse, and legends will be written.

For the Games of the XXXIII Summer Olympiad begin for real on Saturday morning after the early blows were thrown in the football, rugby sevens, archery and handball earlier in the week, and following the pageantry and magnificence of the opening ceremony along the River Seine on Friday night.

Tom Pidcock of Great Britain during a training session ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics - Cycling: Mountain Bike at Elancourt Hill, Yvelines, France (Picture: Zac Williams/SWPix.com)

The build-up is over. Talk of security, rail chaos, dreams and ambitions is a thing of the past, as the action bursts into life across Paris.

Of those legends to be written, look out for American Lyles in the sprint disciplines on the track, and Biles in the gymnastics, already one of the greatest - can she cement her status with the Nadia Comaneci and Olga Korbut’s of Olympic history.

Who will be the Great Britons to captivate us over the next fortnight or so?

Will it be Hodgkinson, finally delivering in the 800m?

Adam Peaty of Team Great Britain trains during a Swimming training session ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Paris La Defense Arena (Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Can Katarina Johnson-Thompson shed that unfortunate injured tag?

Will Peaty further underline his reputation as Britain’s greatest ever swimmer?

Will Max Whitlock finish his groundbreaking gymnastics career on a high? He’ll need the help of two Yorkshiremen to do that (advance to page 10).

Can Tom Daley come out of retirement and win another medal in his fifth Olympics?

And what of the Yorkshire hopes? Are athletes from the White Rose set to write the narrative like they did in that gold-medal laden summer of 2012?

If they are, expect Tom Pidcock to lead the Yorkshire charge.

Brash, confident, single-minded and unapologetic about all of that, Pidcock is a natural-born winner.

He was an Olympic champion at age 21, winning the mountain bike gold medal in Tokyo.

He went to the Far East thinking it was just another race. He came away full appreciative of the enormity of being called an Olympic champion.

“The Olympics transcends cycling as a sport,” he said on Friday morning, three days before he defends his mountain bike title at Elancourt Hill, a former quarry site on the outskirts of Paris.

“The feeling of representing your country at an Olympics is like nothing else, you’re representing the whole nation.

“It’s like a weight on your back, rather than a weight on your shoulders, it can either push you along if you let it, or if you don’t manage it, well then maybe you fall over backwards.

“Winning is, or was, just one of those moments I’ll never forget for the gravity of it.

“The feeling of representing GB at the Olympics is different to any other championship or event that I personally have done.

“You’re representing people back home, you have a platform to inspire people and personally that means a lot to me: to show the right example.”

Since London 2012, Team GB have been a major force at the Olympics, winning 65, 67 and 64 medals in the last three Games and never being lower than fourth in the medals table.

At the last two Olympics, Peaty was the man to light the blue touch paper by winning the first gold medal.

He gets his Paris campaign under way on Saturday in the heats and semi-final of the 100m breaststroke, an event in which he is looking to emulate Michael Phelps in by winning three Olympics in a row.

“I know I’ve got nothing to prove here,” said Peaty. “But there’s going to be people out there with something to prove in the heats. That isn’t going to be me.

“You want your best in the final, you want your season’s best in the final and that’s all I’m seeking. I’m a little bit older now, bit wiser and open-eyed about what is around me and a lot more calmer.”

The first medal could be won in the shooting, or by a Yorkshire athlete in the pool?

City of Sheffield diver Yasmin Harper joins Scarlett Mew Jensen in Saturday morning’s 3m synchro final.

Harper, who turns 24 on Sunday, said: “If we end up with a medal, that would be the best birthday present I could ever ask for.

“I think it’s going to be overwhelming but I’m so pleased to get this chance to go and be part of such an amazing team.”

The time for talking is over.

The time for legends to be written, is now.

'The Olympics transcend sport' - Tom Pidcock, Adam Peaty and Team GB ready for Paris Olympics