Anna Meares

With two prior Olympics under her belt, Meares is expecting big things in London this summer. One of Australia’s most decorated cyclists, she won a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Games with a world-record time of 33.95 seconds in the now-defunct 500-metre time trial. She also took home bronze at those Olympics in the 200-metre sprint. Making her performance in Greece even more remarkable was the fact that it came months after she broke her neck during a crash at a World Cup event earlier that year. Meares returned to the Olympic stage in 2008, winning silver after being edged out in the final by Great Britain’s Victoria Pendleton. A year ago, she was named the Australian Institute of Sport athlete of the year, and she's setting her sights on raising the bar even higher. At the world championships in her home country, Meares broke a world record when she completed her qualifying lap of the 200 metres in 10.78 seconds. She only went on to earn a bronze in that event, but did take gold in the keirin, setting another world record in the process with a time of 33.01 seconds. Earlier this season, Meares finished second to China’s Guo Shuang in a test race at the London Olympic velodrome. She began her competitive career at age 11, following in the footsteps of her sister, Kerrie, a former national champion and junior world champion cyclist.