Adriaan Wildschutt hitting peak form in preparation for Olympics

The 26-year-old, who has qualified for the 5 000m and 10 000m events, recently set national records in the 2 000m and 5 000m events at the Oslo and Stockhom Diamond League series.

Wildschutt also holds the national records in the 10 000m and 3000m, and is growing in confidence as he looks to challenge for silverware in the French capital.

"The Olympic preparations are going relatively well. I've competed in two Diamond League series earlier, in Oslo and Stockholm, and I did the 5 000m and 2 000m, which went really well," said Wildschutt.

"It's really good for preparation [for the Olympics]. I've had a down week, and now I have five-six weeks of really hard training, and I'm in a good space right now.

"But the preparations are going really well and I'm so excited for the next few weeks to really put myself in a great position to compete really well at the Olympic Games."

Despite his strong performance leading up to the Games, Wildschutt is cautious about placing undue pressure on himself to secure a medal and sets a rather modest target of finishing among the top eight.

"My target for the Olympics right now is always about trying to medal – be in the top three, but it's going to be really, really difficult, and I think a realistic goal would be to finish, at worst, inside the top eight, and at best, I'd like to medal," he added.

"So, I'll try my best, I'm training really well and I'm in a really good space to try and achieve that, but I still have about five-six weeks of really hard training, and we'll see how that goes."

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