Will Olympic heroes make the leap from gold to bronze?

Britain's Olympic heroes have captured the nation's hearts and inspired tributes from stamps to gold post boxes but the odds on more permanent monuments to their achievements being erected are slim, claim University of Sheffield researchers. Despite more than 100 sporting statues taking pride of place in city centres and stadia across the UK, there are just five Olympic champions depicted: Sir Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent, John Curry, Steve Ovett and Eric Liddell. This compares to over 50 football players or managers. Chris Stride, from the University of Sheffield's Institute of Work Psychology and creator of the Sporting Statues Project believes that the individual nature of most Olympic sports lies behind this under-representation. He said: "The lack of Olympian statues in the UK is ironic given the origins of sports statues in the ancient Greek Olympics but, for a statue project to succeed it requires a site and funding. Football clubs own land to site a statue upon and, at the higher echelons, a statue is a relatively small expense. "The use of statues and other types of nostalgic branding in the commercialised world of Premiership Football is now well established.