It seems like just yesterday that Buckinghamshire’s finest were reaching new heights and winning medals at London 2012.

In reality it’s been four years and Team GB’s athletes are set to do it all again at Rio 2016.

Among their number will be rower Katherine Grainger and hockey star Alex Danson, who are competing in their fifth and fourth Games respectively, as well as weightlifter Sonny Webster.

Their routes to one of the world’s biggest sporting spectacles have been markedly different, but all three harbour an ambition to thrive on the grand stage.

For Marlow Rowing Club member Grainger, London represented a crowning moment as she picked up her first Olympic gold alongside Anna Watkins at the fourth time of asking.

It was a glorious high water mark in a glittering career, yet the four years which have proceeded have been far from straightforward.

The 40-year-old was driven back from a two-year sabbatical by a burning desire to compete at another Olympics and she has faced multiple challenges to achieve her goal.

Her inclusion was in doubt until the final moment and she missed out on the initial selection for the team.

Ultimately her and partner Vicky Thornley made the cut and will compete in the double sculls in Brazil, but the path to doing so has hardly run true.

The pair’s boat was disbanded after a poor showing at the European Championships in May and they instead chose to focus on making it into a powerful women’s eight.

That ambition never materialised, thanks in no small part to the women’s eight winning silver at the World Regatta and gold at the European Championships.

The twelfth hour call-up handed Grainger and Thornley a reprieve though and the Scot will hope to find her form and collect a medal in her event which starts tomorrow.

Should she be successful in doing so, Grainger will go out on her own as Britain’s most successful female Olympian.

Danson’s journey to Rio has been an altogether more straightforward one.

Since the Marlow resident’s return from injury in May, she has been a certainty to be included in Team GB’s side.

A veteran of 261 caps for England and Great Britain, which have yielded 93 goals, the 31-year-old will be an integral part of Danny Kerry’s side.

She described London, where she won bronze, as a Games “which had total heart” and the plan in Rio is to move a step or two up the podium.

“Keep the fingers crossed [that GB can improve on Bronze]. That is the plan, that is what we have been training for and that is what we all hope will happen,” Danson said after being selected in early July.

To do so Team GB will have to be on top form as they face a tough group stage which starts with a match against Australia on Sunday.

World number two side Argentina are also in their group which is completed by the United States Japan and India.

Success in the preliminary round could see Team GB face Olympic Champions Netherlands in the knockout stages of the competition.

While his Team GB colleagues are brimming with Olympic experience, weightlifter Sonny Webster is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

The High Wycombe-born 22-year-old will compete in the men’s 94kg, which starts on Saturday, August 13.

Webster has competed at the Commonwealth Games in the past but acknowledges the Olympics will be the biggest challenge of his career.

“The Olympics is undoubtedly the biggest stage for the sport, and to be given the opportunity to represent my country in Rio this summer is something I am incredibly proud of,” he said.

“I’ve been training well and my recent performance at the British Championships has given me a fantastic performance to build on.”