Olympics blog

You'll get the chance to welcome Britain's Olympic and Paralympic heroes home when they parade through London this Thursday, 16 October.

There have been other parades, like the one in Edinburgh for the Scottish medal winners from Team GB, while Rebecca Adlington enjoyed her own open-top bus tour of Mansfield.

But the London procession will be the first time the entire British team gets back together, and around 500 athletes are expected to travel on 10 flat-bed trucks.

Out of all those athletes, how do you pick your favourite British performance from a summer of success in Beijing?

The answer is with great difficulty - I know because I've just tried and the results follow.

In case you need reminding, Team GB arrived home with 19 golds, their best haul in 100 years, while the ParalympicsGB team won 42 golds, their best performance in two decades.

That's a lot of excellent performances, but it's not necessarily all about the gold medal winners for me - the silvers, bronzes and near misses were equally as compelling to watch.

This is not an exhaustive list from the Olympics and Paralympics, just my own personal highlights - the performances that had me on the edge of my seat, or off it, or shouting at the television. Let me know yours.

There's probably no place better to start than cycling's velodrome.

Chris Hoy led the charge with three gold medals - his victory in the men's sprint, where he powered past team-mate Jason Kenny being my favourite race - while Victoria Pendleton's triumph in the women's equivalent was equally as dominating and left me in awe of her power.

In the Water Cube, Adlington's victory in the 400m freestyle was stunning.

The 19-year-old was down in fifth place with 100m to go, trailed by over a body-length at the start of the last 50m and came through to pip America's Katie Hoff to gold by seven hundredths of a second.

Italian world record holder Federica Pellegrini and France's world champion Laure Manaudou were left in her wake.

Adlington of course then went on to win a second gold in the 800m freestyle, smashing the longest-standing world record in swimming, that had been set in the year she was born.

And then of course there was Christine Ohuruogu's 400m triumph in the Bird's Nest. Like Adlington, she looked out of it coming into the final 100m, but she had held enough back to surge past her tiring rivals.

At the Paralympics, there were numerous multi-gold winning athletes to cheer.

Swimmer Dave Roberts picked up four more to take his career tally to 11, while
Darren Kenny also won four titles as the cyclists continued where the Olympians had left off.

Lee Pearson remained unbeaten in the equestrian arena, winning all three of his events for a third successive Games.

But the headlines were undoubtedly stolen by 13-year-old Ellie Simmonds who won two gold medals in the pool and a nation's hearts with her emotional post-race interviews and infectious smile.

Out of all those golds though, Adlington's 400m success eclipses the others as it wasn't expected and it provided the most thrilling of climaxes.

And of those that didn't quite make it the top of the podium, Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten deserve a special mention.

I never thought a two-hour swimming race would hold my attention, but the duo came close to handing Russia's Larisa Ilchenko a first defeat in four years in the 10km Open Water swim.

And David Davies may well have won gold in the men's equivalent had he not swum off course in the closing stages.

Back in the Bird's Nest, Germaine Mason's high jump silver provided another unexpected bout of nervous encouragement in the office.

Then there was Aaron Cook in the taekwondo - it's not a sport I know much about, but his performances in the semi-final and bronze medal match had me hooked. I almost cried with him when he missed out.

And at the Paralympics, the men's wheelchair basketball team had me gripped as they beat America to win bronze.

I urged the wheelchair rugby side on but their attempt to win a first medal ended in defeat in the bronze-medal match against Canada.

Jim 'the swim' Anderson added three more medals to take his collection to 17 over five Games - the 45-year-old is old enough to be Simmonds' granddad.

But my non-gold medal winning performance goes to the men's wheelchair basketball team. Their coach Murray Treseder had to return to his home in Australia because of illness early in the competition, but the team overcame that setback to go on and win a thrilling bronze medal match.

The parade starts at 1100 BST on Thursday, 16 October, outside Mansion House and makes its way past St Paul's Cathedral before going down Ludgate Hill, up Fleet Street and the Strand and on to Trafalgar Square.

But in the meantime, I've told you mine, now you tell me yours.