BBC Radio 5 live Breakfast is going to be following two of Britain's top athletes on their journey to the London Olympics in 2012.

They are Andy Turner and Mo Farah - two very different athletes with two different stories, both driven by the aim of stepping on the podium in London.

They've both been given a small piece of kit to record an audio diary of their experiences of training camps and major championships over the next three years.

Born: 19/09/1980, Nottingham

Turner is Britain's number one sprint hurdler and has two Olympic Games under his belt already.

At Athens 2004 he failed to get past the heats and at Beijing 2008 he was knocked out in the quarter-finals. This led to UK Athletics scrapping his funding as they felt he was no longer a threat on the world stage.

Turner has since won the 110m hurdles at the 2009 European Team Championships and said he intends to prove to UK Athletics that he can compete at the highest level.

The 28-year-old's greatest achievements are picking up bronze medals in the 2006 Commonwealth Games and European Championships.

His A-level results spell the word "NUDE", his nickname used to be Greengrass (after the Heartbeat character) and he appeared on the news as an eight-year-old, appealing for his local football pitch not to be built upon by developers.

Born: 23/03/1983, Mogadishu

Farah is regarded as potentially one of the best British middle distance runners in recent years.

He was born in Mogadishu but moved to Britain from Somalia as a refugee in 1993 and his talent for running was soon spotted by his PE teacher. Before long he had won five schools titles.

Things have moved on somewhat since then with Farah holding the record for the men's indoor 3000m - seven minutes 34.47 seconds, a run Steve Cram called "the best performance by a male British distance runner for a generation".

At the end of 2006 he was named as male athlete of the year by the British Athletics Writers' Association. He followed that accolade with his greatest triumph, winning the European Cross Country title in December.

In 2009 the 26-year-old won Gold in the 3000m in European Indoor Championships.

He's now a genuine medal hope for the World Championships and beyond. He is funded to the maximum amount by UK Athletics.

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