By Saj Chowdhury

JACKSON FACTFILE Born: 18 February 1967 Best times: 60m hurdles 7.30s (WR) 110m hurdles 12.91s (WR) Major champ'ship medals: Total: 23 (13 gold, 9 silver, 1 bronze)

Sprint hurdles legend Colin Jackson believes the British men's athletics team will find it difficult to pick up a medal at the Olympic Games in Athens.

The British former world champion says there is a scarcity of outstanding athletes in the Great Britain party.

"There's a lot of B-standard athletes. We used to have one or two A-plus boys, but now they've disappeared," he said.

"We could depend on success from the A-plus stars. Our Bs aren't strong enough to create an identity this year."

One of those "potential" A-plus stars was Dwain Chambers, who will not be competing at the forthcoming Games having picked up a two-year ban following a positive test for the steroid THG.

Former 110m hurdler Jackson, who will be part of the BBC's commentary team in Athens, believes there is nobody good enough to fill the void.

"It'll be difficult for an individual Briton to reach an Olympic final of one of the sprint events," Jackson told BBC Sport.

"I think winning a medal is completely out of their reach.

Britain's athletics contenders

"We needed somebody like Dwain to come through. We might have also lost Mark Lewis-Francis because he's not been in great form, but I hope not. He's still a young boy."

However, Jackson does believe the men's 4x100m team stand a chance of doing well in Athens.

Jackson competed at four Olympics, winning silver on his first attempt at Seoul 1988 but missing out on gold on the three subsequent occasions.

However, he did claim gold at the 1993 World Championships and in the process set a new world record of 12.91 seconds - a mark that still stands to this day.

In fact, only one sprint record (men's and women's) has been broken in the last five years.

"There's always going to be a ceiling as to how high human performance can go," added Jackson, who retired in 2003.

"Having said that, more records will definitely be broken - it's just a case of when.

"I have the record at 12.91 but the world is a big place, there must be someone out there who can take the mark away from me."