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Nikpai is a national hero in Afghanistan after winning an Olympic medal

We have a series producer in place - a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News international specialist, Kevin Bishop. He and his team have approached many of the competitors we'd like to feature, and we'll be disclosing the full list later in the year, but they already include some fascinating individuals. I'll pick out just two now.

From Afghanistan we have . Nikpai started his training in Kabul, Afghanistan, at the age of 10. During the conflict over the capital city, his family settled in one of Iran's many Afghan refugee camps. He soon became a member of the Afghan refugee taekwondo team.

He returned to Kabul in 2004 and continued his training at the government provided Olympic training facility. Nikpai competed in the 58 kg category at the 2008 Summer Olympics, defeating to win the bronze medal and making him Afghanistan's first Olympic medalist in any event.

President Karzai immediately called to congratulate Nikpai. He also awarded him a house at the government's expense.

And in Southern Africa, there's the Namibian runner . Just 18, her success was born out of tragedy. Two of Namibia's most promising tennis stars - the - were killed in a road accident in 2006.

A trust fund for aspiring athletes was set up in their memory. Running around the garden at the Davin family household was young Merilyn, the daughter of the family housekeeper. Her speed and agility attracted attention of the trust and now she's running for Namibia and on her way to London in 2012.

As you can imagine, there are fantastically rich stories from other men and women in a range of sports and in countries that range from the peaceful to the most troubled. Kevin is, for instance, just back from some filming in Kosovo where Olympic hopes are complicated still by nationalism and nationality.

So where and how will these stories be told? The answer is on a multiplicity of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ platforms and channels between now and the start of the Games.

There will be films on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Breakfast in the UK; on World News across the globe; and reports on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service including our language services where a wider range of non-English speakers will be featured.

The athletes' tales will be brought together on this website, and we want to give you the chance to ask questions of the competitors and share your thoughts and their experiences.

We want to give schools the chance to use some of the content and for it to be part of an international conversation using new (and old) media. There will be documentaries that offer a fuller narrative.

London promised when it won the bid that it wanted a different kind of Games - more international and more inspirational.

We hope World Olympic Dreams will embody that, in capturing the triumphs but also recognising that even those who fail to make it to the Olympic opening ceremony have been part of an extraordinary endeavour, a global aspiration to compete at the highest level.

Our coverage of those experiences will begin fully in July when there are just two years to go, and we hope it's as compelling as the early signs suggest.