Dai Greene ▶ has a way with words. After making an inspiring speech to Team GB in his role as captain, the eloquent Welshman will be hoping to turn words into deeds in the hurdles. There's been plenty of chat in the recent past. It's been conciliatory noises all round since Greene vowed to confront Olympic 400m champion LaShawn Merritt and call him a cheat if he encountered the American on the track. Merritt served a 21-month ban after testing positive for a banned steroid and memorably claimed it was a penile enlargement product. Another American, Bershawn Jackson accused Greene of saying the Americans were "overrated" and said Greene had written a cheque that "he can't cash".
Jackson has, however, since admitted that Greene is "the better man" as current world champion – though Greene's frankly poor display in Saturday's semi-final in which he scraped through as fastest loser might not bear that out. Merritt is injured so the biggest threat may be Javier Culson, a 6ft 5in Puerto Rican, who has beaten Greene 3-0 this year. Men's 400m hurdles, final, 8.45pm
Greene and Jackson insist they have buried the hatchet but there is plenty more noisy rivalry on Monday. Yelena Isinbayeva, the Russian pole-vaulter has airily dismissed past opponents for "talking too much". She has good cause to be a diva as an Olympic gold medallist in Athens and Beijing, with 27 world records to her name. But ◀ Holly Bleasdale, the 20-year-old from Chorley who has come through from nowhere, is not impressed with some of her antics. While others compete in the heats, Isinbayeva covers her head with a towel and has a nap. "I've seen Isinbayeva do that, looks like a tramp on a street corner. I do think it's disrespectful to us," she said recently. "It is a bit weird." Women's pole vault final, 7pm
Britain's best gymnast, Beth Tweddle ▲, is in the final of the uneven bars, and there will be familiar names in the velodrome as Team GB go for gold in the men's and women's sprint. Women's uneven bars, 2.50pm. Men's sprint final, 5.43pm. Women's sprint final, 6.41pm
Russian Natalya Lisovskaya's world record of 22.63m in the shot put has stood for 25 years. Valerie Adams ▼, the gold medal winner in Beijing, may stand the best chance of breaking it: the 6ft 5in New Zealander has a PB of 21.24m. If she wins, we can almost claim her as a Brit: Adams has an English father and a Tongan mother. As someone who once threw the worst shot in his year (2.21m) all the shot put finalists have my respect. Shot put final, 7.15pm
Sunny spells and scattered showers Patrick Barkham
