Here's A-E in our guide to the Heroes of the Commonwealth Games.

John Akii-Bua

John Akii-Bua, Uganda's first Olympic champion, was supposedly born in a family of 43 children, and his father had 8 different wives. Several of his siblings were also good athletes, including his brother Lawrence Ogwang.

Akii-Bua himself started out as a high hurdler, but failed to make the 1968 Olympics. He then tried out the longer hurdles race as well, qualifying for both events at the 1970 Commonwealth Games.

In Edinburgh, he fared much better in the 400m, and placed 4th. He switched focus to this discipline, and soon became a top runner, winning his event at a 1971 USSR-USA country match as a guest runner.

At the Munich Olympics, he was unlucky to draw lane one in the final, yet managed to break the world record and win the gold in 47.82 seconds.

Akii-Bua was unable to defend his title, as Uganda boycotted the 1976 Olympics like most African nations, and he was past his prime at the 1980 Games, when he was eliminated in the semi-finals. By then, he was living in West Germany, having fled Uganda following the overthrow of dictator Idi Amin. He returned to his native country in 1983, and eventually started working for the police, where he had also worked after his Olympic title.

Personal Bests: 400 - 45.82 (1976); 400H - 47.82 (1972)

Jim Alder

Jim Alder is one of the most successful Scottish endurance runners ever. In the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica Alder was third in the 10,000m and then followed this up with marathon gold after one of the most dramatic finishes imaginable.

Leading to the Stadium Alder found that the stewards outside the arena had gone inside to have a look at the Duke of Edinburgh and, as a result, he over ran the entrance. Bill Adcocks, who was following, went in the right entrance and was ahead of Jim. Dunky Wright shouted to Jim and got him into the stadium while Bill was on the track and Jim managed to catch him and win.

1966: Commonwealth Games Jamaica Marathon Gold

1966: Commonwealth Games Jamaica 6 Miles Bronze

1970: Commonwealth Games Edinburgh Marathon Silver

1969: European Championships Athens Marathon Bronze

1964: World Record Holder 30,000 metres

1970: World Record Holder 30,000 metres

1964: World Best Performance for 2 Hours

1970: British Record Holder 20,000metres

Note: Not all distances are recognised as World Records

Jim also narrowly missed World Best for 25,000 metres by 2 seconds. However, he broke the World Best for 20,000 metres en-route to 30,000 metres World Best and narrowly missed British Record for 10,000 metres by 6/10 of a second in a race won by over half a lap.

In summary Jim has held every distance record from 10,000 metres to marathon.

Filbert Bayi

Filbert Bayi (born June 23, 1953) is a former Tanzanian middle-distance runner of the 1970s who set the world records for 1,500 metres in 1974 and the mile in 1975. He is still the 1,500m Commonwealth Games record holder.

The men's 1,500m final was run on the last day of the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games. Bayi, the runaway leader, set a new world record of 3 minutes 32.16 seconds. New Zealander John Walker came close to catching Bayi and also broke Jim Ryun's world record.

Bayi and Walker continued their rivalry in 1975. On May 17, Bayi broke Ryun's eight-year-old record for the mile, clocking 3 minute 51 seconds.

It was hoped that the Bayi-Walker clash would continue but, because Tanzania boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, it never materialised. However, since Bayi was suffering from a bout of malaria shortly before the Olympics, he may not have been able to challenge Walker even if there had not been a boycott.

Ian Black

Date of Birth: 27, June 1941

Discipline: Swimming (Butterfly)

Black began his swimming career at Robert Gordon's College Junior School in Aberdeen. His medals, titles and records - both European and Worldwide - make his one of the finest swimmers to have come from Scotland.

Black was the first Scot to win the 1958 BBC Sports Personality of the year award at the age of 17 after his notable success at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games and the European Championships, Budapest held in the same year.

The Commonwealth Games, held in Cardiff, saw Black win silver in the 440 yards Freestyle event with a time of 4 minutes 28.5 seconds. His second medal at the 1958 Games was the 220 yards Butterfly event, where he won gold. To finish off his excellent run of medals he took silver in the 4x220 yards Freestyle relay.

Black also represented Great Britain in the 1960 Olympics, however, he was unlucky not to return home with a medal. After a notable swimming career, he became a school head teacher, holding positions in Hong Kong and Scotland - most notably as head of his old Junior School, Robert Gordon's College. He retired in 2004.

Raelene Boyle

Without much doubt, Boyle was the fastest female sprinter of her time. The pity is that she doesn't have the right gold medal to prove it. During a 14 year career, which established her as a worthy successor to the great sprinters Marjorie Jackson, Betty Cuthbert and Shirley Strickland, she really deserved to win Olympic gold. Instead she had to settle for three silver medals, and a lot of frustrating memories.

At the Munich 1972 Olympics she was beaten twice by an East German athlete who was later proved to have taken part in a doping program. And four years later, in her target event at the Montreal Olympics, the 200m, Boyle was disqualified after being ruled guilty of two false starts.

At the age of just 17, she finished second in the Mexico 1968 City Olympic 200m, beaten by the great Irena Swezinska, of Poland. Her victor in the 100m and 200m in Munich was Renate Stecher, whose credibility was later stained by drug allegations. Her disqualification in Montreal came after she attempted to protest against a starter's call she was convinced was wrong. She was Australia's only track medallist, male or female, between 1968 and 1980.

Lord Burleigh

Full name: David George Brownlow Cecil Burghley

Medals: 1 Gold, 1 Silver (2 Total)

After schooling at Eton and Le Rosey, Switzerland, Lord Burghley went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, and, although he failed to win a blue in his freshman year, he competed in the 110 metre hurdles at the 1924 Olympics as a 19-year-old.

Burghley was Britain's leading all-round hurdler and was also an outstanding relay runner on the flat. At one time, he was the British record holder in all three hurdle events and the 4×400 metre relay.

In the high hurdles he was the first Britain to break the 15 seconds barrier, won three AAA titles, competed in three Olympic Games and was a gold medalist at the 1930 Empire Games. In the 1930 British Empire Games 120 yard hurdles he won the gold medal.

As a 220 yard hurdler he twice set a British record and his 1927 time of 24.7 seconds was not beaten until 1950. He was at his best in the 400 yard/400 metre hurdles winning an Olympic gold medal in 1928, setting one world and seven British records and winning five AAA titles and the gold medal at the 1930 Empire Games.

He also won a relay gold medal at the Empire Games (with Roger Leigh-Wood and the non-Olympians Stuart Townend and Kenneth Brangwin) but his finest performance in this event came in the 1932 Olympic Games when he contributed a 46.7 second stage on the British team which won the silver medals with a new European record of 3:11.2 seconds.

Earlier in the Games, Burghley had finished fifth in the 110 metre hurdles and fourth in the 400 metre hurdles with his fast ever time of 52.2 seconds.

Burghley's one world record came at the 1927 AAA Championships where he ran 54.2 seconds for the 440 yards hurdles, and although the record was reduced to 52.6 seconds on the same day by the American Johnny Gibson in Nebraska, Burghley's performance was accomplished first in absolute time and his name was added to the roll of world record holders. Burghley and Gibson had, in fact, met earlier in the year at Penn Relays with the American winning by half a yard. Later it was found that Gibson was ineligible to compete in this particular collegiate race and Burghley was declared the winner.

Burghley entered Parliament in 1931 as a member for the Peterborough and in 1943, on his appointment as the Governor for Bermuda, he resigned from the House. He also gave many years distinguished service to the Olympic movement and to the sport of track & field. In 1933, at the age of 28, he became a member of the International Olympic Committee and in 1936 he was elected President of the Amateur Athletic Association and Chairman of the British Olympic Association.

Ten years later he became President of the International amateur Athletic Federation and in 1948 he served as Chairman of the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. He failed in a bid for the IOC presidency in 1952 and 1964, but from 1952 to 1966 he served as Vice-President of the IOC.

In 1929 he married Lady Maria Theresa Montague-Douglas-Scott, the daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, and after their marriage dissolved in 1946, he married Mrs Diana Forbes. In 1956, on the death of his father, Lord Burghley became the 6th Marquess of Exeter.

Personal Bests: 400 - 49.7e (1929); 880y - 1:57.8 (1927); 120yH - 14.5 (1930); 220yH - 24.3e (1930); 400H - 52.01 (1932).

Geoff Capes

Born in 1949, Capes, a professional Highland Games competitor, has a dazzling resume. As an athlete he competed for both England and Great Britain in field athletics. His speciality was the shot put, becoming Commonwealth champion twice, European champion twice, and three times Olympic champion. What's more, Capes twice won the title of World's Strongest Man. He was also World Muscle Power champion twice, and held many other titles, including Europe's Strongest Man and Britain's Strongest Man.

At the Highland Games, he was six times world champion and held world records in many events.

Chris Chataway

Former British athlete Sir Chris Chataway died in January 2014 at the age of 82.

Chataway, who broke the 5,000m world record in 1954, is more famously remembered as the man who helped pace Sir Roger Bannister to breaking the four-minute mile barrier the same year.

Bannister described Chataway, who had been suffering from cancer for two and a half years, as "one of my best friends".

Chataway, who won the Commonwealth Games three miles title in the same year, was named the first-ever BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1954. He was knighted for his services to the aviation industry in 1995.

In September 1955, Chataway became the first newsreader on Independent Television, before finishing 11th in the 5,000m at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

He then moved into politics, working as a Conservative MP between 1959 and 1966 and rising to serve as a Parliamentary Private Secretary and junior Education Minister.

Chataway was elected again in 1969 and served further ministerial positions.

In 1974, Chataway retired from politics to concentrate on his business career, becoming managing director of Orion Bank, before leaving in 1988 to work as chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority.

Duncan Clark

Duncan Clark won gold in the British Empire Games in 1950 and bronze in the European Championships in 1946 for the hammer throw. He finished seventh in the shot put at the 1950 British Empire Games and sixth in the 1950 European Championships hammer throw. He competed for Scotland in the British Empire Games.

Personal Best: HT - 54.89 (1951)

Ron Clarke

Ron Clarke won Australia's third bronze medal at successive Olympics in the 10,000 metres in Tokyo in 1964.

Entering Tokyo, Clarke was the reigning world record holder but in the Olympic race he was beaten home by an unknown American Billy Mills and Mohamed Gammoudi of Tunisia. Clarke also finished ninth in the 5,000 metres and the marathon. His marathon result was the best by an Australian since George Blake's sixth at the Intercalated Olympics at Athens 1906.

Clarke was the junior world record holder in the mile when he lit the Olympic Flame at Melbourne in 1956. Earlier that year, at the Australian titles, John Landy famously stopped during the mile, to attend to a fallen Clarke, and then resumed running to win the race.

Clarke competed in the rarefied atmosphere at Mexico City in 1968 where he gallantly finished fifth in the 5,000 metres and sixth in the 10,000 metres. The atmosphere, or lack thereof, and physical exertion caused his dramatic collapse at the end of the longer race, requiring oxygen to be administered to aid his recovery.

Throughout much of the 1960s, Clarke was the dominant distance runner, setting 19 world records. He won four silver medals at the Empire and Commonwealth games from 1962 through to 1970 and he has an Olympic gold medal.

In 1966, Clarke became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) 'in recognition of service to athletics'. He was one of the original inductees into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985.

Richard Corsie

Corsie is thought by many to be the greatest Scottish bowler of all time. When you consider that no fewer than six other Scots - Bob Sutherland, John Watson, Hugh Duff, David Gourlay, Paul Foster and Alex Marshall - have won the principal prize in the sport, the World Indoor Singles, and the likes of Willie Wood have appeared in seven Commonwealth Games and eight World Outdoor Championships, that is no mean feat.

He was first capped outdoor in 1984 and appeared in every Scotland team from then until 1998. In his home city of Edinburgh in 1986 he made his Commonwealth Games debut at the age of 19, winning bronze in the singles. He repeared the achievement in Auckland four years later before finally striking gold in Victoria, Canada in 1994, defeating England's Tony Allcock in the singles final.

Born: November 1966, Edinburgh

1983-1993: Worked as a postman

Bowling career highlights: Scottish junior champion (outdoor) 1983; World indoor champion 1989, 1991, 1993; Commonwealth Games singles gold medallist; 1994 49 caps for Scotland; Awarded MBE in 1999.

Steve Cram

Along with fellow Britons Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, Stephen "Steve" Cram MBE was one of the world's dominant middle distance runners during the 1980s.

Nicknamed "The Jarrow Arrow", Cram set world records in the 1,500 metres, 2,000 metres and the mile during a 19-day period in the summer of 1985. He was the first man to run 1,500 metres under three minutes and 30 seconds. He won the 1,500 metres gold medal at the 1983 World Championships and the 1,500 metres silver medal at the 1984 Olympic Games.

He won the BBC Sports Personality of the year in 1983, and received an MBE in 1986.

Cram began his broadcast career in 1995 with Eurosport and joined the BBC in 1998. He is the Chief Athletics' commentator and has co-presented the last three Summer Olympic Games as well as the Winter Olympics in 2002 and 2010. Cram led the ESPN coverage of the Diamond League, the premier international athletics series, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 5 Live, hosting popular shows such as 606 and Sunday Sport.

Lynn Davies

Davies became the first Welshman to win an individual Olympic gold medal in the Men's Long Jump at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, where he also competed in the 100 metres and 4 x 100 metres relay.

In 1966 he won Commonwealth and European Games gold medals, becoming the first British athlete to hold all three major titles. Four years later, he became Commonwealth champion again at the 1970 Edinburgh Games. His British long jump record stood for 34 years.

He competed in three Olympic Games - Tokyo (1964), Mexico (1968) and Munich (1972) where he was captain of the team. At the Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 Olympics, Davies was Team Manager to the British Athletics Team.

His roles in sport administration and management include Technical Director to the Canadian Athletics Team, member of the Sports Council for Wales, Chairman SportsMatch Cymru.

He is currently the President of UK Athletics, the national governing body, and is a Vice-President of the British Olympic Association.

He has won the BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year title on three occasions and was elected to the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame and Welsh Athletics Hall of Fame.

In 2006, he was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) having previously received the MBE.

Jonathan Edwards

The son of a Church of England vicar, triple jumpers Edwards was originally equally famous for his refusal to compete on a Sunday for religious reasons as for his prowess.

Edwards won the World Cup in 1989, a Commonwealth Games silver medal in 1990 and, after reversing his decision on Sunday competition, a bronze medal at the 1993 World Championships, but it paled in comparison to what happened in his career after 1995.

He had shown early season form by breaking the national record but that didn't prepare anyone for what was to occur next.

At the European Cup in France, Edwards produced the two longest, albeit wind-assisted, leaps in history and jumped nearly a quarter-metre further than any previous jump and 46 cm more than the official world record. Over the next few weeks he broke or equaled the British record four times then put a centimeter on Willie Banks' world record at a meeting in Spain.

At the Worlds in Stockholm his first leap was 18.16 m, which marked the first legal 18 m jump, and later in the competition he broke the world record again with 18.29 metres, the first ever mark beyond the Imperial barrier of 60 feet. This record has stood for 18 years and remains the only jump ever over 60 feet.

Between the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics he maintained his position as one of the world's best jumpers. He won a silver and bronze at theWorld Championships and became European Champion in 1998. Edwards finally became Olympic champion in his fourth appearance at the Games in 2000.

He regained the world title in 2001 then won his first Commonwealth Games gold medal, at the age of 36, in 2002 but could only finish third at that year's European Championships. He was expected to compete at a fifth Olympics in 2004 but elected to retire after a poor performance at the 2003 World Championships.

Personal Best: TJ - 18.29 (1995)

Herb Elliot

Although Herb Elliott had a somewhat short career as a competitive athlete from 1957-62, he is still considered one of the greatest middle-distance runners in the world, and many experts believe he was the greatest ever at 1,500 metres.

During his career Elliott lost only one 1,500m/mile race and broke four minutes for the mile 17 times. He rose to fame at the 1958 Commonwealth Games, where he won both the 880 yds and the mile.

A few weeks later, Elliott set a mile world record of 3 minutes 54.5seconds in Dublin and broke the 1,500 m record in Göteberg by running 3 minutes 36 seconds. He also won the 1958 AAU mile and, with those achievements, was selected as the male athlete of the year by the Associated Press.

Elliott went to the 1960 Olympics as a clear favorite for the 1,500m gold and won the Olympic title with a world record time of three minutes 35.6 seconds. After the Olympics Elliott enrolled at Cambridge University and ended his sporting career in 1962.

Personal Best: 1500 - 3:35.6 (1960)