Britain's Chef de Mission Paul Ford selected the two athletes from the team of 178 to carry the flag into the Henryk Reyman Stadium later today.

Brown is the women's rugby sevens co-captain for Britain, and hoping for a third appearance at the Olympic Games at Paris 2024.

The Henryk Reyman Stadium is also due to be the venue for her competition at the European Games from Sunday (June 25) until Tuesday (June 27).

She admitted, "I never thought this would be something I'd get the chance to do", but expects it to be "a really special moment for me, but also a really special moment for my team".

Clarke won the men's K1 event at Rio 2016, and is a back-to-back world champion in men's extreme K1.

Men's K1 team competition at the Kolna Sports Centre in Kraków is due to be held on June 29, with individual event on July 1.

Clarke said it is "an absolute honour to be one of the flagbearers" and "something you dream of".

Ford explained the selection of the two athletes.

"Being given the honour of leading Team GB out at a Games is a big milestone in an athlete’s career, and when I spoke to both Abbie and Joe you could hear the excitement in their voices," he said.

"Both are world class performers and leaders whose values represent what the entire team is here to do: be highly competitive, advance qualification for Paris 2024, and embrace being part of One Team GB."

Britain's previous European Games flagbearers were two-time Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams at Baku 2015 and Olympic judo bronze medallist Sally Conway at Minsk 2019.

The country ranked third on the medals table at Baku 2015 with 18 golds, but slipped to ninth with just six at Minsk 2019.

Kraków-Małopolska 2023 is due to run until July 2.