Track and field storylines; how many medals for USA?

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TOKYO — Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium will host one of many marquee Olympic sports activities, monitor and area, from Thursday to Aug. 7.

There received’t be any spectators within the stands at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium, nevertheless, there’s nonetheless loads of anticipation surrounding this 12 months’s monitor and area competitors.

On the 2016 Olympics, the U.S. led all nations with 32 monitor and area medals. Kenya was the runner up with 13 medals and Jamaica’s 11 total medals was third.

Will the USA win the monitor and area medal depend once more? Is the absence of followers going to have an effect on athletes? How will Jamaica truthful with out the quickest man of all time, Usain Bolt?

USA TODAY Sports activities examines eight monitor and area storylines because the Olympics are set to start.

Trayvon Bromell (second from left) is the favorite to win the 100 meters in Tokyo, but he will face a challenge from U.S. teammate Ronnie Baker (second from right).

Who will win gold in males’s 100 meters?

Usain Bolt’s reign within the quick sprints is over, which suggests the crown for the quickest man alive is up for the taking.

U.S. sprinter Trayvon Bromell is the favourite to win the lads’s 100 meters in Tokyo. Bromell owns two of the 4 quickest instances on the planet because the 2016 Olympics. He ran a 9.80 to win the U.S. Olympic trials within the 100 meters.

Bromell ought to face heavy competitors from teammate Ronnie Baker, Akani Simbine of South Africa and Andre De Grasse of Canada.

A U.S. sprinter hasn’t received an Olympic gold medal within the 100 meters since Justin Gatlin did it on the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Bromell is hungry to get the U.S. again on high of the rostrum.

“We get so complacent with who we’re. For me I am always diving into information about how I can get higher not solely as a human however as an athlete,” Bromell stated. “I really feel with confidence generally comes complacency. I come from the hood, nothing was simple for me, and so each time I’m going to coaching, I really feel I’ve the whole lot to lose. I have a look at it like getting out of the state of affairs I was in.”

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce may make historical past

Sha’Carri Richardson’s one-month suspension on account of testing optimistic for marijuana lessened the hype across the girls’s 100 meters. Nevertheless, the Dallas, Texas, native wouldn’t have been the favourite even if she was taking part. That distinction belongs to two-time 100-meter Olympic gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica. Fraser-Pryce, 34, enters the Tokyo Olympics with a world-leading time of 10.63.

Fellow Jamaican and 2016 Olympic champion within the girls’s 100 meters, Elaine Thompson-Herah, upset Fraser-Pryce in a showdown on the Gyulai István Memorial in Hungary in early July.

Fraser-Pryce, who’s already probably the most adorned sprinters in historical past, may put herself in uncommon air. No girl in historical past has received three Olympic gold medals within the girls’s 100 meter.

Fraser-Pryce and Thompson-Herah are the headliners within the girls’s 100 meters.

What does shot put Ryan Crouser do for an encore?

Crouser tossed a large 76 ft, 8¼ inches throw on the U.S. Olympic trials to interrupt a 31-year-old world report beforehand held by former U.S. thrower Randy Barnes in 1990 (Barnes later obtained a lifetime ban after failing a number of doping exams).

Crouser is trying to grow to be Staff USA’s first back-to-back Olympic champion within the shot put since Parry O’Brien (1952 Helsinki, 1956 Melbourne), and concurrently, enhance on his world report.

“It’s at all times about going out and attempting to additional my PR… I believe I can go farther. I believe 77 is unquestionably doable,” Crouser stated. “If we are able to transfer as much as 77 (ft) and even simply larger within the 76s then I will be blissful.”

On the ladies’s aspect, the competitors for 3 medals needs to be fierce. U.S. shot putters Jessica Ramsey and Raven Saunders, China’s Lijiao Gong and two-time Olympic gold medalist Valerie Adams are the favorites within the occasion.

Athing Mu enters her first Olympics with loads of expectations

NBC monitor and area analyst Ato Boldon referred to as Athing Mu monitor’s subsequent famous person on the U.S. Olympic trials. The center-distance sensation may formally grow to be famous person standing on the Tokyo Olympics.

After breaking quite a few collegiate data throughout her freshman 12 months at Texas A&M, Mu turned professional throughout the trials. The 19-year-old then proceeded to win the ladies’s 800 meters by working a world-leading 1:56.07.

Mu’s rise to the highest of the ladies’s 800 meters has been speedy. She may solidify herself as one of many faces of ladies’s monitor and area on the Tokyo Olympics. The 19-year-old is assured heading into her first Olympics.

“Gaining confidence has contributed to my dominance to this point within the 800. Being good at it, understanding it is my occasion,” Mu stated.

World report watch within the hurdles

Grant Holloway got here near breaking Aries Merritt’s 110-meter hurdles world report in his U.S. Olympic trials semifinal warmth, ending one-hundredth of a second behind the all-time mark with a time of 12.81 seconds. The 23-year-old went on to win the ultimate with a time of 12.96.

The boys’s 110-meter hurdles world report may fall in Tokyo. Holloway is in glorious type.

On the ladies’s aspect, Keni Harrison clinched an Olympic berth on the trials successful the ladies’s 100-meter hurdles in a season-best time of 12.47. The ladies’s 100-meter hurdles world-record holder is aiming for her first Olympic gold after failing to make the crew in 2016.

The boys’s 400-meter hurdles incorporates a showdown between Karsten Warholm and Rai Benjamin. Warholm broke Kevin Younger’s 29-year-old 400-meter hurdles world report by eight tenths of a second when he ran a lifetime better of 46.70 on July 1.

Within the girls’s 400-meter hurdles, Sydney McLaughlin is coming off her personal world-record efficiency. The Kentucky product ran a blistering 51.90 to grow to be the brand new world-record holder. The earlier proprietor of the report will probably be McLaughlin’s hardest competitor in Tokyo, fellow U.S. teammate Dalilah Muhammad. Muhammad can be the reigning Olympic champion and 2019 world champion within the occasion.

“It undoubtedly pulls the perfect out of all people’s competitors once we are on the market on the monitor,” McLaughlin stated. “It’s superior.”

Allyson Felix and Brittney Reese’s remaining Olympics

Two of essentially the most adorned Olympians of all time will take the Olympic monitor and area stage for the ultimate time.

Each Felix and Reese are retiring from Olympic competitors following the Tokyo Video games.

Felix is the one feminine monitor and area athlete to win six Olympic gold medals. The veteran sprinter’s 9 total Olympic medals are tied with former runner Merlene Ottey for many ever by a feminine Olympian in monitor and area historical past.

The 35-year-old is about to compete within the girls’s 400 meters and 4×400-meter relay.

Reese is considered one of 4 girls in American historical past to qualify for the Olympics within the lengthy bounce 4 instances, and he or she’s considered one of 16 girls in historical past to make Staff USA 4 instances in monitor and area.

Reese, 34, received the U.S. trials within the girls’s lengthy bounce. She at the moment has the third finest bounce on the planet this 12 months.

Reese received the ladies’s lengthy bounce on the London 2012 Olympics. She acquired a silver medal on the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The veteran lengthy jumper is decided to get again on high of the rostrum.

“I’m attempting to finish on a optimistic be aware.” Reese stated. “I undoubtedly need to finish my final Olympics with a bang and are available house with a gold.”

Younger stars take centerstage

Staff USA’s monitor and area crew possesses many budding stars on the verge of successful their first Olympic gold medal.

Trayvon Bromell could possibly be the primary American man to win an Olympic gold medal within the 100 meters since 2004.

In hist first Olympics, Noah Lyles is the frontrunner within the males’s 200 meters after working a world-leading 19.74 on the U.S. trials.

Grant Holloway is the clear-cut favourite within the males’s 110-meter hurdles, moreover he’s on the cusp of breaking a world report within the occasion.

USC merchandise Michael Norman and Rai Benjamin are among the many quickest at working one lap across the monitor. Norman posted the second quickest time on the planet this 12 months within the 400 meters whereas Benjamin’s private better of 46.83 within the males’s 400-meter hurdles is thirteen-tenths of a second off Norway’s Karsten Warholm’s world report.

Bromell is the elder statesman of the group and he’s simply 26. Bromell, Lyles, Holloway, Norman and Benjamin could possibly be stars in monitor and area for some time.

On the ladies’s aspect, Harvard graduate Gabby Thomas is contemporary off working the third quickest 200 meters time in historical past. Thomas’ 21.61 within the 200 meters broke a U.S. trials report. Her time trails solely Florence Griffith Joyner, who went 21.34 and 21.56 in 1988.

World-record holder Keni Harrison is out for redemption after failing to qualify for the 2016 Olympics. Harrison has the third quickest time on the planet this 12 months, however the 100-meter hurdles runner is in glorious form to take house the gold.

Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad are headed towards a showdown within the 400-meter hurdles. McLaughlin broke the world report on the trials and is in glorious form. However Muhammad, the 2016 gold medalist, may stand in the way in which.

Rising star Athing Mu, 19, received the trials within the 800-meter.

All the girls have the power to carry house the gold.

“It’s actually entertaining for individuals on the skin to observe but in addition us to know that we’re capable of take this to a brand new stage,” McLaughlin stated. “As someone who is part of it, it pushes us to be the perfect that you could be.”

COVID-19 looms massive

The coronavirus pandemic is the commanding storyline over your complete Olympics.

Athletes from numerous sports activities, together with monitor and area, have admitted to feeling nervous in regards to the ongoing pandemic.

On Thursday, two-time world champion pole vaulter Sam Kendricks examined optimistic for COVID-19 and needed to withdraw from the Olympics. Kendricks was a part of a single-day excessive for coronavirus instances with organizers asserting 24 new positives on Thursday, three of which have been athletes.

Main as much as the monitor and area competitors, many athletes stated they’re attempting to do no matter they’ll to reduce the chance of publicity. Nevertheless, the darkish cloud of COVID-19 will grasp over Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium during the monitor and area competitors.