What To Look For As Track And Field Begins : Live Updates: The Tokyo Olympics : NPR

JuVaughn Harrison competes within the males’s lengthy soar closing on the Olympic trials in June. He’ll compete in each the lengthy soar and excessive soar within the Olympics.

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JuVaughn Harrison competes within the males’s lengthy soar closing on the Olympic trials in June. He’ll compete in each the lengthy soar and excessive soar within the Olympics.

Andy Lyons/Getty Photos

For a few of us, the Olympics do not actually get began till the runners take the beginning line and the javelins go flying. Each 4 years — or on this case, 5 — we rejoice when the hours of swimming coverage give technique to wall-to-wall athletics, because the Olympics and different nations name observe and area.

Listed below are a number of storylines to observe for, because the tracksters lace up their spikes and occasions kick off in Japan.

JuVaughn Harrison is a double-threat jumper

JuVaughn Harrison received each the excessive soar and the lengthy soar on the U.S. Olympic trials final month. Which means the 22-year-old will compete in each occasions in Tokyo, making him the primary man to signify the U.S. in each occasions on the Olympics since Jim Thorpe in 1912.

“Doubling in excessive and lengthy soar is uncommon,” said Marquis Dendy, who positioned second to Harrison within the lengthy soar trials. “It is superb. He is an important expertise. It is all types of loopy.”

U.S. sprinters goal to take Bolt’s mantle

For the primary time since Athens 2004, there will be no Usain Bolt scorching the Olympic observe.

Which means a bevy of sprinters can be vying to be the brand new fastest man in the world – and lots of of them are on Group USA.

The U.S. has the potential to take the primary and two spots within the males’s 100 meters, as Trayvon Bromell and Ronnie Baker have every notched blazingly quick instances this 12 months.

Within the 200 meters, look ahead to Noah Lyles. After narrowly lacking a spot on the 2016 group, Lyles received the occasion on the Olympic trials final month — within the fastest time this year.

And after a 12 months through which he says he stopped having enjoyable on the observe, that success introduced the fun again. “My first feeling is, ‘Shoot, that was exhausting, however gosh, that was enjoyable,” Lyles said afterward.

Attempting to catch him can be U.S. teammates Kenny Bednarek and Erriyon Knighton – all three of their first Olympic Video games. Knighton is the U.S. squad’s youngest observe and area athlete: He is simply 17, and nonetheless in highschool in Tampa, Fla.

Michael Norman and Michael Cherry rejoice after ending first and second within the 400-meter closing on the U.S. Olympic trials final month. Each will compete within the 400-meter occasion in Tokyo.

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Michael Norman and Michael Cherry rejoice after ending first and second within the 400-meter closing on the U.S. Olympic trials final month. Each will compete within the 400-meter occasion in Tokyo.

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Michael Norman is a medal favourite within the 400 meters. He missed out on making the group in Rio, however he is solely gotten sooner. And he is obtained a connection to the host nation: His mom, Nabue Saito, was born in Japan. Norman has been engaged on studying Japanese within the runup to the Video games.

The Video games welcome a brand new occasion: the 4×400 blended relay

Making its Olympic debut is a “blended” 4×400 meter occasion through which every relay group consists of two girls and two males.

A giant a part of the technique in any relay is within the order of every group’s runners. It is very true on this occasion, on condition that the male 400-meter runners on the Olympics are about 6 seconds faster than the feminine runners on the similar distance — and it is as much as every group to resolve which lineup of group members can be best.

So, as an example, a group might resolve to have its males run the primary two legs, and the ladies operating the ultimate two legs, or have the lads go first and final, with the ladies operating the center two legs.

The U.S. won the event — and set the world file — on the 2019 World Championships, with the group of Wilbert London, Allyson Felix, Courtney Okolo and Michael Cherry, operating in that order.

It is not but determined who can be on the U.S. group for relays on the Olympics — there’s a pool from which members can be chosen. All the 2019 World Championship winners are on the Olympics, besides Okolo.

Aliphine Tuliamuk poses after profitable the ladies’s U.S. Olympic marathon group trials in February 2020 in Atlanta.

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Aliphine Tuliamuk poses after profitable the ladies’s U.S. Olympic marathon group trials in February 2020 in Atlanta.

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This marathoner turned a mom — after qualifying for the Olympics

And should you’re searching for simply how a lot can change in a 12 months, look no additional than Aliphine Tuliamuk. She took the top spot at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials again in February 2020.

Then the pandemic modified every part, and the 2020 Olympics was pushed till the next summer season. Tuliamuk and her companion determined to make use of the time a bit in another way: to begin a household.

Tuliamuk gave birth to a daughter in January – leaving her lower than seven months to arrange for the Olympics.

Allyson Felix is again on the observe

Allyson Felix is probably the best-known of the U.S. runners competing in Tokyo. An Olympian for the reason that 2004 Athens Video games, Felix has already captured six Olympic golds and three silvers.

If she medals in Tokyo, she would match – and even surpass – Carl Lewis’ file 10 medals for a U.S. observe and area athlete.

She’ll be on the observe for the 400 meters — and he or she may additionally be chosen for a number of relays.

Allyson Felix sprints in a 400 meter qualifying warmth throughout the 2020 U.S. Olympic Observe & Subject Trials finally month in Eugene, Ore.

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Allyson Felix sprints in a 400 meter qualifying warmth throughout the 2020 U.S. Olympic Observe & Subject Trials finally month in Eugene, Ore.

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She’s now 35, and gave start to her daughter Camryn in 2018, a troublesome expertise that led her to criticize the maternity policies of Nike, her then-sponsor. Nike quickly changed its maternity coverage for its sponsored athletes.

Felix and her present sponsor, Athleta, just lately introduced a $200,000 fund to assist cowl childcare prices for feminine athletes with kids.

Coronavirus testing is the primary hurdle

Earlier than any athlete can show they’re the quickest, highest or strongest, they need to go a unique form of check: One which reveals they do not have the coronavirus.

The virus is already shaping the sector of rivals in Tokyo.

American pole vaulter Sam Kendricks, who received the final two world championships, was simply knocked from the competitors by a optimistic coronavirus check.

So as a substitute of hurling himself into the air over an impossibly excessive bar within the coming days, he is isolating in a Tokyo lodge room. His father and coach said on Instagram that Kendricks “is not sick.”

And Kendricks’ optimistic check has an impression on different athletes, too.

Three Australian athletes had temporary contact with Kendricks, which meant the nation’s whole group was put into isolation for a pair hours whereas they had been examined for the virus. The three athletes who interacted with Kendricks stay in isolation, per official protocols, although all of them examined damaging.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce pursues 100-meter gold

The quickest U.S. feminine sprinter will not be within the beginning blocks in Tokyo.

Sha’Carri Richardson received the 100-meter sprint on the U.S. Olympic trials, however was suspended after testing positive for THC, the intoxicant present in marijuana. She mentioned she had used the drug as a consequence of “emotional panic” after studying of her organic mom’s dying a number of days earlier than the trials.

However Richardson wasn’t the sprinter with the quickest time this 12 months — that will be Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

In June, Fraser-Pryce notched a time within the 100 meters faster than any woman in history except American observe star Florence Griffith Joyner. She was stunned by her personal pace: “I by no means anticipated I’d run 10.6 and assume it is a good factor as a result of there was no strain,” she said.

To win in Tokyo, Fraser-Pryce might want to fend off stiff competitors from Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith and her fellow Jamaicans Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson Herah, the defending 100 meter Olympic champion.