The delayed Tokyo Olympics has all the makings of a watershed between generations of athletes. With no competing nation at the Games does that look more likely on paper than with the USA.
As with all Olympic squads, there will be a blend of youth and experience. While veterans of this grand sporting stage such as sprinter Allyson Felix, who we interviewed before the last Games in Rio, will be looking to represent their country one more time, for others it passes them by.
It was recently confirmed that one of the all-time greats of women’s tennis and former two-time Olympic singles champion Serena Williams would miss Tokyo, according to CNN. As she turns 40 in the fall, it is almost certain this was her last chance to compete at the ultimate sporting gala.
Team USA have other hopefuls for women’s tennis, based on the ever-fluid WTA rankings from the professional tour. In track and field, meanwhile, such is the strength in depth of American athletes that run, jump, or throw that the US Trials are like a mini-Olympics in themselves.
New Breed More Impressive Than Ever in Trials
This school of hard knocks and tough competition just for successful athletes to punch their tickets to major championships readies them for the ultimate challenge. There are disappointments for many, and big reputations count for nothing if you do not deliver on the track or out in the field.
Justin Gatlin was a mainstay of American men’s sprinting for much of the last two decades, but trying to reach a fourth Olympic Games as he nears 40 was just a step too far. Oregon Live reported that he limped out of the final, which was his final chance to make another appearance at the Olympics.
Such is the quantity and quality that has come through the US collegiate system that this country produced six guys running the 100m in a season’s best time of under 9.90 seconds this year.
If US Trials men’s 200m winner and reigning world champion Noah Lyles, who turns 24 before the Olympics, makes Gatlin feel old, the men’s 400m world leader Randolph Ross was born in 2001! America’s gold medal hopes are many and plenty are in their early 20s.
Grant Holloway, another who delighted in Doha at the last World Athletics Championships in 2019, was just a hundredth of a second outside the men’s 100m hurdles world record at the US Trials. This has also been a vintage year for the longer distance hurdle race too with Raj Benjamin running the third fastest time in history in Eugene only for Norway’s Karsten Warholm to smash the world record on home soil at the Bislett Games in Oslo just days later.
US Firm Favorites for Most Gold Medals
New names and fresh faces are popping up everywhere on the road to the Games of the XXXII Olympiad. In the field, JuVaughn Harrison has been a revelation in both the sandpit for the long jump and clearing the bar in the high jump. He is just 22 years of age. The youngest member of the American track team is Athing Mu at 19-years-old, but an exceptional talent at 800m after setting the world lead time for two laps. She’s also among the top five women in the world over 400m this year too.
We may not know this new breed of American track and field athletes as well as icons of the sport such as Felix, Michael Johnson and others from previous generations, but their performances just to make it to the Olympics have seen some serious markers laid down. With so many gold medals up for grabs through running, jumping and from the throws, it’s no wonder that the USA are -700 favorites, as of 5 July, in the sports betting on offer with Betway on which country brings the most home from Tokyo.
Track and field are just one major piece in a wider puzzle at this festival of sport. Team sports that are popular in America like basketball are expected to yield more Olympic golds for the USA, with the action in different disciplines coming thick and fast. They won’t have everything their own way, but the collegiate system produces battle-hardened competitors who have been training to peak at these Games.
