There won't be any theatrics from Usain Bolt after this race since the world-record holder retired in 2017. The triple Olympic gold medalist will be watching from home as an American possibly takes gold in this event for the first time since Justin Gatlin won gold in 2004. Christian Coleman, the 2019 world champion and the sixth-fastest man in history, is not competing since he is serving a suspension for missing three drug tests in a 12-month span. Trayvon Bromell, 26,has filled the void as the fastest man of the year with a personal best of 9.77.
In 2016, he made the Olympic final and finished eighth but was competing with a heel injury that ultimately led to him being taken off the track in a wheelchair. He underwent two surgeries on his Achilles but the extra year allowed him more time to return to top form and he won the U.S. In Tokyo, he'll face stiff competition from his compatriot Ronnie Baker (9.85 SB), 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Andre De Grasse of Canada (9.99 SB) and South Africa's Akani Simbine, who ran an African record of 9.84 on July 6. In 2021, Crouser took things up a notch when he broke the world indoor shot put record in January and then took down the outdoor world record of 23.12 by Randy Barnes, which had stood since 1990, with a monster 23.37m toss at trials. Crouser has recorded more than 130 throws farther than 22 meters in his career. He can become the first back-to-back Olympic gold medalist since Parry O'Brien won in 1952 and 1956.
Usain Bolt claimed gold in this event at the last three Olympics, so a new champion will be crowned in Tokyo. The 24-year-oldNoah Lyles has taken up Bolt's mantle as the dominant half-lapper with a gold medal from the 2019 world championships along with the eighth-fastest time in history with a 19.50 personal best. Lyles's biggest challenge may come from 17-year-old Erriyon Knighton, who ran 19.88 at the U.S. Knighton is the youngest man to make the U.S. track and field Olympic team since Jim Ryun in 1964. Valarie Allman won Team USA's first gold medal in Tokyo with a breakthrough performance in the women's discus.
The national champion won the event with a throw of 68.98 meters, beating silver medalist Kristin Pudenz of Germany and bronze medalist Yaimé Pérez of Cuba. Pérez won gold at the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar while Allman finished seventh at the championship two years ago. Greece's Katerina Stefanidi has not missed a podium since her Olympic gold medal in 2016.
She took gold a year later at the world championships before settling for bronze in 2019. Russian Anzhelika Sidorova won gold at the 2019 world championships and has the second-highest vault of 2021 with a 4.91m clearance. However, a new star has emerged in Team USA's Katie Nageotte, whose 4.95m clearance took the top spot at trials.
Nagoette's only previous appearance at a world championship or Olympics was her seventh place finish at the 2019 world championships, but she's undefeated this season in her two Diamond League appearances. Sandi Morris, the 2016 Olympic silver medalist and 2017 and '19 world championship silver medalist, looks to become just the second U.S. woman with two Olympic medals. Brittney Reese doesn't get enough credit for her brilliance as one of the most accomplished U.S. track and field athletes of all time. She's a four-time world champion and has a gold medal from the 2012 Olympics. She snagged silver at the 2016 Summer Games behind teammate Tianna Bartoletta.
Olympic trials was the third-best of the year by anyone and she said she was just training through the trials. In Tokyo, she'll have to get past Nigeria's Ese Brume, who leads the world list with a 7.17m mark, and Germany's 2019 world champion Malaika Mihambo, who was fourth at the 2016 Olympics. The U.S.'s young stars could also surprise with NCAA champion Tara Davis and Quanesha Burks (who worked at McDonald's to help her family while growing up).
Felix is one of the most famous track and field athletes in the world. She earned this title by beating Carl Lewis' record, set in 1996. Felix, age 35, said that these were her final Olympic Games. The top rivalry in track and field will be one of the featured events in Eugene as Dunellen native Sydney McLaughlin faces off against reigning gold medalist Dalilah Muhammad in the 400-meter hurdles.
McLaughlin ran the race in the second-fastest time ever in the 2019 world championships, only to finish seven hundredths of a second behind Muhammad's world record of 52.16 seconds. Mondo Duplantis has been a prodigy in this event since high school and, at 21 years old, already holds the world record for the pole vault outdoors (6.15m) and indoors (6.18m). He was born and raised in Louisiana, but competes for Sweden since his mother is Swedish and he spent many summers training and growing up there.
Renaud Lavillenie,who was the 2012 Olympic champion, has seen a resurgence in 2021 with the second-highest vault of the year at 5.92m. He could become just the second man in history to medal three times at the Olympics. U.S. Olympic Trials champion Chris Nilsen and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Sam Kendricks will also be in the mix as the U.S. seeks its first gold medal since Timothy Mack won in 2004.
Dutch star Jorinde van Klinken, 21, is having the season of her life with a 70.22m throw in May and then a win at the NCAA championships for Arizona State. She was a world junior championship bronze medalist in 2018 but could get her first senior medal in Tokyo. Valarie Allman set the U.S. record of 70.15 last year and sits at No. 2 in the world with her 70.01m toss to win at the Olympic trials. Only two U.S. women have ever won gold in this event—Lillian Copeland and Stephanie Brown Trafton . The Olympic gold medal can stay in the hands of an American if JuVaughn Harrison takes gold in this event. You might be thinking, "Didn't I just see that name above under the high jump section?" Yes, you sure did.
Harrison is the first U.S. man to do both events at the Olympics since Jim Thorpe in 1912. The reigning NCAA champion in both events won at the Olympic trials in a personal best jump of 8.47m. Greece's Miltiádis Tentóglou tops the world list with a best of 8.60m. World champion Tajay Gayle of Jamaica and 2019 bronze medalist Juan Miguel Echevarría are also seeking their first Olympic medals.
In one of the tightest finishes of the Games, Italy secured another Olympic gold medal in the men's 4x100-meter relay. The race came down to the anchor leg with Filippo Tortu passing race-leader Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Great Britain just before the finish line. The Italian team, which also included Lorenzo Patta, Olympic 100-meter champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs, and Eseosa Fostine Desalu, finished in 37.50 to win gold and set a new national record. The 2021 Tokyo Olympics are hitting the main stretch this week as track & field opens up. While Usain Bolt won't be running in this year's Olympics, there's still plenty of star power across the board, including Noah Lyles on the men's side Erriyon Knighton as well as Gabby Thomas and Allyson Felix on the women's side.
Also keep an eye out for the likes of Ryan Crouser to see if he can set any more records in shot put. Among those not present at the games will be Sha'Carri Richardson, who finished tops in the women's 100 meters before testing positive for marijuana. This year's track and field coverage will be available to watch during primetime NBC broadcasts. Fans can also stream those broadcasts via Peacock and fuboTV . Poland's Anita Włodarczyk is the greatest women's hammer thrower of all time with the world record (82.98m), the top 15 throws in history, four world championship gold medals and the last two Olympic gold medals. However, she has not been as dominant since undergoing season-ending knee surgery in July 2019, and her season's best of 77.93 is just third in the world.
The top honors go to DeAnna Price, who bettered her own U.S. record with an 80.31m toss to win at the Olympic trials. Fellow U.S. throwerBrooke Anderson is No. 2 with a 78.18m personal best from April. Any medal would be a first for the Team USA since no woman has cracked the top five at the Olympics since the women's event debuted in 2000. At the 2016 Olympics, Michelle Carter made history as the first American woman to win the Olympic shot put. Carter underwent surgery to remove a benign tumor in her ankle and will not defend her title.
China's Gong Lijiao is missing the gold medal to go along with her silver from 2012 and bronze from 2008. After finishing fourth at the 2016 Olympics, she won the 2017 and 2019 world championships and heads to Japan with the longest throw of the year at 20.39m. Prior to the Olympics, the 21 year-old was the current world record holder in the women's 400m hurdles, with a time of 51.90 seconds. She is now the only woman in history to run the event in under 52 seconds. In the race, McLaughlin, who grew up in New Jersey, competed against the former world champion, fellow American Dalilah Muhammad.
McLaughlin ended up sailing to gold, beating her own world record by finishing in 51.46 seconds. On her 22nd birthday and three days after winning gold in the 400 meter hurdles, Sydney McLaughlin took the first leg and had the fastest time out of the blocks. Allyson Felix, 35, followed her bronze medal in the 400 meters with a 49.38-second second lap to maintain the lead.
The US men haven't gone that far in their public disappointment, and here's hoping they won't. They won individual medals in the 100m, the 200m (silver and bronze!), the 5000m, the 110m hurdles and the 400m hurdles . The US track and field team as a whole won the most golds of any squad at these games, with seven. Overall, they won 26 total medals, 17 more than Jamaica, Kenya and Poland, who are tied for the second-most although six of the US's seven golds were won by the women's team.
One of the Olympics' most anticipated sports, track and field, is underway at the 2021 Games in Tokyo. The U.S., which owns the most track and field gold medals in Olympic history with 335, should quickly rise this year's gold medal leaderboard as a result. Several athletes are worth watching over the course of the track and field schedule — especially Allyson Felix.
A third medal would tie her as the most decorated track and field athlete of all time. Many broadcasts will fixate on Allyson Felix competing in her fifth Olympics and seeking her 10th Olympic medal to tie Carl Lewis for the most all-time by a U.S. track and field athlete. She has a shot at the medals because many of the fastest women in this event have opted not to contest it in Tokyo.
What's left to accomplish in the sport when you have two Olympic gold medals and the world record? It's a question Ashton Eaton faced after his victory in Rio De Janeiro, which ended up being his final time out on the track. At just 29 years old, he announced his retirement in January 2017 and the sport sought its next decathlon star. At the 2017 world championships, France's Kevin Mayer stepped up. A year after that, he took the world record by posting a score of 9,126 points.
Mayer had to pull out of the 2019 world championships during the pole vault due to an injury. He has recovered and a win in Japan could take him to the 2024 Olympics in Paris as the reigning Olympic champion. Befitting the pandemic Games, just a day before competition started, defending pole vault world champion Sam Kendricks of the U.S. tested positive for COVID-19 and was ruled out of the meet.
The Australian track and field team also went into brief isolation. The Olympic track and field team finished the Games on a high note. The United States sent many formidable athletes to Tokyo, many of whom are bringing home those gold medals. According to the Team USA Track and Field site, this year's Olympians included 13 defending medalists from the 2016 Rio Games, six defending 2019 World Champions, and eight 2021 NCAA Division I Champions. Allyson Felix and Abdi Abdirahman competed in their fifth Olympic Games, while 19 team members were just on their first. An Olympic champion and world record-holder in the 400 meter hurdles.
The most decorated American track and field athlete of all time. Thompson-Herah set a new Olympic record of 10.61 while defending her Olympic 100m title and 21.53 to win back-to-back titles in the 200m. After the Olympics, she ran the fastest series of times in history – 10.54, 10.64, 10.72 and 10.65 – to close out the season as the only woman to run four wind-legal times faster than 10.70.
Gardner, a 2010 graduate of Eastern High, teamed with U.S. track legend Allyson Felix in the Rio Games to win gold in the 4x100-meter relay. Athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field since Willingboro High School grads Carl Lewis and Lamont Smith struck gold in 1996. Grant Holloway is the favorite to win the high hurdles in Tokyo.
In the trials he ran the second-fastest time in history, 12.81, missing the world record by .01 of a second. In college, he ran a 4x400 relay split of 43.75, long jumped 26-9 ½ and recorded the 10th fastest time in NCAA history in the 60-meter dash. Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh finished behind her at the 2019 world championships and has the highest clearance of the year with a 2.03m season best.
Team USA's medal hopes lie in the hands of 23-year-old Vashti Cunningham, the daughter of former Eagles great Randall Cunningham, competing in her second Olympics. Jan Zelezný's world record of 98.48 meters from 1996 is on watch. Germany's Johannes Vetter is the heavy favorite in this event for Tokyo and holds the No. 2 and No. 3 farthest throws in history with a 97.76m personal best set last September and a 96.29m throw for the best mark of 2021. He hasn't lost a competition since taking bronze at the 2019 world championships behind Granada's Anderson Peters and Estonia's Magnus Kirt.
Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica bested the field, running a 10.61—a new Olympic record and fastest time this year—to win gold in Tokyo and claim the title of fastest woman in the world. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson finished second (10.74) and third (10.76), respectively, completing the Jamaican sweep of the podium. Marie-Josée Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast finished fourth in 10.91. Multiple members of Australia's Olympic track and field team were placed in isolation on Thursday after a positive coronavirus case involving US pole vault world champion Sam Kendricks, Athletics Australia said. Fox, 27, won silver in the K-1 slalom competition at the 2012 London Olympics and bronze in the 2016 Rio Games.
This year, for the first time, women will also be competing in C-1 slalom — so Fox, ranked No. 1 in the world, is favored to win not just one but two gold medals. Olympic team in 2016, even though she didn't advance to the finals that year in Rio. She went on to a brief, record-setting stint at Kentucky, where she won an NCAA title in 2018 before turning pro and earning the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships. Olympic Trials set a new world record and marked the first time a woman had broken the 52-second barrier. Katie Nageotte of Team USA celebrates after winning the gold medal in the Women's Pole Vault Final at the Tokyo Olympics.
Fast forward an hour, after she cleared 4.9 and Sidorova missed. Nageotte ran into the stands for hugs, and after sharing congratulations with her competitors on the track, she taped up the pole, had the bar set at 5.01 and geared up for a chance at a new personal record. Never mind that Lyles's time was the fastest he's run all season, that only 16 men have ever finished the race faster than he did this week. And we should totally disregard the fact that Holloway's finish was all of 50 milliseconds slower than the gold medal time. One of the biggest American favorites for gold anywhere at the games is Ryan Crouser, who is to win the men's shot put. Crouser won gold in Rio, set the current world record holder at the last Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon and is the only man in this field to ever throw the 16-pound ball over 23 meters.
