In May she executed a vault so technically advanced that other gymnasts won’t even attempt it, and in June she coasted to the title at the United States Gymnastics Championships.
Lee, 18, proved her fortitude at nationals in 2019, winning a gold medal on the uneven bars just days after her father sustained a spinal cord injury in a fall from a ladder.
Williams, 39, is among the greatest tennis players of all time, but she has not won a major tournament since giving birth to her first daughter in 2017.
Osaka, who grew up in the United States but is a Japanese citizen, is arguably her country’s biggest sports star right now, a megawatt celebrity whose every move is tracked.
When Manuel won the 100-meter freestyle at the Rio Games, it wasn’t just an exciting race that ended in a dead heat in a fast time.
Ledecky, 24, is a five-time Olympic gold medalist who is the two-time defending Olympic champion in the 800-meter freestyle and the reigning champion in the 200 and 400 freestyles.
She distinguished herself at the 2016 Olympics out of the pool, too, criticizing the appearance at the Games of her chief rival, Yulia Efimova of Russia, who had been suspended twice for banned substances.
In 2016, he led off the victorious 4×100-meter freestyle relay, directly ahead of Michael Phelps, whose huge Olympic flippers the United States will now be looking to Dressel to fill.
She almost single-handedly shamed Nike into treating female athletes better when she broke confidentiality clauses and spoke about how the company cut her pay and pushed for a quick return to competition after she became a mother.
Kipchoge is the best marathoner ever, the only man to run a marathon in under two hours, and he has basically become a distance running Yoda who speaks in parables about sport and life: “Only the disciplined ones in life are free.
Considered one of track and field’s rising stars since she was a high school prodigy in New Jersey, McLaughlin established herself on the international stage in 2019, when, at age 20, she placed second at the world championships in the 400-meter hurdles.
Given his age and his personal best in the 200 meters, 19.50, he might be within shouting distance of Usain Bolt’s world record of 19.19.
Miller-Uibo was the Bahamian flag-bearer at the 2016 Olympic Games, then went out and won the 400 meters by diving across the line to edge Allyson Felix.
Richardson, 21, is primed to be the it-girl of American track and field if she fulfills the promise that she has shown in just a few short years of elite competition.
Had the Olympics taken place as scheduled, Morgan would almost certainly have had to sit them out: She gave birth to her first child in May 2020 and was rushing that summer to regain her fitness.
An artful winger, she has become the biggest name in women’s soccer for both her rousing play on the field and her willingness to speak cogently, and often hilariously, on any number of social issues.
Her partner, Ross, teamed up at the Rio Games with Kerri Walsh Jennings, the three-time Olympic gold medalist.
But can he win a gold medal? Ondra splits his time between the fake-wall competition circuit, where he has won many world championships, and the real-rock big walls that make him legendary among outdoor climbers.
Garnbret is the best women’s competitive climber in the world, winning a slew of major contests the past few years in the boulder and lead disciplines.
The two have traded positions at the top of the sport since: Gilmore took the crown in 2012, 2014 and 2018, and Moore in 2013, 2015 and 2019.
Once a child star of the sport, now a 26-year-old veteran with millions of social media followers around the world, Huston has been performing in the sport’s biggest contests for most of his life.
Like surfing, skateboarding is making its long-anticipated Olympic debut four years after the 2016 Rio Olympics, too late for Brazil to celebrate medals at home.
With no age restrictions on competitors, skateboarding promises to infuse the Summer Olympics with a youthful vibe — no more than in the women’s park contest, in which 12-year-old Sky Brown of Britain and 14-year-old Misugu Okamoto of Japan are favorites for the gold medal.
At 19, she is one of two Americans competing in the sport’s Olympic debut, and is a favorite for the event’s first gold medal.
Might a gold medal in Tokyo represent the logical next stage in the steep upward trajectory of her career? The American women have won the gold medal at every Games since 1996, and the 24-year-old forward could play a starring role in their quest to claim another this summer.
This year’s 10th anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan — and specifically the Sendai area, where the Eagles play — is not lost on him.
Ueno, 38, won a bronze medal with Japan in 2004, but four years later she outdueled Osterman in a 3-1 victory in the gold medal game in Beijing, ending the Americans’ run of three consecutive golds.
Feng, 31, is the first Chinese woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association, the first Chinese winner of a major and the first from her country to reach the women’s world No.
Schauffele, 27, a four-time PGA Tour winner who has contended at multiple majors, is an American golfer with ties to Japan through his mother, Ping-Yi Chen, who was born in Taiwan but raised in Japan.
The great news for Harrison is that her event, women’s canoe, is being added to the Olympic program for Tokyo.
But in the boathouses and on the docks, there is no more revered figure than the single sculler, who takes on exhausting races with no teammates to help.
Harimoto was 14 years old in 2017 when he became the youngest winner of an International Table Tennis Federation World Tour men’s singles title.
Watching a team handball game, it’s hard not to be impressed by the athletic leaps of the attackers, hurling the ball toward the goal while eluding defenders.
Poland has never been volleyball royalty, but then it has never had a player like Leon.