Carissa Moore
Sport: Surfing
Another Hawaiian who makes surfing look much easier than it is, Carissa Moore will be a favorite for gold in Tokyo. She’s currently the top-ranked women’s surfer in the world by a large margin, showing Moore’s game is in peak condition just in time for her to make history. And making history is nothing new for the 28-year-old athlete, who became the youngest surfer to ever win a world title in 2011 and the first woman to ever compete in Hawaii’s prestigious Triple Crown of Surfing.
AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano
Hannah Roberts
Sport: Cycling
BMX racing has been part of the Summer Olympics program since 2008, but Tokyo will see the debut of freestyle BMX. One of the athletes who will have a strong chance to become the first Olympic champion in that event is Indiana-born Hannah Roberts. Still just 19 years old, Roberts won a world championship in 2019 after a bronze finish the year before. All you have to do is read an interview with her to know that Roberts is down-to-earth, kind and has a wonderful personality to go with her skills on a bike.
AP Photo/Genaro Armas
Eddy Alvarez
Sport: Baseball
After a gap of 13 years, baseball will be back in the Olympics this time around. Active players signed to MLB teams aren’t eligible to compete in Tokyo, so the roster will consist of talented free agents that include former All-Stars like Matt Kemp and Todd Frazier. Among them will likely be Miami native Eddy Alvarez, who spent some time playing for his hometown Marlins in 2020. Alvarez’s story is very unique as his background is in speedskating, for which he won a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
If Alvarez is part of the final Team USA baseball roster and earns a medal, he would be only the sixth person to ever medal at both the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics, and only the third American to do so.
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
DeAnna Price
Sport: Track and Field
Missouri’s hammer-throwing DeAnna Price worked her way into the history books in the weeks leading up to the Tokyo Games. After a recent diagnosis with celiac disease that weakened her and a bout with an illness in April that made her “miserable,” Price showed up at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials and became only the second woman in history to throw a 4-kilogram (8.8-pound) ball and chain farther than 80 meters (roughly 262 feet). It was the longest throw ever for an American woman and gives her the country’s best chance for its first medal ever in the women’s hammer throw event.
AP Photo/Ashley Landis
Gabby Thomas
Sport: Track and Field
If you’re excited to watch the sprinting events at the Tokyo Games, you’ll almost surely be hearing about Atlanta-born Gabby Thomas. The 24-year-old flash amazed the athletics world at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials when she ran the second-fastest time ever recorded in the women’s 200-meter dash. That came days after doctors discovered a benign tumor on Thomas’s liver that had been nagging her on the track.
Thomas has called teammate Allyson Felix her “biggest inspiration” and told TeamUSA.org that “being on the team with her makes me want to cry.”
AP Photo/Ashley Landis
Noah Lyles
Sport: Track and Field
Despite having already racked up gold medals at sprinting competitions around the world — including two at the 2019 world championships — Tokyo will be Noah Lyles’ first time racing at the Olympics. Like his teammate Gabby Thomas, the 23-year-old Floridian ran the world’s fastest time of 2021 in the 200-meter dash, securing his spot on the roster for Tokyo, making him a favorite for gold. If he pulls that off, he’ll be the first American man to do so in that event since 2004.
Sunisa Lee
Sport: Gymnastics
Plenty of athletes competing in Tokyo have stories about hardships related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Sunisa Lee’s story is as tough as they come. The Minnesota native lost both her aunt and uncle to the disease and lived in constant fear of infecting her father, who has been paralyzed from the chest down since an accident in 2019. Despite all those mental obstacles, Lee earned a spot on the ultra-competitive women’s gymnastics team and will be a favorite to win gold in the uneven bars. Her routine in that event has been called the most challenging one being performed in the world today.
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson