Zoom workouts with her coaches and teammates, walks with her dogs, and alternating fits of housecleaning with Netflix binges got her through the two months her gym was under lockdown. When she was allowed back in for modified workouts, her new coaches, Cecile and Laurent Landi, focused on the fundamentals to make the already unrivaled Biles even better.

Undefeated in the all-around competition in women’s gymnastics since 2013, Biles will essentially be competing against herself in Tokyo. Her signature skills, which test the limits of human ability—and gravity—collect enough difficulty points that she’s often far ahead of her closest competitor. Indeed, for all but a handful of rivals, the competition is essentially over before it begins.

Biles is planning to make history in Tokyo as the first female gymnast to perform a dangerously difficult vault that only men have pulled off at the Games so far. That’s on top of the beam dismount named after her that’s so risky, the International Gymnastics Federation didn’t reward it with a high difficulty value to discourage other gymnasts from trying it and potentially injuring themselves, along with two gravity-­defying tumbling skills that have become hallmarks of her floor routine. The Landis say Biles is not chasing medals, only testing herself to see how far she—and gymnastics—can go.

While Biles’ close-knit family won’t be in Tokyo to cheer her on because of COVID-19 restrictions, they and the dozens of young gymnasts who train with her at the gym her parents own in Spring, Texas, are planning a sleepover and watch party like none other on her competition days. Several hundred people will gather at the gym for food, festivities and a livestream of the action in Tokyo. “We’ll have a huge screen and have a live feed; it’s going to be awesome,” says her mom Nellie. The show should be amazing to watch—even without much suspense. —Alice Park

Titmus has already shown that she’s capable of beating Ledecky; she won in a stunning upset against the U.S. swimmer in the 400-m freestyle at the 2019 world championships, though Ledecky dropped out of two races at that event because of illness. The rivalry between the Australian and U.S. swim teams, a highlight of the Summer Olympics for decades, will be showcased once again in Tokyo. At the trials, 20-year-old Titmus, nicknamed the Terminator, predicted, “I think the Olympics are not going to be all America’s way.” —Amy Gunia

Morgan’s original plan for Tokyo was to play just months after giving birth to her first child, daughter Charlie, in May 2020. With the postponement of the Games, Morgan was able to gradually round into top form for her third Olympics; she scored a goal in a tune-up against France, and was named National Women’s Soccer League player of the month in May, after scoring a goal in each of the first four games with the Orlando Pride this season. —Sean Gregory

Beginning on his shoulder, an eagle with outstretched wings floats atop a growling bear, which sits above a tooth-baring gator (an homage to his alma mater, the University of Florida). Dressel calls them his “spirit animals,” from which he channels the power, ferocity and speed that drove him to a history-­making eight medals at the 2019 world championships (that’s one more than Phelps’ record at the event). The world-record holder in the 100-m butterfly has a shot at seven medals in Tokyo. —Alice Park

The last time baseball was in the Olympics, in 2008, Tanaka also represented Japan; that team lost to the U.S. in the bronze-medal game. “I had a bitter feeling when I played in the Beijing Olympics,” Tanaka said. “This time I want to win a gold medal.” These Games will be particularly meaningful to the home team, which has a rich baseball history. On July 28, Japan will play in Fukushima, site of the 2011 nuclear accident that followed the earthquake and tsunami that killed some 20,000 people. —Sean Gregory

On day five of the swimming competition in Tokyo, the 24-year-old will swim both the 200-m and 1,500-m freestyle finals in the same two-and-a-half-hour session. “I would point out that men do not have that double,” she has said. Will it faze her? Probably not. Ledecky—who missed her graduation from Stanford University because she was competing at the Olympic trials in June, holds three world records and has won five Olympic golds since her debut in London in 2012—has a habit of putting herself half a body length or more ahead of her nearest rivals. —Alice Park

This cycle, Ross and Walsh Jennings split up; Ross, now 39, teamed with Alix Klineman, a convert from indoor volley­ball. (Walsh Jennings failed to qualify for her sixth Olympics.) The pair spent the pandemic training together and won their first tournament of 2021, in Doha, Qatar. Ross, who also played indoor volley­ball in college—at USC, where she won two national titles—and professionally before swapping sneakers for sand, says she’s inspired to keep going by her mother Margie, who died of breast cancer when Ross was 19; she visualizes herself, daily, at the top of the podium in Tokyo, her mom looking down on her smiling. “It makes me emotional,” says Ross. “So hopefully that’s the driving force.” —Sean Gregory

Tokyo will be her fifth Olympics—and her first since splitting with two different coaches, one of whom is her ex-husband. This time, Hosszu decided to train herself. “As a woman, it is sometimes a bit different than [it is] for male athletes,” she told Sports Illustrated. “Sometimes the coaches get more credit than the athletes.” That’s not a surprise coming from the outspoken Hungarian, who earned the nickname Iron Lady for her notorious stamina racing in a seemingly inhuman number of events. —Alice Park

In 2016 he won 100-m bronze and 200-m silver, as well as 4 × 100-m relay bronze, to become the first Canadian sprinter to earn three medals at a single Olympics. De Grasse has stayed busy since Rio, graduating from the University of Southern California and having two children with his partner Nia Ali, the world champion American hurdler. In both 2017 and 2018, De Grasse’s seasons were cut short because of hamstring injuries. He’s healthy now, and with 2019 100-m world champion Christian Coleman out of the Games for missing drug tests, it may finally be De Grasse’s time on top of the podium. —Sean Gregory

The pair, affectionately known as “the minions” because of their shorter statures and hyperactive playing style, have maintained their top ranking despite setbacks this year. In January, they were forced to withdraw from three international tournaments after Sukamuljo contracted COVID-19. In March, the team had to pull out of the All England Open after a passenger on their flight tested positive for the virus. That should be a distant memory in Tokyo, where the minions are poised to add to Indonesia’s badminton glory. —Madeleine Roache

Milak continued that momentum in the “lost” year after the Tokyo Games were postponed—until the fall of 2020, when he contracted COVID-19. Milak battled the aftereffects for months. But he recovered to prove at the European championships in May that he has a chance to win the first Olympic gold in the 200-m butterfly of the post-Phelps era. Milak could also qualify for the 100-m butterfly, where he could challenge current world-record holder Caeleb Dressel. —Alice Park

But she’s taking on her greatest challenge yet in Tokyo by competing in four different events. There’s evidence her gambit may pay off. At the 2019 world championships, Carrington blew away the competition in her individual races, and the last time she contested all four events, in 2018, she only narrowly lost her team races. If successful, Carrington will make yet more history: three more gold medals would make her New Zealand’s most decorated Olympian ever. —Michael Zennie

Hubbard meets all the criteria the IOC has put in place for trans athletes since 2015, including testosterone limits for trans women. Although she suffered a potentially career-­ending injury in 2018, she returned to competition and currently ranks 15th in the world in her division. “I was advised that my sporting career had likely reached its end,” Hubbard said in a statement when she was named to the team. “But your support, your encouragement, and your aroha carried me through the darkness.” —Madeleine Carlisle

She’ll be one of 335 Russians competing in Tokyo under a neutral flag after an investigation revealed a widespread, state-­sponsored athlete-­doping program. As punishment, Russian athletes are barred from competing under their flag and anthem until 2022. In a country where top athletes rarely speak out against officials, ­Lasitskene has been a leading voice for reform, calling on top athletics officials and coaches to be replaced. “I’m just an athlete,” she wrote in a 2019 open letter. “But I have a lot of questions.” —Madeline Roache

But during lockdown, Glover began working out on a rowing machine and watched her numbers improve, even as she parented three children under the age of 3. She resumed training in earnest and in April won the European women’s pair title alongside her racing partner Polly Swann. (Glover’s two previous gold medals were won with the since retired Heather Stanning.) Now Glover, 35, will be the first British rower to compete at the Games after having children. And a third gold is well within reach. —Dan Stewart

At the 2021 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in April, Nagornyy became the first gymnast to perform a triple back pike somersault, in his floor exercise routine, setting a bar for the men’s all-around competition that few are likely to reach. Popular on social media, where he chronicles his training and daily exploits, in Tokyo the 24-year-old is not just eyeing the individual all-around title, but hoping that he and his neutral Russian Olympic Committee teammates will be able to clinch the first team gold for Russian athletes since 1996. —A.P.

A year later, Chaudhary set a new junior and senior world record in the 10-m air-pistol category at the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup, securing his spot on India’s 15-member shooting team in Tokyo. There, he’ll also pair with Manu Bhaker to form a top contender in the mixed team competition. “He’s extremely focused,” teammate Apurvi Chandela said. “I see great things happening for him in the future.” —Madeline Roache

But in the final, he roared to the head of the pack to make his first Olympic team and establish himself as the favorite to win gold in the 200 m—something no U.S. man has done since 2004. Lyles has been open about his struggles with mental health and the pressures of competition. Last summer, he shared that he had started antidepressant medication and called it “one of the best decisions I have made in a while.” Going into Tokyo, he says he’s found clarity. “I don’t have anything to prove,” Lyles says. “When I put the race together, y’all are going to be in trouble.” —Sean Gregory.

That 2019 feat in Vienna might not count as an official world record, as Kipchoge did not run in race conditions. The event was engineered for maximum speed: the course was flat, and a team of pacesetters surrounded Kipchoge to reduce drag. But Kipchoge does hold the world record: he ran it in 2 hr. 1 min. 39 sec. in Berlin in 2018. In April, he won his final marathon—in a Netherlands airport—before the Olympics, where Kipchoge will defend the gold he won in Rio. The smart money is on him to do it. —Sean Gregory

The 27-year-old sprinter, who carried her country’s flag in 2016, not surprisingly takes the latter view. “I had a lot of people who came to me and they said, ‘After we saw what you did … it made me dive into my dreams and go after them even harder,’” Miller-Uibo recently told the Olympic Channel. Miller-Uibo could run both the 200 m and 400 m in Tokyo, but she’s said she’ll focus on the 200 m, in which she holds the Bahamian record, as the schedule makes pursuing the double difficult. “Yes, it would have been great to defend my title,” says Miller-Uibo. “But at the same time, I wanted a new title as well.”­ —Sean Gregory

Her skills have inspired female skaters of all ages. “She’s hella cool,” says Jocelyn Writer, 18, who skates in Venice, Calif., where Brown sometimes trains. “To see a little girl be better than, like, half the guy skaters out there, it’s very empowering.” The Games come just over a year since Brown suffered skull fractures and broke her left wrist and hand in a horrifying fall while skating. “It’s O.K. to fall sometimes,” she said in a YouTube message from her hospital bed. “I’m just going to get back up and push even harder.” —Sean Gregory

To get to this point, Horigome had to leave home. He began traveling to the U.S., the hub of competitive skating, for competitions as a teenager in 2014. Just four years later, Horigome became the first Japanese skater to claim a world title, at the Street League Skateboarding tour in London. After graduating high school, Horigome moved to the U.S. and is now based in Los Angeles, where he bought a home with its own skate park.

Horigome’s move across the ocean was driven by both ambition and necessity. Skaters in Japan have long been considered troublemakers. No skateboarding signs are common across city streets, and skaters say they get hassled by security guards or the police for even carrying skateboards around. But the growing popularity of the sport has helped ease the stigma, paving the way for more skate parks and spaces that help nurture the nation’s skating culture. And with the sport on the cusp of Olympic validation, Japanese media has ramped up coverage of competitions, and top skaters now appear on magazine covers and on TV interviews.

Horigome—an innovative skater known for coming up with tricks that no one else has done (a switch backside 180 nosegrind fakie, for instance) and landing difficult spins and slides in competitions—is Japan’s best hope for men’s skating gold. To do it, he’ll have to get by Nyjah Huston, the world’s top-ranked street skater. But Horigome has done it before; in June, he beat Huston for the world championship, denying the American a fourth consecutive title.

Horigome told reporters that the win gave him the confidence to believe he can take skating’s first gold in Tokyo: “I want to achieve something that no one has ever done ­before.” —Aria Chen

Mollaei, the competition’s reigning under 81-kg gold medallist at the time, refused but lost the bout anyway, which he attributed to the emotional strain. Fearing retribution for his disobedience, Mollaei has not returned to Iran since and instead competes at the 2020 Olympics for Mongolia, which has granted him citizenship. But the 29-year-old is training for the Games alongside the Israeli team—now both his biggest rivals and best friends. Their kindness, he told the International Judo Federation, “is something I will never forget.” —Charlie Campbell

But Imboden, a two-time Olympian who sits on the Team USA Council on Racial and Social Justice, helped inspire change: the USOPC has since permitted protest at Olympic trials, said it will not sanction athletes who peacefully demonstrate at the Games. A part-time DJ and fashion model when not training, Imboden won team bronze in foil in Rio and a team foil gold at the 2019 World Championship. —Sean Gregory

Making it to Tokyo though was different for King, 24. When her close friend and training partner Annie Lazor’s father passed away earlier this year, King promised her teammate’s mom that she’d do whatever it took to get Lazor on the team. And she did; Lazor won the 200-m breaststroke at Trials while King placed second. “It’s just a really, really special moment between the two of us,” King said. “We’ve been through hell and back together.” —Raisa Bruner

Only Florence Griffith Joyner, who set the world record with a 10.49 in 1988, has run faster. In 2017, after Fraser-Pryce won bronze in the 100 m in Rio, she gave birth to her son Zyon (which earned her a fitting nickname: Mommy Rocket). She returned to the track to win gold at the world championships in 2019 and is now the woman to beat in the marquee sprint event in Tokyo.

A win would make her the first woman to win three 100-m golds and the oldest woman to pull off the feat.

Heading into her fourth Olympics, Fraser-Pryce is the biggest star of a Jamaican team that always has high expectations on the track. In a sport that tends not to reward longevity, Mommy Rocket remains a solid bet to deliver. —Sean Gregory

As sport climbing will make its Olympic debut in Tokyo, so will Raboutou; and she’s the first American to qualify for the Games in the sport. The daughter of professional climbers and climbing world cup champions Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou and Didier Raboutou, she grew up with an affinity for the sport in Colorado, and has trained since she was a toddler—often alongside legends. She made her mark on the sport at a young age; when at 11 years old she became the youngest person to ever climb a route rated at a difficulty level of 5.14b in the Yosemite Decimal System. (Climbing routes start at 5.0 and go up to a 5.15d in that system). More recently, she won first place at the 2017 Youth Pan-American Championships for the combined event, which includes all three disciplines of speed, bouldering and lead climbing, and clinched her Olympic spot with a ninth-place combined finish at Olympic qualifiers in Japan. Given her youth, Raboutout may be one to watch not just in Tokyo, but for years to come. —Raisa Bruner

Though she didn’t make the finals in her first Olympics, she’s been catching up to the 2016 400-m hurdles gold medalist, Dalilah Muhammad, ever since.

At the 2019 world championships in Doha, Qatar, McLaughlin finished a close second to fellow American Muhammad, who set a world-record time, 52.16 sec., to win. At the U.S. track-and-field trials this June, McLaughlin shattered that record, running a scorching 51.9 sec. Expect more records to fall when McLaughlin and Muhammad meet in Tokyo. The showdown should be appointment viewing: the final is on Aug. 4. —Sean Gregory

Shi started in gymnastics as a young girl and didn’t join China’s national diving team until she was 21. Tokyo will be Shi’s second Olympics but likely her last, and she is determined to end on a high note. “Persevere, self-discipline, focus, final sprint, come on!” Shi wrote on the Twitter-like social media platform Weibo ahead of the Games. Those are words in line with her name, Tingmao, which translates to “working hard for the country.”

Shi looks likely to continue her domination and help maintain China’s Olympic winning streak in individual women’s springboard diving, which stretches back to 1988. —Aria Chen

Before losing a match in February 2020, right before the pandemic shutdown, Riner hadn’t lost in nearly a decade—winning 154 straight bouts—while picking up two Olympic gold medals and six world championships along the way. The 6-ft. 8-in., 300-plus-lb. judoka known as Big Ted returned to the top of the podium at the World Masters in Doha, Qatar, in January. An Olympic gold in Tokyo would be his third straight. —Sean Gregory

The 6-ft. 8-in. outside hitter made his debut for the national team of his native Cuba at just 14, and by 17 was its captain—the youngest ever. After fleeing Cuba, León gained Polish citizenship in 2015. He played for Russian and Italian pro teams, becoming one of the world’s highest-paid volleyball players, but he didn’t become eligible to compete for Poland’s national team until 2019. Cuba “will always have a place in my heart,” León said, but “everything I do in this moment” is for Poland. With León on the roster, Poland has been transformed into a medal contender with a shot to win its first Olympic gold in the sport since 1976.—Madeline Roache

At Athens in 2004, Ueno pitched a perfect game over seven innings—the only one in Olympic history. At the 2008 Beijing Games, she threw 413 pitches in two days while leading Japan to gold. Her performance was such a sensation that Ueno’s 413 pitches was named one of Japan’s top buzzwords of the year. At 38, she has one more chance to exhibit her extraordinary dominance on the world stage again—this time on home ground. —Aria Chen

Kenny became an instant British icon at the London Olympics, when at the age of just 20 she won two gold medals in front of a home crowd. She doubled her haul in Rio four years later. Tokyo will be her first Olympics since she gave birth to her son, Albie, in 2017. While the 29-year-old already has more gold medals than any other British woman in Olympic history, she has the chance to win three more in Tokyo—bringing her within touching distance of becoming the most successful female Olympians of all time, from any country. —Billy Perrigo

Her first symptom was a fast heartbeat, even when she was resting or doing simple sets in practice. That snowballed into anxiety, insomnia and depression when things in the pool didn’t improve.

Her doctor recommended complete rest, so Manuel returned home to Texas for about 12 days in March. “My job when I got home was to literally recover,” she says. Long massages, ice baths and time out of the water helped restore her body, but her mind was another matter. Forced to take so much time off so close to the Olympic trials didn’t help her anxiety. “Being out of the water, watching time pass me by, was hard mentally,” she says.

It was the latest disruption in a grueling year that saw the Olympics postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately affected people of color, and a widespread reckoning over racism. “What the Black community had to deal with this year was very hard,” says Manuel, who became the first African-American woman to earn an individual Olympic gold in swimming at Rio in 2016. “The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the incident with the man in Central Park happening right after each other really made me have to sit down and I guess grieve some of the experiences I’ve had in the sport, or experiences I’ve had as a Black woman that I had just brushed off before.” It was, she says, “like a mirror I couldn’t look away from.”

The time to reflect proved well spent, however. Three days after missing the 100-m final, Manuel won the 50-m freestyle final at the trials, giving her the chance to swim for an individual medal in Tokyo.

“There were moments I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get on the team,” she says. “But I learned that I have a lot of perseverance, a lot of fight in me. I willed myself to that wall. More than anything, [the trials experience] taught me there really is nothing I can’t do. And I think that’s pretty cool.” —Alice Park

A photo posted on the Australian Olympic team’s official Instagram page showing the team’s uniforms featured just one Indigenous athlete. Cambage, whose father is Nigerian, also took issue with a photograph—which she said lacked racial diversity—for the brand Jockey, which supplies underwear to Australia’s Olympic athletes. “If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times,” the 29-year-old posted on social media, “How am I meant to represent a country that doesn’t even represent me?” Ultimately, Cambage, who plays for the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces but hails from Melbourne, had a change of heart. “I’m going to ball out for all those young brown kids back in Australia watching me, baby,” the she said. “I’m going to do it for you. —Amy Gunia

Lee’s fortitude was tested in a different way in 2019, when days before she left for the U.S. national championships, her father fell while helping a friend trim a tree; he remains partially paralyzed. He underwent surgery while Lee competed, but she still managed to earn silver behind Simone Biles. That strength will be tested again as she competes in her first Olympic Games—as the first Hmong American to make the U.S. team—­separated again from her close-knit family, this time by the pandemic. —Alice Park

The 25-year-old has been breaking records and racking up medals since she was 13, including a bronze in the 4x100m relay at the Rio Olympics. She is the world champion in the 200m and is Britain’s best hope for Gold on the track in Tokyo. And ff she medals in the 100m—a possibility given her recent times—she would be the first British woman to do so in more than 60 years. —Ayesha Javed