Olympic track and field: Schedule, U.S. athletes and records to watch

The distinctive purple track of Stade de France will provide a stage for historic pursuits. American sprinter Noah Lyles has taken aim at Usain Bolt, eyeing a triple gold medal in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4x100 relay, with an outside chance to threaten Bolt’s world record in the 200. Ethiopian distance runner Gudaf Tsegay could attempt an incredible triple and compete in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000. What will Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Rai Benjamin and Karsten Warholm do for an encore after astonishing 400 hurdles performances in Tokyo?

Always a glamour event at the Olympics, track and field may be poised for a popularity boost. World Athletics, the sport’s governing body, has taken on several initiatives aimed at making the sport more marketable in the United States ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Olympian Michael Johnson has started a new league, Grand Slam Track, promising fans clashes between the fastest runners and athletes bigger prize money. Entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, is pouring money into women’s track.

The Olympics, though, remain the sport’s quadrennial apex.

Who are the American athletes to watch?

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone: Just 24, McLaughlin-Levrone is all-time royalty in her sport. She redefined the limits of the 400 hurdles, then flirted over the past two years with trying another event or attempting a 400/400 hurdles double in Paris. She ran world-class times in the 400 flat this year and even dusted an elite 200 field in 22.07 seconds at the Los Angeles Grand Prix in May. But McLaughlin-Levrone declared after that victory that she would stick with her “bread and butter” and compete only in the 400 hurdles. McLaughlin-Levrone still could try for three gold medals if she adds the 4x100 relay to the 4x400, in which she won gold in Tokyo.

Noah Lyles: Lyles may be the greatest sprinter since Bolt, but he is lacking the prize that matters most: an Olympic gold medal. He won bronze in the 200 in Tokyo after a turbulent year that disrupted his training. He has rebounded to the top of the sprinting world. He won gold in the 100, 200 and 4x100 at last year’s world championships, a triple unseen since Bolt. He wants to repeat the feat in Paris. The American record holder at 200, Lyles has been open about his intent to break Bolt’s world record of 19.19. If he does, he’ll achieve his ultimate goal of mainstream stardom.

Sha’Carri Richardson: Richardson has traveled an uneven path since her starburst at the 2021 Olympic trials, but she will enter Paris as the gold medal favorite in the 100. Richardson won the 100 at the 2021 U.S. trials but missed the Olympics after a positive marijuana test. She struggled over the next year, unable to escape even the preliminary heats at the 2022 national championships. But Richardson found renewed personal peace and won gold at the world championships with the second-fastest American 100 since 1988. At her first Olympics, even after failing to make the U.S. team at 200, Richardson can cement herself as the fastest woman in the world.

Ryan Crouser: Just five American male track and field athletes – John Flanagan, Ralph Rose, Al Oerter, Ray Ewry and Carl Lewis – have won an individual gold medal at three Olympics. Crouser, the world record holder in the shot put, can become the sixth. Fellow American Joe Kovacs, who won silver at the past two Games, has consistently pushed Crouser, even upsetting him at the 2019 world championships. Crouser beat Kovacs at the U.S. trials even while recovering from a torn pectoral muscle.

Anna Hall: Even in a stadium packed with the best athletes in the world, Hall’s muscular build and broad shoulders stand out. She underwent knee surgery in January and still managed to dominate the heptathlon at the U.S. trials. Just 23, Hall is making her Olympic debut after medaling in the past two world championships. She’s a contender to win the first U.S. Olympic heptathlon gold since Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1992.

Rai Benjamin: At his first Olympics, Benjamin broke a world record in the 400 hurdles. The only problem was that the man running next to him, Norway’s Karsten Warholm, shattered it, beating Benjamin for the gold medal in Tokyo. Benjamin could be one of U.S. track’s leading figures, yet he is still searching for his first individual major championship after battling injuries and finishing on the podium, but not on top, for two straight world championships. Benjamin ran 46.64 in his season debut in May, the fourth-fastest time of his career and a mark bettered by just two men. He backed it up by running 46.46 to win the U.S. trials. Benjamin is back in top form, ready again to challenge Warholm and Brazilian Alison dos Santos in one of the sport’s most compelling events.

Tara Davis-Woodhall: Davis-Woodhall saunters around the track in a cowboy hat and boots after her long jump performances. She has the talent to back up her unapologetic celebrations. Davis-Woodhall finished sixth at the Tokyo Olympics at 22, months after her collegiate career ended at Texas. She claimed silver at the world championships last summer, which she said only motivated her to win an Olympic gold. One of the most charismatic performers and vibrant personalities in American track and field, Davis-Woodhall could become a star in Paris.

Who are the other athletes to watch?

Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr: You can’t name one without the other. Ingebrigtsen (Norway) and Kerr (Britain) have turned the men’s 1,500 into their personal cage match. Ingebrigtsen seemed impenetrable when he broke the Olympic record in Tokyo a month shy of his 20th birthday. Kerr upset him at last summer’s world championships, kick-starting a war of words: Kerr called Ingebrigtsen “insecure”; Ingebrigtsen said Kerr was “just the next guy.” Kerr said, “He has flaws, and I don’t think he knew that”; Ingebrigtsen said, “I know that I win 98 out of 100 times against” Kerr and countryman Jake Wightman. When Kerr broke the indoor 2-mile record in February, Ingebrigtsen said he would have beaten him “blindfolded.” Kerr beat Ingebrigtsen at May’s Bowerman Mile, but Ingebrigtsen had just returned from a sore Achilles tendon. They’ll settle their differences at Stade de France.

Gudaf Tsegay: Appearing in her third Olympics at 27, Tsegay may be the most versatile runner on the planet. The Ethiopian is the third-fastest at 1,500 and 10,000 and owns the world record at 5,000. Tsegay won the 5,000 and 10,000 at last summer’s world championships. Her toughest decision may be which races to enter – and she has not ruled out copying Dutchwoman Sifan Hassan’s remarkable triple in 2021, when she won gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 and a bronze at 1,500.

Femke Bol: She is the Dutch female answer to Rai Benjamin: an all-time 400 hurdler who has been resigned to silver medals because of the athlete on top of the podium. Bol owns the second-best 400-meter hurdles time. Her problem is it’s 0.8 seconds behind McLaughlin-Levrone’s world record. Bol is also the world record holder in the indoor 400 and will run on the Netherlands’ 4x400 team.

Mondo Duplantis: The No. 1 male track and field athlete by World Athletics’ official ranking, Duplantis may be the surest bet to win a gold medal in Paris. A Louisiana native who competes in pole vault for his mother’s native Sweden, Duplantis won his first Olympic gold medal in Tokyo at age 21. Fun fact: He was briefly college teammates at LSU with Sha’Carri Richardson.

Shericka Jackson: With Elaine Thompson-Herah injured and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price finally showing signs of age at 37, Jackson is carrying the torch for the Jamaican sprint queens. Jackson has some Olympic demons to sort out: She trotted to the line in a qualifying heat in Tokyo and failed to make it out of the first round. But she has won the past two 200 world championships while taking silver in both 100s.

Karsten Warholm: In Tokyo, Warholm set the 400 hurdles world record at 45.94 in one of the greatest Olympic races. Injuries have prevented him from reaching those heights again, and Brazilian Alison dos Santos beat him at the 2022 world championships. But Warholm rebounded to win last summer’s title in Budapest. Rival Benjamin’s times have been faster this year, but the Olympic showdown is what matters most to both men.

Kishane Thompson: He is big for a sprinter, is preternaturally gifted and makes up for a mediocre start with ludicrous top-end speed. Sound like any other Jamaican sprinter you know? It’s too early to call Thompson the next Bolt, but he has surpassed the wonderfully named Oblique Seville as Jamaica’s next great male sprinting hope. Just 22, Thompson won the 100 at the Jamaican trials in 9.77, the fastest time in the world this year.

Neeraj Chopra: When Chopra sprints down the field with a javelin cocked in his right hand, he runs with the hopes of more than 1 billion people on his shoulder. Chopra became India’s first track and field gold medalist in Tokyo. With another victory, he has a chance to open the sport up to more than 10% of the world’s population and become one of the most popular athletes on the planet.

What records could be broken?

Women’s 400 hurdles: Anytime McLaughlin-Levrone runs at a major meet, her 400 hurdles world record could fall – again. She has broken the world record five times since the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials, finally setting it at 50.65 – 1.51 faster than the first record time she broke – at last month’s trials.

Men’s pole vault: Duplantis has turned breaking the pole vault world record into a full-time job – literally. A sponsorship contract gives Duplantis a bonus each time he sets the record. Rather than vault over the highest bar he can, Duplantis instead has reset the mark one centimeter at a time. He has broken the world record eight times, most recently in April at 20 feet, 5½ inches.

Women’s 1,500: In April, Ethiopian Tsegay came within less than a second of 3:49.11, the mark Faith Kipyegon set in June 2023. On July 7 in Paris, Kipyegon stretched the difference by resetting the record to 3:49.07. It seems like a matter of time before the record is broken again in an event whose level has exploded – 56 of the 100 fastest times have been run since 2021.

Men’s shot put: Crouser broke a shot put world record that had stood for 31 years at Hayward Field at the 2021 Olympic trials. He reset his record to 77-3 in 2023. Crouser is not at peak form while recovering from a torn pectoral muscle. But to hold off fellow American Kovacs – the silver medalist behind Crouser at the past two Games – Crouser knows he’ll need a huge performance.

Women’s 200: Any sprinter who surfaces the name Florence Griffith-Joyner has done something remarkable. Last year at the world championships, Jackson won in 21.41 and became the only woman to come within 0.1 of FloJo’s 36-year-old world record of 21.34. Jackson hasn’t shown her best form, winning the Jamaican trials in 22.29. At her best, though, anything is possible.

Men’s 200: Lyles, who holds the American record of 19.31 , has been open about his pursuit of Bolt’s 19.19 world record. He won the U.S. trials in 19.53, surviving a huge threat from Kenny Bednarek. If Lyles runs his best race, he will challenge Bolt’s mark.

Women’s 100 hurdles: Nigerian Tobi Amusan set the world record at 12.12 at the 2022 world championships. It’s in danger less because of one great athlete than sheer depth. Masai Russell won the U.S. trials in 12.25, making her the fourth-fastest woman – but just 0.06 faster than podium finishers Alaysha Johnson and Grace Stark. They’ll all have to contend with Puerto Rican Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, the reigning Olympic gold medalist.

Men’s 110 hurdles: Grant Holloway came within 0.01 of tying Aries Merritt’s world record of 12.80 at the 2021 Olympic trials – in a semifinal race. Holloway finished in less than 13.0 in all three rounds at the U.S. trials, winning in 12.88. He will be one of the most dominant athletes in Paris, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he finally knocks off a record that has stood since 2012.

Women’s high jump: This had been one of the sport’s most impenetrable records until July 7, when Ukrainian Yaroslava Mahuchikh leaped over 6-10 and broke the record that Bulgarian Stefka Kostadinova had held for nearly 37 years. Only one other woman has surpassed even 6-7 since 2011, so if the record falls again, it’ll be Mahuchikh.

Women’s 10,000: Kenyan Beatrice Chebet shattered the old world record by nearly seven seconds in May. The three fastest women behind her on the all-time list – Letesenbet Gidey, Gudaf Tsegay and Sifan Hassan – could all be racing her for the gold medal. The event highlights how super shoes have changed running.