Which American Athletes Were Helped And Hurt the Most by the Olympic Postponement?
May 5, 2021
When the Tokyo Summer Olympics were officially pushed back a year in March 2020, we knew it would affect the composition of the US Olympic track & field team. Just as the US did not send the same team to the 2015 World Championships as it did to the 2016 Olympics, the roster it will send to Tokyo in July will differ from the one it would have sent last summer. Younger athletes have had an extra year to develop; older athletes have had an extra year to decline, with the impact being biggest at the extremes. One year of extra maturation is a much bigger deal in a positive way for a teenager than a 25-year-old and one year of extra age is a much bigger deal in a negative way for a 35-year-old than a 25-year-old.