Team USA Tops Tokyo 2020 

The United States track and field team can no longer rely on sheer strength in depth after a “dramatic underperformance” at the Tokyo Olympics said  athletics great Michael Johnson.

The United States won seven athletics gold medals, more than any other nation but almost half the 13 they picked up five years ago in Rio.

Disregarding the Moscow 1980 Games which was boycotted by American athletes, Tokyo is the first time its men have failed to win an individual track title in Olympic history.

“If you took at the way we approached the national teams and you put that in any other country that didn’t have the sort of depth that we have, this would have been a failure a long time ago,” four-time Olympic champion Johnson told BBC Sport.

The United States athletes must win a place at their national trials, with previous major Championship performances, times and injuries disregarded.

Donavan Brazier, who won the world 800m title in Doha less than two years ago, was left out of the Olympic team after finishing outside the top three places.

“The system is set up in a way where the team selects itself – you have the trials and the first three across the line in every event – those are your three,” explained Johnson.

“A long time ago that worked because we had so much depth. I don’t think we will be able to get away with that any more.”

Brazier was not the only American world champion to fail to follow up success in Doha with victory in Tokyo.

Hot favourite Grant Holloway stumbled to silver in the 110m hurdles, Noah Lyles won bronze in the 200m, world leader Trayvon Bromell failed to reach the 100m final, while 100m specialist Christian Coleman is banned for whereabouts failures with doping officers.

While the emergence of young stars, such as 800m champion Athing Mu, have provided some highlights, Johnson says athletics in the United States is coming under pressure with declining public profile and pressure on the collegiate system that produces most of its talent.

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