Summer Olympics 2016: Athletes Most Likely to Win Gold in Their Debut Games
There's no comparison in sports to how quickly an athlete can become a star at the Olympics.
Most casual sports fans have never heard of the first-time Olympians who will win gold in the coming weeks, but some of the athletes in the more popular Olympic sports—swimming, gymnastics and track and field—will become household names by the end of the 2016 Rio Games.
Consider this your introduction to these soon-to-be stars. While there will be many Olympian debutants who grab gold in Rio, these seven first-timers have proved through performances leading up to the Games that they're a significant cut above the competition, and their stories are worth following.
Simone Biles, U.S. Gymnast
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The biggest Olympic stars by the end of Rio figure to be gymnast Simone Biles and swimmer Katie Ledecky. They are both considered all-time greats in their sports and should dominate in Rio.
Ledecky competed in her first Olympics and won gold four years ago as a 15-year-old. Biles, 19, is competing in her first Olympics, but her resume is just as impressive.
Biles is the first-ever woman to win three straight world championships, and she has won a record 10 gold medals at worlds. She has also won four straight national championships, dominating any time she has competed over the last four years.
She's a heavy favorite to win gold in the all-around, and she's also the favorite in the balance beam, floor exercise and vault.
Lilly King, U.S. Swimmer
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Lilly King never won the 100-meter breaststroke at the Indiana state tournament in high school—she was runner-up twice—and now she's the favorite to win an Olympic gold medal in the event.
King, who just finished her freshman year at Indiana, won both the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststrokes at the Olympic Trials. Her time in the 100 (1:05.2) is the fastest time in the world this year and the best time recorded since 2013. In addition to sweeping the 100 and 200 at trials, she won both NCAA titles this past year.
Her quick rise to the top, she explained at trials, was the result of the opportunity to have more advanced training when she arrived at IU, per ASAP Sports:
"Well in Indiana the high school season is mostly in the winter, so my team was only allowed four lanes, because we shared the pool with several other teams in the city, and so we had four lanes for both the boys' and girls' teams, so that was 35 kids in four lanes, so you do the math. It's not a lot of room to swim.
But I was just not training with a lot of people that were at my level and that could even train with me. I hadn't even really done breaststroke training at all, and then I hadn't even done races when I got to college, so just adding, literally everything I possibly could on this year was a huge help.
"
Joe Kovacs, U.S. Shot-Putter
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Joe Kovacs is the top-ranked shot-putter in the world, and he almost gave the sport up after his collegiate career at Penn State. Instead, Kovacs attended the 2012 Olympic Trials. He finished fourth, one spot from qualifying, but his unexpectedly high finish spearheaded a career in the sport, as he told Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune:
"I always joke that I was probably the happiest fourth-place person in history. The next day, even if you finish fourth and you're the alternate, you have to go get sized for uniforms. If you finish in fourth place, it sucks because you're probably not going to wear it.
So I'm in this room, and this girl's crying in the corner because she finished fourth and didn't make the team. I have this big smile. In one throw, things changed pretty quick for me.
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Kovacs' mom trained him in high school because his track team didn't have a throwing coach. He never won a national title in college, but he's since become the best in the world.
The Pennsylvania native was the 2015 IAAF World Outdoor Champion, and he threw the shot put 22.56 meters in Monaco last year, which was the eighth-best throw ever recorded and the top mark since 2003.
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Omar McLeod, Jamaican Hurdler
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Jamaican Omar McLeod has the two fastest times in the 110-meter hurdles this year. The former Arkansas Razorback was undefeated in the event this season until a race in mid-July when he tripped over a hurdle.
McLeod's top time this year (12.98 seconds) matches the winning time in last year's world championships by Russia's Sergey Shubenkov, who will be unable to race because of Russia's ban at the Olympics. McLeod finished sixth in that race last year and has bounced back in a big way in 2016, as he told the Jamaica Observer:
"This season has been a redemption year from last year and the world outdoors. Making finals after such a long collegiate year was honestly a blessing [at the world championships], but obviously I wanted to medal... I got sixth. I've had to train hard and be consistent and so far I've been doing that, consistently running 13.00sec and that's a good sign and hopefully I can keep that momentum going into Rio.
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If McLeod trips up, fellow first-time Olympian Devon Allen could end up with gold. Allen, an American athlete who also plays football at Oregon, won the U.S. trials with the fastest time recorded this year by someone other than McLeod.
Josh Prenot, U.S. Swimmer
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Josh Prenot put together one of the most exhilarating swims at the Olympic Trials in June during the 200-meter breaststroke, rallying from fifth place at the 100-meter mark to win the race and record the second-fastest time ever (2:07.17) in the event.
Prenot had to chase down 100-meter trials champ Kevin Cordes, who was swimming ahead of world-record pace early in the race. Prenot, a physics major at Cal, smartly saved his energy for the final 75 meters of the race.
"That is by far the most perfectly I've ever put it together, so I'm just going to be working on putting another good race together in Rio," he told media after his win in Omaha, Nebraska, per ASAP Sports.
If he can repeat his strategy in Rio, he's likely to win gold.
Brianna Rollins, U.S. Hurdler
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Brianna Rollins already won the most competitive race of the year: the 100-meter hurdles at the Olympic Trials.
According to Jon Mulkeen of the IAAF, it was the first time ever that seven women ran 12.75 seconds or faster in the same race at any national championships in the history of the sport.
The United States dominates the event with the 24 fastest times this year run by Americans. Keni Harrison, the world-record holder who has run the two fastest times this year, didn't even qualify for the Olympics. She finished sixth at trials, and only the top three earned spots on the Olympic team.
Rollins' time of 12.34 is the third-best time recorded this year, and she is now the favorite to win gold in Rio.
Elaine Thompson, Jamaican Sprinter
7 of 7Watch the video above to see the dominance of Elaine Thompson.
Only three women have ever recorded better times than Thompson's 10.70 seconds in the 100-meter dash that qualified her for the Olympics. She became the first runner to touch 10.70 since 2012, and she's four-hundredths of a second faster than the second-best time this year, recorded by American English Gardner.
Usain Bolt plans to retire after the Olympics, and the 24-year-old Thompson could become her country's next big track and field star if she continues to fly at the Olympics.
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