‘You Beat My Record, Bro’: Notable Performances at the U.S. Track Trials

While Tokyo will be his second Olympics, Trayvon Bromell qualified for these Games on the heels of a cycle of injuries, surgeries and rehabilitation that threatened his career.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesLast week, we said Donavan Brazier’s story best illustrated the do-or-die nature of the trials. Five years ago, in 2016, Brazier won the N.C.A.A. 800-meter title in 1 minute 43.55 seconds, the second-fastest time in the world that year. A few weeks later, he failed to qualify for the Rio Games.

So he approached this year’s trials with the hope of changing that narrative. And he was expected to do so. The question wasn’t if Brazier would qualify — it was who would come in second…