Omaha (United States) (AFP)

Katie Ledecky, Caeleb Dressel or Simone Manuel, should be the stars of the Olympic basin this summer at the Tokyo Games, but they will first have to qualify during the American selections which begin Sunday in Omaha (Nebraska).

Five years after Rio where she had won four gold medals, Ledecky wants at least to repeat the same performance.

And she should, barring an accident, validate her ticket for 200 m, 400 m, 800 m and ... 1,500 m freestyle, which turns out to be her favorite distance and will make her first appearance at the Olympics (23 July-8 August) .

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"There have been so many great long distance swimmers who have come through the United States, but haven't had this opportunity to do this event at the Olympics ... So I want to take this opportunity," he said recently. entrusted the one who should also be in the 4x200m relay, on which she was also crowned in 2016.

If you do a quick math, Ledecky could, at 24, become the most successful athlete in Olympic history, having won gold for the first time in London in 2012, in the 800m freestyle, at just 15 years old. .

If she hits the mark in Tokyo, she would take her collection to ten medals in the finest metal, one more than former Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina.

- Records could fall -

The fastest swimmer in history in the 400m, 800m and 1,500m freestyle should not be the only one to crush her races in Omaha, where only the first two of the finals will win their accessit and where world records could. fall.

Sprinter Simone Manuel, gold medalist in the 100m freestyle (tied with Canadian Penny Oleksiak) and 4x100m medley in Rio, where she also won silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay and the 50 m freestyle, meanwhile, is aiming for a double in Tokyo that only the Australian Dawn Fraser has achieved, even achieving the treble in 1956, 1960 and 1964.

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The first African-American Olympic champion in history in an individual event, Manuel confirmed her dominance at the 2017 and 2019 Worlds in the 100m freestyle.

World record holder in the 200m backstroke, Regan Smith is the logical favorite over this distance and the 100m backstroke.

Just like Lily King, impregnable since Rio in the 100m breaststroke, for which she set the best time in history in 2017, and who will try to double in the 200m breaststroke.

- Sustainability competition -

For men, Caeleb Dressel is the center of attention.

Gold relay in Rio in the 4x100 m freestyle and 4x100 m medley, he crushed the individual competition at the 2019 Worlds in Gwangju, South Korea, being crowned in the 50 m and 100 m freestyle and in butterfly on these same distances, as well as in the 4x100m freestyle and medley.

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World record holder in the 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle, he added the 200 butterfly and the 200 medley to his program in Nebraska.

Proof of his unlimited ambitions, for, who knows, approaching Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals in Beijing in 2008, even if Dressel cautiously agrees that "it does not depend only on (him)".

Finally, two "veterans" will try to reconnect with their past glory.

Ryan Lochte hopes to become the oldest swimmer in history to defend the American colors at the Games at 36.

Holder of the world record in the 200m individual medley, established in 2011, the one who has 12 Olympic charms to his list, however, has little chance of playing his fifth Olympic Games, because he will have Michael Andrew and Chase Kalisz as competitors.

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Nathan Adrian, gold medalist in the 100m freestyle in 2012, hopes to participate in a fourth Olympiad, which would be an admirable achievement, after battling testicular cancer diagnosed in 2019.

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