Layden: Despite Lack of Familiar Names, Track and Field Surging Forward on Wings of Today's Stars

There was such temptation to dwell on the missing, and the gone. As ever, Olympic track and field had risen from hibernation a week past the Opening Ceremony, after waiting, waiting, waiting. As ever, it would be the women's (first) and men's (a day later) 100-meter races that would propel a sport across the second week of the Games. But there was such thunderous absence – exemplified first by an empty stadium, which is not at all like an empty gymnastics arena or swimming hall, but rather so much larger and more cavernous, a hulking reminder of the medical reality on which the 2020/21 Olympic are precariously balanced. There was that and there was more.