Wally Skalij: Top shots from Tokyo Olympics

In the photo of Simone Biles being consoled, the body language tells the story of the moment she dropped out of competition.

Simone Biles on the uneven bars, shot with a telephoto lens. The details in her feet and hands outlined by chalk show the rigors of being a gymnast, and at the same time the gracefulness of the sport.

It helps being ready for the unpredictable, and this high jumper doing a backflip with the sunglasses flying off after winning the gold medal is an example.

Panning horizontally is a common technique, so I tried to do it in a vertical manner. I only succeeded once out of over 100 frames where the face is sharp.

I have always been curious about how athletes prepare before competition, and look for the moments of solitude and light.

Keeping an eye out for aesthetics is a goal when everything else seems cliché, such as using circles and squares with a bowing athlete in judo.

The typical photo for shot put is to get the actual throw with chalk flying off the hand. Trying a different angle, I was able to get the shot putter within the lines and the divots in the grass.

Olympic Stadium in Tokyo has a beautiful oval shape and I wanted to emphasize that, and included a javelin competitor on a really hot day.

It had just rained a few hours before, and as the track was drying in some areas it created a pattern. I placed the runner at the corner of the frame to emphasize the color and pattern.

Always tough to battle television when they rush the court but got lucky with a sliver of an opening to capture the peak emotion of the U.S. men’s basketball team winning gold.