Eight nights in Omaha resulted in 50 swimmers being added to the U.S. Olympic Team for Tokyo, and the drama was palpable throughout the whole week thanks to a number of close finishes and surprising upsets. Below are just a few of the moments for which this year’s U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials will be most remembered.

With Katie Ledecky a lock to make the Olympic team, the only touch of drama surrounding her performance at Olympic Trials was how she would handle a grueling night that featured not one, but two finals. First up on Wednesday night, the 200m freestyle final (Ledecky’s most vulnerable event); then just over an hour later, the 1500m final (one of her strongest events). Unsurprisingly, the 24-year-old superstar won both events in a testament to her versatility across the spectrum of swimming distances. It’s the same double that Ledecky will have to do at the Olympics, but her path to victory won’t be as easy in Tokyo. Australia’s Ariarne Titmus recently swam the No. 2 time ever in the 200m and has moved ahead of Ledecky on the all-time list.

With Michael Phelps now retired, Caeleb Dressel is expected to become the next big American swimming star on the men’s side. After dominant performances at the last two world championships, he could win as many as seven medals in Tokyo. But first Dressel had to secure his place on Team USA in what effectively served as an Olympic tune-up. It’s safe to say that the tattooed Floridian looks ready to live up to expectations this summer after comfortably winning all three of his individual events in Omaha. Among his best swims: He nearly broke his own world record in the 100m butterfly during a semifinal heat, and he tied his own American record in the 50m freestyle on the final night of Trials (video below).

One of the biggest shocks from Olympic Trials was Simone Manuel missing the cut for the 100m freestyle final, an event she won at the last Olympics. She finished ninth in semifinal, just one position and .02 seconds shy of advancing onward. Afterward, Manuel revealed that she had been diagnosed with overtraining syndrome earlier in the year, which led to her needing to spend weeks out of the pool. Her hopes of making Team USA suddenly became pinned on the 50m freestyle, an event held on the final night of Trials. This time, she won the race by the slimmest of margins — 0.1 seconds — to secure her second trip to the Games.

At age 14, Michael Andrew became the youngest American swimmer to turn pro. Eight years later, he showed the world exactly why he had been billed as a swimming phenom throughout his teenage years. It wasn’t just that the fact that he won several events — it was the way he won them. In the 100m breaststroke, Andrew set the American record twice — once in the prelim, once in the semifinal — and then won the final by just .01 seconds to qualify himself for Tokyo (video below). He later threatened the 200m IM world record on two separate occasions, falling off the pace in the final leg but still winning the race both times, and then finished second in the 50m sprint to qualify for a third event.

After Annie Lazor’s father passed away in April, her training partner and friend Lilly King drove five hours to attend the visitation. Then King made a promise to Lazor’s mother: She would do everything she could to get Lazor onto the Olympic team. King, a reigning Olympic champion, easily made the team by winning the 100m breaststroke final, but Lazor missed the cut in third. Their next and final chance came in the 200m breast, and after King offered some words of encouragement on the training blocks, the two jumped into the pool in adjacent lanes and proceeded to beat the competition together, with Lazor finishing first and King taking second to deliver one of the most emotional moments from Trials. That swim qualified them to race the 200m breast together in Tokyo.

The final of the men’s 400m freestyle featured eight swimmers who had yet to meet the Olympic qualifying time, so finishing in the top two would mean nothing if they didn’t swim below 3:46.78. Race winner Kieran Smith hit that mark, which locked up his spot in Tokyo, but the rest of the field was all above 3:48. Two nights later, second-place finisher Jake Mitchell got first crack at hitting the Olympic standard when world governing body FINA approved a solo time trial for him. The time trial was held at the end of the night after all other events had concluded. Many fans had left by that point, but the ones who remained at the arena were boisterous in their support of Mitchell, and in response, he delivered the swim of his life, shaving more than two seconds off his previous time to hit the standard and put himself on the team.

After a crazy year leading up to Trials, Regan Smith is expected to be one of Team USA’s leading medal contenders at the Tokyo Games. Although she qualified in two individual events, she won’t be contesting her signature event, the 200m backstroke, after a surprising upset saw Rhyan White and Phoebe Bacon finish ahead of the reigning world champion to take the two Olympic spots. White, who swims for the University of Alabama, surged in the second half of the race to overtake three swimmers, including Smith and Bacon, and claim the win.

Of the 53 members of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team, 11 of them are currently teenagers. Leading the way is 19-year-old Regan Smith, who qualified in the 100m backstroke and 200m butterfly. Surprisingly, Smith did not qualify for the 200m back, an event in which she holds the world record, as she was upset by fellow teenager Phoebe Bacon, 18, at Trials for one of the two spots. Katie Grimes, the youngest member of the team at 15, qualified for the 800m free alongside Katie Ledecky (who was 15 when she made her Olympic debut and won that event), and Lydia Jacoby, 17, is set to become the first Alaskan swimmer to compete at the Olympics. But the youth movement was perhaps most apparent in the women’s 100m butterfly (below), where 18-year-old Torri Huske (who broke the American record twice on consecutive nights) and 16-year-old Claire Curzan secured the two spots for Tokyo.

Victory is nice, but at Olympic Swimming Trials, the real race is for second place. A top-two finish is all that’s needed to get onto the Olympic team, and that’s the main goal for anyone competing at Trials after all. One of the most dramatic battles for second place (and also first place) came in the women’s 200m medley. The top three swimmers — Alex Walsh, Kate Douglass and Madisyn Cox — finished within .04 seconds of each other, with second and third-place decided by just .02. Ultimately it was University of Virginia teammates Walsh and Douglass getting the Olympic spots, with Madisyn Cox getting left out altogether in heartbreaking fashion.

Want to watch more highlights from U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials? You can find clips from select event finals below.

The following athletes won selection to the Tokyo Games thanks to their results at Olympic Trials. The top two finishers in each event qualified for the team, and up to six swimmers were taken for each of the relay events.

Men's 50m free

Caeleb Dressel

Michael Andrew

Men's 100m free

Caeleb Dressel

Zach Apple

Blake Pieroni — 4x100 relay spot only

Brooks Curry — 4x100 relay spot only

Bowe Becker — 4x100 relay spot only

Men's 200m free

Kieran Smith

Townley Haas

Drew Kibler — 4x200 relay spot only

Andrew Seliskar — 4x200 relay spot only

Patrick Callan — 4x200 relay spot only

Men's 400m free

Kieran Smith

Jake Mitchell

Men's 800m free

Bobby Finke

Michael Brinegar

Men's 1500 free

Bobby Finke

Michael Brinegar

Men's 100m back

Ryan Murphy

Hunter Armstrong

Men's 200m back

Ryan Murphy

Bryce Mefford

Men's 100m breast

Michael Andrew

Andrew Wilson

Men's 200m breast

Nic Fink

Andrew Wilson

Men's 100m fly

Caeleb Dressel

Tom Shields

Men's 200m fly

Zach Harting

Gunnar Bentz

Men's 200m IM

Michael Andrew

Chase Kalisz

Men's 400m IM

Chase Kalisz

Jay Litherland

Women's 50m free

Simone Manuel

Abbey Weitzeil

Women's 100m free

Abbey Weitzeil

Erika Brown

Olivia Smoliga — 4x100 relay spot only

Natalie Hinds — 4x100 relay spot only

Catie DeLoof — 4x100 relay spot only

Allison Schmitt — 4x100 relay spot only

Women's 200m free

Katie Ledecky

Allison Schmitt

Paige Madden — 4x200 relay spot only

Katie McLaughlin — 4x200 relay spot only

Bella Sims — 4x200 relay spot only

Brooke Forde — 4x200 relay spot only

Women's 400m free

Katie Ledecky

Paige Madden

Women's 800m free

Katie Ledecky

Katie Grimes

Women's 1500m free

Katie Ledecky

Erica Sullivan

Women's 100m back

Regan Smith

Rhyan White

Women's 200m back

Rhyan White

Phoebe Bacon

Women's 100m breast

Lilly King

Lydia Jacoby

Women's 200m breast

Annie Lazor

Lilly King

Women's 100m fly

Torri Huske

Claire Curzan

Women's 200m fly

Hali Flickinger

Regan Smith

Women's 200m IM

Alex Walsh

Kate Douglass

Women's 400m IM

Emma Weyant

Hali Flickinger