The most closely watched members of the United States Olympic gymnastics team in Tokyo will not be superstar Simone Biles or her fellow athletes, but the doctors and therapists hired to treat them as the sport works to put years of scandal behind it.

Following the 2016 Rio Games, USA Gymnastics was rocked by revelations of systemic abuse of athletes that triggered mass resignations, lawsuits, investigations and bankruptcy filings.

It also forced the introduction of long overdue health and safety protocols that forbid medical personnel, coaches, judges and other event staff from having one-on-one time with an athlete, and that will be visible in Tokyo.

"I've only been with the organization for a year and a half so I'm not sure what it looked like in Rio but with SafeSport being in place now we do have ... prevention policies," said Kim Kranz, USA Gymnastics head of Athlete Health and Wellness. 

The US Center for SafeSport is an independent nonprofit organization that provides sports with guidelines on how to provide safe environments for athletes and training for coaches and administrators.

Those include needing formal consent from athletes to treat them, using privacy curtains only when athletes are receiving delicate treatment, and having two adults present when there is an underage athlete in the medical area.

Many of the new rules were implemented in the scramble to fix failures in a system that allowed former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar to prey on hundreds of young athletes.

USA Gymnastics will have a seven-member medical team - five physical therapists and two reserves - in Tokyo.