As you watch the U.S. Artistic Swimming team practice for the Olympics — their bodies upside down, their legs scissoring in the air in perfect time, like frenzied offshore wind turbines — you will notice two things.

First, the sport is much harder, and possibly even more insane, than you thought. Second, in a discipline whose enthusiasm for homogeneity is reflected in its pre-2017 name, synchronized swimming, one of the athletes in the pool is very much not like the others.

His name is Bill May, and he is the only man on the team. A rule change in 2022 cleared the way for men to compete in the sport at this summer’s Paris Games. That means that this is May’s first and, realistically, last chance ever to fulfill his lifelong dream of competing in the Olympics. He is 45 years old.

There are 12 people on the team, but only eight, plus an alternate, will get to travel to Paris — a painful reality for such a close-knit group of people. On Saturday, the team will announce who made the final cut.

May is a towering figure in the sport, a breaker of barriers for more than three decades and a leader in the decades-long effort to open Olympic competition to men. But his fate this summer will rest not on his individual achievements or stature as an advocate, but on his ability to perform as one-eighth of a team of women half his age.

The impending decision hangs heavy over the team. Andrea Fuentes, the head coach, said she was so anxious about it that she was having trouble sleeping.