The University of Virginia will be well-represented at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which begin on Wednesday, with 17 current and former ‘Hoos competing, and two others serving as alternates.
John Casteen, wherever he is, dude must be beaming.
Joe Bell will be the first UVA student-athlete to compete as his New Zealand soccer team takes the pitch on Wednesday to open group play. Emily Sonnett and Team USA play their first match of women’s group play on Thursday.
UVA is sending six swimmers to compete at Paris La Defense Arena July 27-Aug. 3, including five on the U.S. Olympic women’s swim team, which will be coached by Todd DeSorbo, the UVA head coach.
The U.S. roster includes three current Cavaliers (graduate student Alex Walsh, senior Gretchen Walsh and junior Emma Weber) and two recent alums (Paige Madden ’21 and Kate Douglass ’23).
Junior Aimee Canny will be swimming for South Africa.
This is the second Olympic competition for Alex Walsh, Canny, Douglass and Madden, all of whom competed in Tokyo, combining to win three medals.
De Sorbo was also in Tokyo, serving as an assistant coach for Team USA.
UVA alums are taking up two of the five places on the U.S. national women’s tennis team. First-time Olympians Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro are also the first two female Cavaliers to compete in the sport. The two former NCAA singles champions are ranked No. 9 and No. 15 in the world.
Both are scheduled to play singles, while Collins is also slated to compete in doubles.
The tennis tournaments begin on Saturday, July 27 with the gold-medal match scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 3.
Heidi Long will be making her Olympic debut, rowing in the eight for Great Britain. Preliminary action in that event is slated to begin on Monday, July 29, and the finals will be held on Saturday, Aug. 3.
Virginia has five athletes competing in track and field events, led by veteran shot putter Filip Mihaljevic, who will represent Croatia at his third Olympics.
Mihaljevic will be joined by four other former Cavaliers who are all making their Olympic debuts: Ashley Anumba (Nigeria, discus), Halle Hazard (Grenada, 100 meters), Jordan Scott (Jamaica, triple jump) and Bridget (Guy) Williams (USA, pole vault).
The Cavaliers’ track and field events begin on Friday, Aug. 2, with shot put and discus qualifications and 100m heats, and continue through Friday, Aug. 9, with the triple jump finals.
Andrenette Knight is an alternate for Jamaica in the sprints and is in the pool for relay action. If Knight is used in a relay, the total number of Cavaliers competing at the games would rise to 17.
Virginia has one other former Cavalier heading to Paris as an alternate, with Pien Dicke currently serving as a reserve for the Dutch field hockey team.
Virginia alum Tammi Reiss will be serving as an assistant coach for USA basketball’s women’s 3×3 team. The three-time All-American helped lead the Cavaliers to three straight Final Fours as a player and also served as an assistant coach under Debbie Ryan from 1993-1996.
Reiss is currently the head women’s basketball coach at Rhode Island, having twice been named the Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year.
3×3 Basketball runs July 30 through Aug. 5.
Additionally, former Cavalier rowing Olympian Lindsay Shoop will work with the NBC broadcast team as an analyst for the sport. Shoop won gold in the women’s eight for Team USA in Beijing in 2008, four years after the end of her Cavalier career.
Lori Lindsey will serve as a soccer analyst for the network. Lindsey was a two-time ACC Player of the Year for the Cavaliers. This is her second time calling Olympic contests, having also worked at the Tokyo games.
Including this year’s competitors, Virginia has had 80 athletes competing at the Olympics, winning 34 medals with 17 golds.
For more information on the Cavaliers competing at Paris 2024, visit our Olympics Central page at virginiasports.com/2024-summer-olympics.
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Chris Graham
