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After years of training, months of waiting and pressure-filled moments during Olympic trials, the time has finally come. Nearly 600 athletes have officially qualified for the U.S. team and are headed to Paris to compete in 32 sports over 16 days at the Olympics from July 26 to Aug. 11, then in 22 sports at the Paralympics from Aug. 28 through Sept. 8. From legendary household names, to fresh-faced contenders, here are some of the U.S. men and women who will be going for gold in Paris.
Written by Clare Brennan, Dan Gartland, Lauren Green, Jamie Lisanti, Kristen Nelson and John Schwarb
Archery
Casey Kaufhold
Age: 20
Hometown: Lancaster, Pa.
After making her Olympic debut at age 17 in Tokyo, Kaufhold is back for a second Summer Games and, this time around, she hopes to bring home some hardware. Last year, she became the first American woman to hold the top spot (in the recurve category) in the Sanlida World Archery rankings since they were established in 2001. And in Paris, Kaufhold has a chance to be the first American to win archery gold since 1996, and the first U.S. woman to win an individual medal in Olympic archery since 1976 in Montreal. Kaufhold's parents, Rob and Carole, introduced her to the sport at age three. They also own and operate a leading archery equipment store, Lancaster Archery Supply.
Basketball
Diana Taurasi
Age: 42
Hometown: Chino, Calif.
Taurasi proves age is but a number, returning for her sixth-straight Olympic appearance with the women’s USA Basketball team. The five-time gold medalist brings a wealth of experience to the squad, competing in more Olympic games than any other player in women’s USA Basketball history. Widely considered one of the best WNBA players of all time, Taurasi is a three-time league champion, two-time finals MVP and a former WNBA MVP. The Phoenix Mercury star is also known for her competitive edge, gaining a reputation as a fierce opponent and a colorful trash talker. Expect her to bring her infamous dogged mentality to Paris for what is likely to be her last Olympics.
A’ja Wilson
Age: 27
Hometown: Hopkins, S.C.
There is little debate to be had: Wilson enters her second-straight Olympic Games as the best women’s basketball player in the world. She brings to Paris a remarkable resume, including back-to-back WNBA titles (2022 and ’23) with the Las Vegas Aces, winning finals MVP in her latest championship run. The two-time WNBA MVP hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down either, leading the league in scoring, averaging 27 points per game. Her international career has been equally impressive, leading the 2020 Olympic team—along with Brittney Griner—with 16.5 points per game to help capture the gold medal in Tokyo. Team USA will look for a similar performance from Wilson in Paris, and luckily the star forward has plenty of familiar faces to work off of, sharing the floor with threeAces teammates: Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray and Kelsey Plum.
Stephen Curry
Age: 36
Hometown: Charlotte
An Olympic gold medal is one of the only accomplishments missing from Curry’s Hall of Fame career. The 2012 Olympics came before he had become a superstar (he was also hurt) and he withdrew from consideration for the ’16 Games citing lingering knee and ankle injuries. In ’21, he declined a spot on the team saying it “wasn’t the right thing for me and the right time.” Now, in 2024, Curry will finally make his Olympic debut at this summer’s Games, but it might also mark his only Olympic appearance. At 36, he’s the second-oldest player on the U.S. roster (younger only than LeBron James) and will be 40 when the Olympics come to Los Angeles in 2028.
Kevin Durant
Age: 35
Hometown: Suitland, Md.
Even as he approaches his 36th birthday, Durant remains one of the best basketball players in the world. This will be his fourth appearance at the Olympics after playing on the previous three gold medal-winning teams. Durant led all three of those teams in scoring and during the last Summer Games, he passed Carmelo Anthony to become the United States’ all-time leading scorer in Olympic competition. In Paris, Durant will be reunited with his former Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who was an assistant on the team that won gold in Tokyo and took over as head coach for this cycle.
3x3 Basketball
Canyon Barry
Age: 31
Hometown: Fort Wayne, Ind.
Barry comes from a family of basketball players. His father, Rick, was an NBA champion and five-time all-star and his mom, Lynn, was a star at William & Mary. But there’s one basketball achievement that Canyon has to himself: Olympian. Barry was named to the 3x3 team in March, in a sport that made its fast-paced debut in Tokyo. He was part of the 2023 Pan American Games team that won gold and a member of two FIBA 3x3 World Cup teams, one of which won silver in 2023.
Rhyne Howard
Age: 24
Hometown: Cleveland, Tenn.
After an impressive collegiate career at Kentucky, Howard was drafted to the Atlanta Dream as the No. 1 pick in the 2022 WNBA draft. She earned Rookie of the Year honors following a stellar professional debut, averaging 16.2 points and 4.5 rebounds in her inaugural season. Howard would go on to make WNBA history in ’23, scoring the most points in a playoff debut (36), and becoming the youngest player to score over 30 points in the postseason. The 6' 2" guard has been prolific for USA Basketball too, earning gold at the 2021 FIBA AmeriCup, 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup and 2018 FIBA Americas U18 Championship. Howard has been rehabbing a left ankle injury since June and will rely on her international experience in her transition back to the court for the Olympic Games.
Beach Volleyball
Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes
Age: 28; 29
Hometown: Fullerton, Calif.; Costa Mesa, Calif.
Cheng and Hughes started playing beach volleyball together as teens, charging to a 103-match win streak at USC in a dominant collegiate career. The duo took their winning partnership to the pros in 2017 but then split up in ’18. Cheng began playing with Sarah Sponcil, her partner at the Tokyo Games where they advanced to the Round of 16. Meanwhile, Hughes linked up with Summer Ross but missed the last Summer Games due to Ross’s injury. In 2022, five years after their split, Cheng and Hughes reunited—Cheng made the first move, asking Hughes to meet for coffee. Since then, the duo has wasted no time getting back to their winning ways, becoming world champions just a year after teaming up. Entering Paris with some serious momentum, Cheng and Hughes will look to bring home the U.S.’s fifth gold medal in the event.
Miles Partain and Andy Benesh
Age: 22; 29
Hometown: Pacific Palisades, Calif; Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
Partain and Benesh’s ascent to the 2024 Olympics happened at warp speed. The duo played in the main draw of a major international tournament for the first time in the spring of 2023. That kicked off an impressive opening run—they won gold in Gstaad in July, beating reigning Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum in the process. The pair utilizes the increasingly popular jump-set approach, which features a two-touch technique instead of relying solely on the three-touch attack. They enter Paris as the No. 1 U.S. team and the youngest American beach volleyball pair in the country’s Olympic history. Partain and Benesh will hope to end a U.S. medal drought in the event that extends back to 2008.
Boxing
Jahmal Harvey
Age: 21
Hometown: Oxon Hill, Md.
Harvey’s first love was football, playing running back and cornerback in the same youth football league as 2024 No. 1 NFL draft pick Caleb Williams. But Harvey’s football coach introduced him to boxing when he was 13 and when it came time to choose between the two sports, Harvey picked boxing. That proved to be a good decision. As a 5' 6" featherweight (126 pounds), Harvey doesn’t have the size that elite football players do. But he does have the quick feet and powerful hands that translate to success in the ring. Nicknamed “Hard Rock,” he’s already won gold medals at the 2021 World Championships and ’23 Pan American Games and will be among the favorites in Paris.
Jennifer Lozano
Age: 21
Hometown: Laredo, Texas
The Texas border city of Laredo has more than 250,000 residents but has never sent an athlete to the Olympics. Until now. Lozano started boxing at age 11 to protect herself from bullies who mocked her for being overweight and speaking Spanish. Before long, she was defeating opponents much older than her and her coaches realized she had the potential to be a great boxer. Lozano qualified for Paris by winning a silver medal at the Pan American Games last year in the 50-kg weight class. Her previous feats include a gold medal at the 2022 USA Boxing Elite Championship and bronze at that year’s USA Boxing International Invitational.
Lozano was nicknamed “La Traviesa” (The Troublemaker) by her late grandmother, who was killed in a shooting in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, when Lozano was 17. “I know my grandmother watched me every step of the way, and I will forever carry her with me,” Lozano wrote on Instagram after punching her ticket to Paris.
Breaking
Sunny Choi
Age: 35
Hometown: Queens, N.Y.
Growing up in Louisville, Choi dreamed of going to the Olympics—as a gymnast. It wasn’t until she was enrolled at Penn that she was introduced to breaking, and she was immediately hooked. She continued to practice and build her skills, ultimately graduating from college in 2011 and working her way into a marketing role as global creative operations director for Estée Lauder. It wasn’t until recently, when it was announced in 2020 that breaking was added to the Paris Olympics program, that Choi, also known as B-Girl Sunny, decided to quit her job and dedicate her life to breaking on a full-time basis. In November 2023 at the Pan Am Games, Choi won the competition’s first gold medal for breaking. In Paris, she hopes to do the same.
Victor Montalvo
Age: 30
Hometown: Kissimmee, Fla.
Montalvo hails from a family of breakers—his father and uncle were both b-boys in Mexico during the 1980s, and they started teaching him at age six. Competing as B-Boy Victor, he enters the Paris Games as a top contender after winning gold at the 2023 world championships. He is also a two-time Red Bull BC One world champion. During competitions, Montalvo says he plans out three signature moves and tries “to keep myself 50% structured and then 50% improvised.”
Canoe
Evy Leibfarth
Age: 20
Hometown: Bryson City, N.C.
Leibfarth made her Olympic debut in Tokyo where she competed in both the women’s solo kayak and canoe events. At 17, she was the youngest competitor in either event and finished 12th and 18th respectively. In Paris, Leibfarth will add one more event to her repertoire—kayak cross–as she becomes the first U.S. woman to compete in three whitewater events. She is a two-time world junior champion in the event and added a bronze medal at her first senior world championships a month after the Tokyo Games.
Cycling
Hannah Roberts
Age: 22
Hometown: Buchanan, Mich.
Roberts heads to Paris as one of the favorites to win gold in BMX freestyle. She earned a silver medal in Tokyo, where the event made its Olympic debut, finishing less than a point-and-a-half from the top step of the podium. Roberts followed her cousin and a top U.S. rider, Brett Banasiewicz, into the sport when she was 9. She won the sport’s first world championship in 2017 and five in total, including three straight from 2021 to 2023.
Diving
Sarah Bacon
Age: 27
Hometown: Indianapolis
Bacon will make her Olympic debut in Paris in two events, the individual 3m springboard and the synchronized 3-meter springboard, with partner Kassidy Cook. It comes after Bacon narrowly missed qualifying for both events in the last Olympic cycle. She has had plenty of success as a collegiate diver for Minnesota where she was a five-time NCAA champion, winning three titles in the 1m springboard and adding two more in the 3-meter springboard event. Bacon and long-time friend Cook will look to be the first U.S. women on the synchro podium since the 2012 Games in London.
Fencing
Lee Kiefer
Age: 30
Hometown: Lexington, Ky.
Kiefer made history at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 when she became the first American—male or female—to win gold in the individual foil event. The Paris Games will mark her fourth appearance at the Olympics, and she’ll be seeking to become just the third woman in history to win consecutive individual foil golds. Kiefer will be joined in Paris by her husband, American fencer Gerek Meinhardt, who will be appearing in his fifth Olympics. And fencing isn’t the only thing that Kiefer and Meinhardt do together. They both completed two-and-a-half years of medical school at the University of Kentucky before Tokyo and put their education on hold to chase another Olympic appearance. They hope to return to school next year.
Colin Heathcock
Age: 18
Hometown: Beijing
The U.S. fencing team will be wearing red, white and blue in Paris, but they might as well be wearing Crimson. A whopping eight current, former or future Harvard fencers will be part of the 20-person squad. That includes Heathcock, who will be a freshman in Cambridge in the fall. In fact, the entire four-person men’s saber team is composed of Harvard athletes, with Heathcock joining a trio of Harvard grads. Are you a fencing fan who also loves dogs? You can adopt a two-month-old cockapoo named after Heathcock from a shelter near Kansas City. Pawportunities in Blue Springs, Mo., got into the Olympic spirit by naming 42 adoptable dogs after U.S. Olympians in honor of Blue Springs resident Eveylynn Lowe, who will be on the U.S. gymnastics team in Paris.
Golf
Scottie Scheffler
Age: 28
Hometown: Dallas
Perhaps no other first-time Olympian will be as much of a favorite for gold in his or her sport as Scheffler will be in men’s golf. The No. 1-ranked player in the world won six times on the PGA Tour this season before July 1—Arnold Palmer was the last to do so in 1962—with tee-to-green excellence statistically comparable to Tiger Woods’s prime. Scheffler, who as a kid won 60% of his starts on the Northern Texas PGA Junior Tour, has only been stopped in 2024 by unusual circumstances, such as an arrest from a traffic stop at the PGA Championship in May. The charges were ultimately dropped and the Masters champion returned to winning less than a month later.
Nelly Korda
Age: 25
Hometown: Bradenton, Fla.
The Tokyo gold medalist returns while occupying the same spot she held in the summer of 2021: No. 1 in the women’s world golf rankings. Korda won five consecutive events earlier this year on the LPGA Tour, matching record streaks previously set by Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstäm, including her second career major title at the Chevron Championship. Athletic excellence runs in the family: Both her parents were professional tennis players (father Petr Korda won the 1998 Australian Open), her younger brother, Sebastian, plays pro tennis and older sister, Jessica, won six times on the LPGA Tour.
Gymnastics
Fred Richard
Age: 20
Hometown: Stoughton, Mass.
Richard became the youngest U.S. man to win an individual world medal when he took home all-around bronze at the 2023 world championships in Antwerp. He also helped the U.S. men to their first team medal (also bronze) since 2010. That capped off a stellar 2023 for Richard. He won the NCAA all-around title as a freshman at Michigan and picked up two other NCAA titles on parallel bars and high bar. He brought that into the leadup to Paris where he finished second in the all-around at both the NCAA championships and the U.S. national championships before winning at the Olympic Trials in both the all-around and high bar. Richard uses his social media platforms on Instagram and TikTok with a combined 976,000 followers to publicize his sport. One, from last year’s world championships, features Richard and Simone Biles on the floor exercise trying out skills from each other’s routine.
Simone Biles
Age: 27
Hometown: Spring, Texas
The GOAT heads to her third Olympics this summer, where she’ll become the first woman to do so since Dominique Dawes in 2000, and the oldest to represent the U.S. since 1952. Despite developing the twisties—when a gymnast loses their sense of where they are in the air—in Tokyo, the six-time world all-around champion is still the favorite to win a second Olympic title in Paris. Biles has done just about all there is to do in the sport, racking up 30 world championship medals (23 of them gold) and seven Olympic medals including a team silver medal and a bronze on balance beam in Tokyo. A win in the all-around would make her the first repeat Olympic champion since Věra Čáslavská in 1968 and the first over age 20 since 1972. The nine-time U.S. national champion will have plenty of family and friends in the crowd this time around, including her husband, Jonathan Owens, who has been given several days off from Chicago Bears training camp to travel to Paris.
Jordan Chiles
Age: 23
Hometown: Vancouver, Wash.
Chiles brought back a silver medal in the team competition from Tokyo, but she’ll be one of four returning Olympians on this year’s five-woman squad that will be looking for a little bit of redemption in Paris. At the world championships the following year in Liverpool, she earned a pair of silver medals on vault and floor exercise. She competed collegiately for UCLA and as a sophomore in 2023 finished second in the all-around and was the national champion on floor exercise and uneven bars.
Rugby
Ilona Maher
Age: 27
Hometown: Burlington, Vt.
Many might remember Maher from her viral TikToks at the Tokyo Games, where she gave a behind-the-scenes look at life in the Olympic Village, including a demonstration of the infamous cardboard beds. Since then, Maher (who has more than a million TikTok followers) continues to capitalize on her social media prowess to give visibility to a sport a lot of Americans don’t think twice about, combining humor with messages on body positivity and frequently featuring her U.S. teammates. Having been with the team since 2018, Maher will compete in her second Olympics just a year after breaking her ankle and having to watch the team qualify from home. The Eagles finished sixth in Tokyo, but are returning seven players from that squad in the hopes of winning their first Olympic medal in Paris.
Skateboarding
Jagger Eaton
Age: 23
Hometown: Mesa, Ariz.
Eaton made history in Tokyo when he won a bronze medal in the street discipline as a teenager during skateboarding’s Olympic debut. The 23-year-old is a world champion in both street (2021) and park (2023) and a seven-time X Games medalist. In 2012, he became the youngest competitor in X Games history at 11 years old. (That record stood until 2019.) He comes from a family of athletes: Mom Shelley was a member of the U.S. national gymnastics team in the 1980s, older brother Jett also was a skateboarder and father Geoff owns the skateboard school where both brothers learned to skate.
Bryce Wettstein
Age: 20
Hometown: Encinitas, Calif.
Wettstein will compete in her second Olympic Games in the park discipline, after taking sixth place in Tokyo, the highest U.S. finisher in the event. She was one of seven skaters who won the Tokyo 2020 Fair Play award after consoling a fellow competitor during the finals. Wettstein, who began skating when she was five, earned a bronze medal at the 2023 Pan American Games and a fifth-place finish at the world championships.
Soccer
Naomi Girma
Age: 24
Hometown: San Jose
It’s hard to believe that the Paris Games will be Girma’s Olympic debut, with the young star already playing the part of a seasoned veteran on the U.S. women’s national team. Since her first cap in 2022, Grima has solidified herself as the leader of the squad’s backline, anchoring the defense from the center-back position. Named U.S. Soccer's 2023 Female Player of the Year, Girma played every minute of her first World Cup, a bright spot in the U.S.’s disappointing round of 16 exit in Australia. Now under the stewardship of new coach Emma Hayes, Girma will be tasked with leading this next generation of players looking to restore the U.S. atop the world rankings.
Jaedyn Shaw
Age: 19
Hometown: Frisco, Texas
Shaw may still be a teenager, but the San Diego Wave star has shown she’s ready for the big stage, surging up the ranks since her professional debut in 2022 at just 17 years old. A little over a year later, in October 2023, Shaw earned her first cap with the USWNT, three days before scoring her first goal with the team. It was off to the races after that, with Shaw becoming the first USWNT player to score a goal in each of her five starts. A versatile attacking player, Shaw can line up across the frontline or in the No. 10 role, a characteristic important to Hayes, who stresses tactical flexibility. In an Olympic tournament that will serve as a passing of the generational torch for the USWNT, look for Shaw to establish herself as the team’s next x-factor.
Walker Zimmerman
Age: 31
Hometown: Lawrenceville, Ga.
The men’s Olympic soccer tournament follows a different format than the women’s competition, as the men’s rosters primarily feature players 23 and under. Each team gets three exceptions to that rule, and Zimmerman is one of them, added as an overage player, infusing this young U.S. squad with an element of veteran leadership. The star center back has critical experience on the world stage, playing with the men’s national team since 2017 and representing the U.S. at the World Cup in ’22, appearing in all four games. The Nashville SC star will provide a steady presence on the backline, as the U.S. kicks off its Olympic campaign against host country France.
Sport Climbing
Natalia Grossman
Age: 23
Hometown: Santa Cruz, Calif.
A favorite to win gold in Paris, Grossman has quickly become one of the most successful climbers in her short career. Though she didn’t compete in Tokyo, 2021 was Grossman’s breakout year in World Cup events, where she was the world No. 1 in bouldering and No. 2 in lead with a combined eight medals that season. She went on to win gold in bouldering and a silver in lead at the world championships that year. Having moved to Salt Lake City to train with the national team, she won her 10th World Cup gold medal there in May. Grossman, who has been climbing since she was 6 years old, was also a gymnast growing up, allowing her to dance along the walls almost like she was bitten by a radioactive spider.
Surfing
John John Florence
Age: 31
Hometown: Honolulu
Not only does he have two first names, but he also has two world championship crowns (2016, ’17) to his name among a myriad of other titles. Now all Florence needs is his first Olympic medal. After his unexpected third-round elimination in Tokyo, he is looking for redemption in Tahiti, the French Polynesian island hosting the 2024 Olympic surfing events almost 10,000 miles from Paris. As the current No. 1 men’s surfer in the world and a new father, the stars seem to be aligning for Florence to make (and surf) waves this summer.
Caroline Marks
Age: 22
Hometown: Boca Raton, Fla.
Despite her young age, Marks has been a big name in women’s surfing for almost a decade, having first competed in a World Surf League event at 13 years old. Marks just missed out on the podium in Tokyo (where she was the youngest surfer competing) with a fourth-place finish, but won her first world championship last September. The title allowed Marks to reclaim her dominance, having stepped away from the sport in 2022 after feeling the weight of the expectations put upon her since before even starting high school. “Every moment away from the tour felt like an eternity,” she told Sports Illustrated in February. “But that made me really focus on what I needed to focus on, and not run away from it.”
Swimming
Katie Ledecky
Age: 27
Hometown: Bethesda, Md.
Ledecky enters her fourth Olympics looking to dominate in the pool yet again. She came away from both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021 as the most decorated female athlete. The seven-time Olympic champion looks to defend her titles in the 800- and 1500-meter freestyle events, where she is the favorite. She holds 29 of the 30 fastest times in the 800 and the top 19 times in the 1500. She will be going for an unprecedented fourth straight Olympic title in the 800, the race which kickstarted her Olympic medal haul back in 2012. She owns the last five world records in the event and six straight world titles.
Caeleb Dressel
Age: 27
Hometown: Orange Park, Fla.
Dressel enters his third Olympic Games after taking some time away from the pool following a withdrawal from the 2022 world championships. Dressel has only seen the top step of the podium on the Olympic stage, winning seven gold medals between Rio and Tokyo across individual and relay events. He narrowly missed out on a spot to qualify for the 100 free but came back to win the 50-meter “splash and dash” followed by the 100 butterfly on back-to-back nights at U.S. trials in June. Beyond being a veteran on the U.S. team, Dressel heads to Paris in another role: new father. He and his wife, Meghan, welcomed their first child earlier this year.
Katie Grimes
Age: 18
Hometown: Las Vegas
Grimes will be busy in the water in Paris. She became the first U.S. athlete named to the Paris team after winning bronze in the open-water 10-km at last year’s world championships, edging out the last two Olympic champions in a photo finish. Then, she added two more events in the pool: the 400 IM and the 1500 free. In Tokyo, the 15-year-old was the youngest U.S. swimmer to qualify for the Olympics since Amanda Beard in 1996 and narrowly missed out on a medal in the 800 free.
Kate Douglass
Age: 22
Hometown: Pelham, N.Y.
Douglass enters her second Olympics with multiple medal opportunities after earning bronze in the 200 IM in Tokyo. Her best will come in the same event, where she is a two-time world champion and currently ranked second in the world. After winning the 100-meter freestyle at U.S. Olympic Trials, Douglass decided to drop out from the race in Paris, choosing to focus on her other events, according to USA Swimming. (Gretchen Walsh will take her place.) In addition to the 200 IM, where she is two-time world champion, the 22-year-old Douglass also competes in the 200-meter breaststroke, where she is a two-time world silver medalist.
Chris Guiliano
Age: 21
Hometown: Douglassville, Pa.
When Guiliano touched the wall second in the 200 free at trials, he became the first Notre Dame swimmer to qualify for an Olympics. Two days later, he out-touched everyone, including reigning Olympic champ Dressel, to win the 100 free and added to his program two days after that in the 50 free where he finished second by one hundredth of a second. Guiliano will have a busy meet in Paris where he will also be part of the 4X100 and 4X200 relay teams, in addition to his three individual events. The 2024 ACC Swimmer of the Year isn’t the only athlete in the family: His brother was a swimmer at Albright College and his uncle played football at Wagner University.
Simone Manuel
Age: 27
Hometown: Sugarland, Texas
Manuel had to wait until the final night of competition at the U.S. Olympic Trials to clinch her spot in an individual event in Paris. She finished fourth in the 100 free in a loaded field to secure a place on the 4X100 relay squad. Manuel is no stranger to big moments and clutch performances to make an Olympic team. Three years ago, she won the 50 free in her final chance to secure a spot in Tokyo. After her triumph, she later revealed that she suffered from overtraining syndrome and was forced to take seven months off from swimming in 2022. But the 27-year-old is back, returning to Paris after winning a pair of individual medals—gold and silver in Rio—and a trio of relay medals from Rio and Tokyo.
Tennis
Coco Gauff
Age: 20
Hometown: Delray Beach, Fla.
After a positive test for COVID-19 just days before the Tokyo Games forced her to withdraw, Gauff is ready and focused for her first Olympics in Paris. Since then, the 20-year-old has added Grand Slam champion to her resume after capturing the 2023 U.S. Open title, and surged to No. 2 in the rankings. For all tennis players competing in Paris, the unorthodox switch from the grass courts of Wimbledon back to the red clay courts of Roland Garros (after playing there in late May) is a tricky transition, but Gauff—a finalist at the French Open in ‘22—hopes she can conjure up some clay magic. She’ll compete in both singles and doubles, with partner Jessica Pegula, making the United States the only nation with two top-10 singles players on its women's team.
Triathlon
Taylor Knibb
Age: 26
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Knibb became the youngest woman to represent the United States in the Olympic triathlon when she qualified for the Tokyo Games at age 23. She finished 16th in the women’s race but won a silver medal as part of the U.S. mixed relay team. She’ll be looking to improve on that individual result in Paris but will have to do so while pulling double duty in both triathlon and the cycling time trial. She’s one of the best triathletes in the world, having won the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in each of the past two years, but her qualification for the cycling team came as a surprise even to herself. “I’m in shock and so is my whole team,” Knibb said after winning the women’s time trial at the USA Cycling Pro Road National Championships in May. “We just wanted to go out, give a good effort, and see—hopefully improving on last year. But it just all came together.”
Morgan Pearson
Age: 30
Hometown: New Vernon, N.J.
While most of his peers competed in triathlon from a young age, Pearson was in his mid-20s before he entered his first triathlon in 2017. He turned pro the following year and represented the U.S. at the Tokyo Games, finishing 42nd in the men’s race and winning a silver medal as part of the mixed relay team. Pearson is coming off the biggest accomplishment of his career, having won the World Triathlon Championship Series race in Japan on May 11. He’s the first American man since 2009 to win a WTCS race. He also won the Americas Triathlon Championships Miami in March. Pearson hails from New Jersey, where he attended the Delbarton School, the same school as Jack Alexy, who will be part of the U.S. swim team in Paris. (Pearson is nine years older than Alexy.) He later attended the University of Colorado, where he was a five-time All-American in track and field.
Track and Field
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone
Age: 24
Hometown: New Brunswick, N.J.
Ever since she competed in Rio at 16 years old, it was clear that McLaughlin-Levrone was the future of the 400-meter hurdles. She set a world record in the trials leading up to the Tokyo Games and went on to win gold in Japan—and she has just been lowering her world record ever since, running a 50.65 at trials earlier this summer. But she’s also pretty freaking good without hurdles. McLaughlin-Levrone won gold in the 4X400 relay in Tokyo and competed in the 400-meter race for the first time as a professional in June 2023. When the USATF Championships rolled around that July, she won the event in 48.74 seconds (the fastest time of the year at that point). McLaughlin-Levrone is all but expected to win her third Olympic gold medal in Paris, which would be a great gift to herself with the 400-meter hurdles final taking place a day after her 25th birthday.
Sha’Carri Richardson
Age: 24
Hometown: Dallas
Whether you’re focused on her speed or her style, there is one word to describe Richardson: flashy. The sprinter, who is known for her colorful hair and long nails, announced herself to the world in 2021 when she ran a 10.72 (making her the sixth-fastest woman in the world at the time) and later won at trials to qualify for the Olympics. But she was later disqualified due to a positive THC test and was unable to compete in Tokyo. Back then, many opined that her Olympic dream had been stolen from her. But after winning the 100 at the U.S. championships in 2023, Richardson said, “I’m not back, I’m better.” She then won gold in the 100 meters at worlds later that year with a career-best 10.65, another gold as the anchor in the 4X100 relay and bronze in the 200. Though she just missed out on qualifying for the 200 at trials this summer (she finished fourth), Richardson took first in 100 and finally gets to compete as an Olympian this summer.
Nia Akins
Age: 26
Hometown: San Diego
Akins might have a love-hate relationship with Athing Mu and tripping. At the 2021 trials, Akins tripped on Mu’s heel and tumbled to the track 22 seconds into the 800-meter final and missed out on a trip to Tokyo. Three years later, in that same final on that same track in Eugene, Ore., Akins finished first while Mu, who won gold in Japan, was the one who fell. When she’s not running, Akins writes her own songs and plays guitar, a hobby she picked up during the pandemic. She told NBC that she accidentally forgot to cancel her weekly guitar lesson that overlapped with trials, apologizing to her instructor by announcing she’s an Olympian.
Noah Lyles
Age: 27
Hometown: Gainesville, Fla.
A long time admirer of Usain Bolt, Lyles has a good chance at joining the Jamaican icon in the record books in Paris. The 200-meter sprint is Lyles’s specialty—he holds the American record at 19.31 seconds—so it wasn’t a surprise when he retained his gold medal in the event at worlds last year. When he did the same in the 100, the comparisons to Bolt were being made in spades. But Lyles’s isn’t just looking for two or three gold medals in Paris like Bolt regularly won—he wants four. The sprinter, who already runs the 4X100 relay, is also adding the 4X400 to his busy schedule as the U.S. men look to redeem their Olympic relay woes this summer. Lyles has also been an outspoken advocate for addressing mental health in sports, revealing his struggles with depression in the lead-up to the Tokyo Games where he won bronze in the 200-meter.
Ryan Crouser
Age: 31
Hometown: Portland
Despite dealing with two different injuries in the spring (a nerve issue in his elbow, followed by a torn pectoral muscle while lifting), the two-time Olympic champion proved he’s still got it at trials. Crouser, who holds the world record in shot put at 23.56 meters, hadn’t competed all outdoor season and still easily secured his spot on the Olympic team with his five throws ranging from 22.44 meters to 22.84. But the six-foot-seven, 320-pound thrower is used to competing under less-than-ideal conditions: Crouser repeated as world champion last year while dealing with blood clots in his left leg. In Paris, he is looking to become the first person with three Olympic shot put titles and the oldest to win gold in the event in more than 50 years.
Gabby Thomas
Age: 27
Hometown: Atlanta
Thomas has two Olympic medals to her name—a bronze in the 200 and silver in the 4X100 relay in Tokyo—but she’s looking to use her experience to add gold to her collection this summer. She ran a 21.78—a world best this year—in her semifinal heat at trials, and came in first in the final. As if being the World No. 2 in the 200 isn’t enough, Thomas volunteers at a health clinic in Austin when she isn’t training. She studied neurobiology at Harvard and earned her master’s degree in public health at Texas last year.
Water Polo
Maggie Steffens
Age: 31
Hometown: Danville, Calif.
Steffens is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and captain of Team USA’s women’s water polo squad, a U.S. dynasty that is in search of a historic fourth gold in Paris. After setting the Olympic career goal-scoring record in Tokyo, Steffens is back this summer to further cement her status as one of the sport’s GOATs. She’s a proven leader in and out of the pool: After Steffens posted a call for support on her Instagram, rapper Flavor Flav reached out and is now the team’s newest hype man and financial supporter.
Wrestling
Aaron Brooks
Age: 23
Hometown: Hagerstown, Md.
Is there a better way to make your first Olympic team than by dethroning the reigning gold medalist to do so? A four-time NCAA champion out of wrestling powerhouse Penn State, Brooks swept fellow Nittany Lion alum David Taylor in the freestyle 86-kilogram competition at trials in April to earn his spot on Team USA. The upset was Taylor’s first loss to an American wrestler in seven years. Just a few weeks earlier, Brooks won the 2024 Hodge Trophy as the nation’s top collegiate wrestler, deciding to move up a weight class in his final year in Happy Valley and finishing with a perfect 22–0 season.
Helen Maroulis
Age: 32
Hometown: Rockville, Md.
As the first woman from the U.S. to win Olympic gold in wrestling in 2016, Maroulis will also become the first American woman to compete in three Olympics. Following that breakthrough medal in Rio, Maroulis briefly retired in ‘19 after a series of concussions, a PTSD diagnosis and what she thought would be a career-ending shoulder surgery. Instead, she won bronze in Tokyo two years later and has medaled at each world championships since. As the team’s veteran, Maroulis will be the oldest woman to ever wrestle for the U.S. at the Olympics, joined by the youngest to do so in 20-year-old Amit Elor.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Meet Team USA’s Roster for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
