What’s better than winning a gold medal? How about winning a gold medal in front of your home crowd? For UC Irvine alum Kévin Tillie, a professional volleyball player, that achievement is tantalizingly within reach. Ranked fourth in the world, France has a good chance to repeat for the first time since the U.S. men’s team did in the 1980s.
The U.S. men’s volleyball team also boasts several UC athletes, including UC Irvine alum David Smith, who is making his fourth Olympic appearance — one of only four players in U.S. history to do so. Smith is hearing impaired, plays with hearing aids and is proud to be a role model for other athletes in a similar situation. “I think sometimes so many people see hearing loss as a disability and that’s all they see and that becomes the center of their thought process. So you’re thinking about what you can’t do instead of what you can do,” he told USA Volleyball. “Being able to be a real-time influence and a real-time inspiration to the next generation has been real cool.”
Smith will be joined by his one-time UC Irvine coach and the coach of the 2024 NCAA champion UCLA volleyball team, John Speraw, along with UCLA alums Garrett Muagututia and Micah Maʻa.
The U.S. women will be heading to Paris to defend their first-ever gold in the sport, with a trifecta of UCLA coaches pushing them along the way: UCLA Hall of Famers Karch Kiraly and Sue Enquist, along with current UCLA women’s volleyball head coach Alfee Reft. They’ll be facing one of Reft’s UCLA stars, Iman Ndiaye, who will be representing France and battling the U.S. to qualify for knockouts out of Pool A.
Meanwhile, on the beach, at just 22 years of age, UCLA student Miles Partain makes up half of the No. 4 ranked men’s duo in the world with Andy Benesh and will be the youngest U.S. beach player in Olympic history. UC Santa Barbara alumMiles Evans and former NBA player Chase Budinger have been coming on strong since the two paired up in 2023 and will be seeking glory as well in a most dazzling setting — a temporary arena at the base of the Eiffel Tower called Eiffel Tower Stadium.
Water Polo
U.S. women’s water polo is on a historic run, having earned three golds in the last three Summer Games — and well-positioned to earn another. The team is a tight-knit group with UC connections at its very heart, including longtime head coach and Santa Clara native Adam Krikorian, who led UCLA to collegiate success in the pool and then as its winningest coach before taking the U.S. women’s post and guiding them to glory. Assisting Krikorian poolside will be UCLA coach and alum Molly Cahill and UC Berkeley alum and men’s gold medalist Chris Oeding.
The team has a number of UC veterans now playing in their third Olympic Games, from UCLA alum Rachel Fattal to Kaleigh Gilchrist, a former UC Irvine water polo assistant coach, along with newbies like Tara Prentice, a UC Irvine water polo legend debuting in these Games. Maddie Musselman, the team MVP in the last Olympics with 18 goals, will also be in the pool at Paris. Her biggest fan is husband Patrick Woepse, who is battling a rare lung cancer but insisted Musselman not drop the sport. “Given the opportunity to watch her play and have success, it’s like there’s nothing better in the world to me than watching that,” Woepse told NBC Los Angeles.
Facing the women’s team will be other compelling UC athletes, like 19-year-old UCLA water polo player Sienna Green, who will be the youngest Australian woman to compete in the sport at the Olympic level. She’ll be joined on the Australian team by fellow Bruin Bronte Halligan.
On the men’s side, Chase Dodd, a junior at UCLA, and Ryder Dodd, an incoming freshman, will compete as the first set of brothers to make a U.S. Olympic roster since 1988. UC San Diego men’s water polo head coach Matt Ustaszewski is heading to Paris as an assistant coach to help them fight for gold. Of course, they face no shortage of competition: Cal water polo’s Nikolaos Papanikolaou will be playing for Greece, whose squad won a silver in Tokyo.
Golf
After a more than 100-year absence from the Olympics, golf returned in 2016 — and UC has a great shot at grabbing a gold in the women’s event this year, with UCLA alum Lilia Vu, the No. 2 ranked golfer in the world, teeing up in Paris. Vu, raised in Fountain Valley, California, got her start at the local golf course under the tutelage of her father, Douglas, and has since won a number of majors and reached the top ranking in the world twice. “I don’t think I could be where I’m at right now if I didn’t go to UCLA,” Vu told the Los Angeles Times on her development as a golfer. Another major inspiration is her grandfather, Dinh Du, who built a boat to help his family escape Vietnam during the war. His support of her game helped carry her from her lowest moments to the Olympics. "It means that hopefully my grandpa didn’t build that boat for nothing, and I’m able to do something with the life he gave all of us, and I’m never going to stop trying my best," Vu told ESPN.
On the men’s side, for Team USA, former Cal Bear Collin Morikawa, currently 6th on the PGA Tour, will look to add a medal to a distinguished career that has already raked in nearly $35 million in winnings. Fellow Cal Bear Byeong Hun An, fresh off a 13th place finish at The Open in Scotland, will be angling to do the same for the Republic of Korea.
Diving
British diver Tom Daley is heading for his fifth Olympics, coming out of retirement at the behest of his young son. Daley earned a wide international following as one of the few openly gay athletes at the Olympic level, coming out in 2013; he also gained fans during the Tokyo Olympics not only for his gold medal dive but his skillful knitting, a hobby he picked up during the pandemic and practiced in the mostly empty stands. Since coming out of retirement, Daley has been coaching and training at UCLA under the tutelage of UCLA diving coach Tim Stebbins; his first-place finishes with diving partner Noah Williams in the leadup to Paris make him a Bruin to watch.
Table Tennis
Women’s table tennis in Paris is an exclusively UC affair, with all three members of the U.S. team UC students or alums.
For many of the athletes in Paris, coming to the Olympic Village might be a blur of new experiences and new people, but not for Rachel Sung and Amy Wang, longtime friends and roommates at UCLA. The two are fresh off their third straight U.S. Women’s Doubles National title and are set to play doubles as part of the U.S. Women’s Team event. They will be alongside UC Berkeley alum Lily Zhang in Paris, who is the first American to compete in the sport over four Olympic Games, having made her debut in the London Games at age 16.
“I think being able to see each other everyday, you come to a certain level of understanding of each other,” Sung told UC Newsroom during a July 23 Team USA press conference. “It helps in doubles, because we can tell by some really small things, if someone is feeling off or needs more encouragement. “
“We always have good chemistry with each other off and on the court,” Wang added. “That’s what makes us a really great doubles pair.”
Track and field
UC athletes will also be sprinting, leaping, and throwing their way around Paris, as Cal Bears, UCLA Bruins and UC San Diego Tritons look to make their mark. Former UCLA athlete Rai Benjamin will be looking to add to his Tokyo haul of silver in the 400-meter hurdles and gold in the 4x400 meter relay, hoping to win gold in the 400-meter hurdles after recording the fifth-fastest performance ever in the event at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in June. UC San Diego alum Dan Golubovic of Manhattan Beach will be doing it all — literally — in the decathlon, representing Australia as he runs, shot puts, hurdles, throws a javelin … and otherwise completes the 10 event gauntlet that makes the sport so legendary.
Meanwhile, for other UC athletes, it’s discus and hammer time. Mykolas Alekna,UC Berkeley ’25, broke the world record for men’s discus —the longest-standing record in track history, dating back to 1986 —at the Oklahoma Throws Series World Invitational on April 14 of this year. He will be representing Lithuania and following in the gold medal-winning footsteps of his father, Virgilijus Alekna. UC Berkeley grad Camryn Rogers has a great shot of earning a medal for Canada in the hammer throw, having earned a gold at the World Championships in the event in 2023. Two other members of the tight-knit Cal throwing team will be competing in Paris — Rowan Hamilton of Canada in the hammer throw and Swedish thrower Caisa-Marie Lindfors in discus —and their coach at Cal, Mohamad “Mo” Saatara, will be cheering them on. Coach Mo doesn’t have a formal role in Paris but he will be there in support of Rogers as a personal coach. Learn more about his fierce dedication to helping his throwers in this UC Berkeley story.
Rowing
When we say UC Berkeley has a world-class collegiate rowing program, it’s no joke: No less than 15 Cal Bear rowers representing 11 countries will be in the Olympics this year. That includes current students Angus Dawson (Australia), Gennaro di Mauro (Italy) and Tim Roth (Switzerland), and a number of recent alums. Cal rowers have a lot to live up to, having brought home four medals during the last games, two bronze, two gold; Canada’s Sydney Payne will be looking to show her fellow Cal rowers the way as she defends her gold.
Soccer
Also defending gold? Jessie Fleming of Canada in women’s soccer. Canada took home their first ever Olympic gold in the event in Tokyo in part because of her clinical make during the penalty shootout in the final match. Fellow Cal Bear Sydney Collins was slated to join her in the title defense before she tragically broke her leg a week before the Games. Former UCLA player Mallory Swanson, meanwhile, is back from injury and ready to be an attacking force for Team USA. Former UC Santa Barbara Gaucho Michael Boxall will be helping to guide his New Zealand countrymen through the men’s brackets, with Team USA standing in the way in Group A.
Paralympics
While the Olympics Closing Ceremonies will take place on August 11, it’s really just a passing of the baton to the Summer Paralympics, also held in Paris, starting August 28. UC Davis alum Hannah Chadwick will be competing in para-cycling for Team USA with the hopes of notching a medal, having won bronze in the Union Cycliste Internationale's Para-Cycling Track World Championships this year and last. On the U.S. men’s side, UC Irvine alum Bryan Larsen, who helped run the bike club while in college, will be off to the races after recovering from a serious injury in 2019 that took him away from the sport.
In the pool, UC Berkeley class of 2025 swimmer Noah Jaffe will be looking to bag several medals of his own, having showed out in his international debut, winning a gold, a silver and two bronzes at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships.
On the track, UC Santa Cruz alum and former Banana Slug runner Leo Merle will be looking to take home gold for the United States in the 1500-meter race, just as he did in the Parapan American Games in 2023. Merle has just earned his dental degree and has his sights set on becoming the first American with cerebral palsy to run the 1,500-meter race in less than four minutes.
Behind the scenes stars
If you’re going to show out on the world stage, why not bring a world-class medical support team with you? Doctors from across UC Health are accompanying teams in Paris, with UCLA Health acting as the official team physicians of USA Basketball, this year and in the next Summer Games, happening in their own backyard in Westwood. Once a student-athlete herself in lacrosse, UC Davis alum and director of performance nutrition Rachael Mack will be in Paris as the nutritionist for US men’s water polo.
UC Davis’ Dr. Marcia Faustin will be reprising her role as team doctor for USA gymnastics, having acted as co-head physician during the Tokyo Games, providing care for Simone Biles in her moment of need. She also helped Suni Lee through a double diagnosis of kidney disease to make the Olympic team again this year. What is it like to take care of patients whose work challenges the laws of physics?
“It’s nerve-racking to watch them,” she told UC Davis in 2021, “but it’s also exciting to be in the room and watch greatness occur right in front of you.”
Learn more about UC Olympians in the spreadsheet below and scroll on for campus coverage.
Did you know? Nine out of UC’s 10 campuses have sent athletes to the Olympic Games, and UC Merced, the system’s youngest campus, very nearly sent their first this year, UC Merced standout defender and Fiji National Team player Preeya Singh.
Follow the stories of our Olympians as the games continue with campus coverage. Special thanks to our campus athletic department colleagues for their efforts in identifying athletes and telling their stories:
