Team USA’s Paris-bound NCAA athletes

The GIST: As an invaluable Olympic pipeline for athletes from all over the world, the NCAA will be well-represented in Paris. Here are Team USA’s college stats:

385: The number of current, past, or incoming NCAA athletes on the U.S. Olympic team — that’s 65% of all the Americans competing in Paris.

• If you count those who played at the NAIA, junior college, or club level, that number climbs to 75%. And considering how many international athletes compete at U.S. schools (a lot), college sports clearly have a global impact.

14: How many Olympic teams are made entirely of athletes with NCAA experience. All in the family.

169: The number of colleges sending at least one current athlete or alum to Paris. Leading the way for Team USA? Stanford, whose jaw-dropping 38 reps includes swimming legend Katie Ledecky, men’s gymnasts Asher Hong and Brody Malone, and women’s soccer stars Sophia Smith, Naomi Girma, and Tierna Davidson.

• Coming in second and third, respectively, are UCLA with 17 Olympians and USC with 16. Golden State, going for gold.

206: How many Team USA athletes have won at least one NCAA championship trophy. Virginia women’s swimming’s 2024 grad and Tokyo 2020 silver medalist Alex Walsh has the most with 23 (!!!), including six solo titles and one team crown added just last March. More hardware than Home Depot.

The GIST: Of all the U.S. Olympic teams boasting NCAA talent, two stand out for the sheer number of current and recently graduated collegians on their rosters: Swimming leads the pack with 22, and track & field trails just behind with 20. Of those NCAAers, there’s a few you’ll likely hear a lot about over the next two weeks.

🏊 The Walsh sisters: The aforementioned Alex Walsh is competing in her second Games and this time, she’s bringing along her younger sister, Gretchen. Over their three seasons together at Virginia, the Walsh sisters snagged 35 individual and three team national titles between them — and Gretchen will likely add to that count in her upcoming senior season.

Once swimming events start on Saturday, expect big splashes from the Walshes: Alex will try to move up the 200m medley podium from her Tokyo silver-medal finish, and Gretchen will feature in the 100m butterfly, 50m freestyle, and 4x100m relay.

• As the new 100m fly world record-holder, Gretchen should see especially generous airtime in Paris. If she can repeat that performance, she could strike gold.

👟 Parker Valby: The NCAA distance queen was the face of collegiate track & field last year, capping her legendary senior season at Florida with a fourth and fifth NCAA championship in May’s 5k and 10k outdoor finals.

• Valby proved she’s ready for the jump to post-collegiate competition with a strong performance against seasoned pros at Trials, bagging a second-place finish in the 10k to punch her ticket to the Games.

• For now, she’s embracing her underdog status…but an impressive showing in Paris would kickstart a stellar pro and international career.

The GIST: Outside of swimming and track & field, three other sports’ Olympic rosters are also stacked with current college stars who will head straight from Paris back to campus. Busy, busy.

🏑 Field hockey: Of Team USA’s 16 rostered players, six — Michigan’s Abby Tamer, Princeton’s Beth Yeager, Maryland’s Emma DeBerdine, Penn State’s Sophia Gladieux, and Northwestern’s Ashley Sessa and Maddie Zimmer — will grace collegiate fields when the NCAA season begins next month.

• Notably, all but Yeager compete in one of the nation’s toughest conferences, the Big Ten. Nothing like making peace with your sworn enemies for a few weeks in the name of gold and glory, eh?

🤺 Fencing: Everyone on this 20-person, mixed-gender roster has NCAA ties, including three straight out of collegiate competition — but two haven’t even started their college careers yet: Colin Heathcock and Magda Skarbonkiewicz will begin their freshman seasons at Harvard and Notre Dame, respectively, in November. The kids are alright.

🤽 Women’s water polo: Current college kids — Emily Ausmus of USC, Jovana Sekulic of Princeton, and Jenna Flynn, Ryann Neushul, and Jewel Roemer of Stanford — make up more than a third of this 13-woman roster. A trip to Paris and the chance to hang with Flavor Flav? Priceless.