California universities took center stage at the 2024 Paris Olympics this year as the state’s champions earned 22 medals.
Ledecky also holds the record for the women’s 800-meter and 1500-meter freestyles, according to her Team USA profile.
Other notable wins from Stanford alumna include Regan Smith, 22, who won a silver medal in the women’s swimming 100-meter backstroke on July 30. Current Stanford junior Torri Huske, 21, won her first gold medal in the women’s swimming 100-meter butterfly on July 28. She also won a gold medal in the women’s swimming 4 X 100-meter mixed medley relay with Team USA.
Of the 39 medals won by Stanford, 17 of them came from the women’s swimming and diving program, per the school.
It’s not just Stanford and USC that produce world-class Olympians.
Jack Alexy, 21, a student at UC Berkeley, won his first gold medal in Paris in the men’s swimming 4 X 100-meter freestyle relay.
![Gold Medalists, Jack Alexy, Chris Guiliano, Hunter Armstrong and Caeleb Dressel of Team United States stand for the national anthem with their medals during the Medal Ceremony after the Men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay Final on day one of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 in Nanterre, France, on July 27, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F08%2F15%2Fid5706102-Team-USA-men-4x100-2024-Paris-Olympics-Alexy-Guiliano-Armstrong-Dressel-600x400.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
Former Berkeley student and four-time gold medalist Ryan Murphy, 29, won a bronze medal in the men’s swimming 100-meter backstroke. He also won a gold medal in the men’s 4 X 100-meter swimming mixed medley relay.
UC Berkeley is a popular training ground for athletes with big Olympic dreams, and this year, 59 Olympians playing nine different sports from the school represented Team USA in Paris, a number that included current students, alumni, assistant coaches, and post-graduate trainees, according to Berkeley Associate Athletic Director of Communications Jonathan Okanes.
“We had 23 medals,” he told The Epoch Times.
That number includes medals won by current and former UC Berkeley students.
While many of UC Berkeley’s Olympians are swimmers, the school also competed in water polo, track and field, soccer, golf, field hockey, badminton, table tennis, and rowing.
But while California’s temperate climate and mild winters may be a factor in attracting athletes to the state to prep for the Olympic trials, the most powerful draw is the state-of-the-art training programs, said Okanes.
“The process obviously starts well before [athletes] get to college,” he said.
By the time athletes get to a university like UC Berkeley, they are already in great shape, and the university takes the preparation to the next level with intensive coaching and strong daily training regimes, he said.
“It is grueling. They put a lot of time in the pool, several hours a day, working on their craft,” Okanes said of the swimming program.
Over the years, Berkeley has fostered the athletic careers of great Olympians like Matt Biondi, who won seven Olympic medals in the 1988 games and earned 11 medals overall, and Natalie Conlin, who won 12 Olympic medals in her athletic career, the most any UC Berkeley athletes ever, according to Okanes.
Berkeley’s total medal count this year is second only to Stanford.
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games concluded on Aug. 11.