California Shines as Premiere Training Ground for Team USA’s Dominant Olympians

Katie Ledecky of Team United States competes in the Women's 1500m Freestyle Final on day five of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, France, on July 31, 2024. (Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

California universities took center stage at the 2024 Paris Olympics this year as the state’s champions earned 22 medals.

According to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, six of California’s 22 medals were gold this year, and 121 of the total 594 athletes from the United States at the summer games came from California, representing the most athletes from any state.

The wins also come two years after Newsom signed AB 2747 in 2022, providing in-state tuition eligibility for U.S. Olympians and Paralympians training in California. The program launched in January 2023, partially in anticipation of the next Olympics, which will be held in Los Angeles in 2028.

“The Olympics and Paralympics are coming to California in 2028, and we’re using this opportunity to bring more of the nation’s top athletes to our universities to learn and train—giving these talented young people the ability to qualify for in-state tuition to thrive at our top-tier institutes for higher education,” said Newsom in a statement.

Stanford University brought home a record-breaking 39 medals this year from Paris, making it the most Olympic medals won by students of a single school at one Olympic games, according to the university.

27-year-old Katie Ledecky—who holds the record for most Olympic medals won by any female swimmer in history with nine gold medals, four silver medals, and one bronze medal after Paris—is also an alumna of Stanford University in California.

“Always an honor to race the best in the world and earn a medal for @teamusa,” she wrote after winning a bronze medal in Paris.

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.

Rai Benjamin, a lightning-fast 27-year-old track star who formerly trained and competed in California at UC Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, won a gold medal in the men’s 400-meter hurdles final during the final week of the Olympic games.

“It just happened at the right moment. My family is here, my friends are here. To do it in front of them means so much to me. I’m just so excited,” he said in a post-race interview.

The university brought home 15 medals this year, including seven gold. Over the years, USC has brought home 326 Olympic medals, including at least one gold in every summer Olympics since 1912, according to 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)

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.

“This feeling never gets old!” Murphy wrote in a July 29 post on X.

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.