UofL Cardinals punch tickets to summer Olympics

July 26, 2024

Several Cardinals are taking part in the 2024 Summer Olympics, including a history-making track and field athlete.

Senior Jayden Ulrich is the first Cardinal track and field athlete to represent the U.S. at the Olympics. She's competing in the women’s discus throw.

“I couldn't be more excited to represent Team USA at the Olympic Games," Ulrich said. "It means so much that all the work I've put in is finally paying off!”

She won her spot after finishing second in the discus throw at U.S. Olympic Team Trials with a throw of 63.61 meters in the preliminaries and a 62.63 toss in the finals.

Ulrich is the second female Olympian in the history of UofL’s track and field program after Chinwe Okoro ’11 competed in the women's discus throw for Nigeria at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

UofL is well-represented in Paris, with current student-athletes and alums taking part in swimming, diving, golf and basketball competitions.

Swimming

Junior Denis Loktev competes for Israel in the 200 free and the freestyle relays.
Junior Denis Petrashov represents Kyrgyzstan in breaststroke events.
Junior Murilo Sartori competes for Brazil on the 800 freestyle relay team.
Graduate student Ilia Sibirtsev swims for Uzbekistan in the 800 free.
Nicolas Albiero ’21,’22 joins Sartori on the Brazilian team and competes in the 200 fly.
Andrej Barna ’22 represents Serbia in freestyle events.
Evgenii Somov ’22 was granted neutral status to swim at the games and competes in the 100 breast.
Daria Golovaty, who will be a first-year student at UofL in fall 2024, swims for Israel in the 4x200 freestyle relay.

Diving

Senior Else Praasterink competes in 10M platform for Netherlands.

Golf

Matthias Schmid ’21 represents Germany.

Basketball

Former men’s basketball player Carlik Jones represents South Sudan.

A few Cardinals also are working at the Olympics – associate head swimming coach Reed Fujan is coaching the Uzbekistan swimmers in Paris while former field hockey player Suzanne (Irwin) Bush ’06 joins the broadcast team as NBC’s field hockey analyst for the games. Kara Kessans '03, a former women's basketball player at UofL, is the head physical therapist and athletic trainer for the U.S. women's national volleyball team.

The Paris Olympics run July 26-Aug. 11. Check gocards.com for more information on Cardinal Olympians.

Erica Walsh

Erica Walsh is the marketing director for the Office of Communications and Marketing. Her job lets her share UofL’s good news in all avenues of communications including publications, advertising, content marketing and branding. Walsh joined UofL in 2014 after previously serving as the public relations specialist at Indiana University Southeast. Prior to her career in higher education communications she was an award-winning newspaper reporter. Red is one of her favorite colors and it’s a good thing, too, because she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Western Kentucky University and her master’s in communication from UofL.