In the Paris Summer Olympics, 24 past, present and future Sun Devil athletes qualified and traveled to France to represent 15 different countries in seven different sports, according to Sun Devil Athletics. With the University now a member of the Big 12, those 24 athletes marked the most to compete out of the whole conference.
Three of the Sun Devils' top-performing sports were men's swimming, women's water polo and golf. Sun Devils medaled seven times in men’s swimming and twice in women’s water polo. The athletes responsible for those medals were alumni water polo athletes Bente and Lieke Rogge, former ASU swimmer Léon Marchand, and current sophomore swimmer Ilya Kharun.
Men's Swim
Of the five Sun Devil swimmers at the Olympics, many fans around the world had their eyes on French swimmer Marchand during his historic Olympic run. He was the most successful Sun Devil athlete with four golds, one bronze and four new Olympic records. His events were the 400m IM, 200m butterfly, 200m breaststroke, 200m IM and the 4x100m medley relay. With his outstanding performance in the pool, he made Sun Devil history with the most medals won in a single Olympics for ASU and was the third male swimmer in Olympic history to win four individual medals. Marchand will continue his career as a professional swimmer after three years of swimming with the Sun Devils.
Kharun was on the podium for both the 100m and 200m butterfly, winning two bronze medals for Canada. In his 100m fly, he had a thrilling comeback after passing four swimmers in the last 50 meters for third place. But it was his 200m fly race that will be remembered most, as he became the first Canadian to medal in the 200m butterfly in the Olympics. In doing so, he broke the Canadian record with a time of 1:52.80.
Women's Water Polo
Of the four Sun Devils that competed on the world's biggest stage in sports, there were two standouts. The Rogge sisters competed for the Netherlands water polo team and took home two physical bronze medals for the Sun Devils, tacking on one medal for Team Netherlands. The sisters won not only their first Olympic medals, but they were also the first Sun Devils to place in the top three since Team Australia player Rowie Webster took home a bronze in 2012.
Bente Rogge was a key player for her team scoring nine goals in their seven-game run; her most notable being a game-tying goal against Team USA for the bronze medal. Though Lieke Rogge didn’t have the same impact during the team's final game, she did score 11 goals throughout the Games that helped carry her team into contention for bronze.
Men's and Women's Golf
Although swimming and water polo were the only sports in 2024 to bring home medals for ASU, Sun Devil golfers had a solid run of their own as seven competed during the Summer Games. The top golfers representing Spain were both former University athletes: Azahara Munoz and Jon Rahm.
Unlike some of the University's athletes, this wasn’t Munoz’s first time competing at the Games. In her third Olympic appearance, she placed the highest out of all Sun Devil women golfers, ending with a t-13 finish. While on the Le Golf National course, she played three consecutive rounds shooting 69 to go up eight spots in the leaderboard on the last day.
For Spain's men's golf team, Rahm found success, tying for fifth place in individual stroke play. After a strong run of shooting 67, 66 and 66 in the first three-day set, his final day he shot 70 to close it out with -15, just four strokes behind gold medalist Scottie Scheffler.
Medal opportunities at the Paralympic Games
The Sun Devils can still add to their nine medal count now that the Paralympics have started. As the Games kicked off this past Wednesday, five athletes who attended or still attend ASU are ready to show out in Paris. Those Paralympians are USA para archer Eric Bennett, USA para track and field runners Korban Best and Taylor Swanson, and lastly USA para triathletes Owen Cravens and Allysa Seely.
Out of the five, Cravens and Best are the only two current undergraduate students at the University. Cravens will graduate later this year with a degree in business data analytics and Best is currently studying sports science and performance programming.
Edited by Henry Smardo, Sophia Braccio and Alexis Heichman
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