School-Record 11 Kentucky Wildcats Earn 13 Medals at 2024 Paris Olympic Games

UKathletics.com Olympic Games HQ

PARIS – A University of Kentucky-record 11 Wildcats won 13 medals at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games – nine gold, two silver and two bronze.

Using the formula for the medal table where team medals count as one medal no matter how many athletes are on single team, the University of Kentucky would have 10 medals – six gold, two silver and two bronze.

If the Kentucky Wildcats’ medals in Paris were on the Nations Medal Table, the 10 total medals would rank 21st, and the six golds would rank 14th.

American Wildcats contributed nine medals to Team USA’s world-leading medal count (40 golds, 126 total medals).

Seven individual Wildcats are responsible for six golds in Paris (team medals count as one medal, e.g.: one gold for the three Wildcats on the U.S. men’s basketball team (Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker and Anthony Davis) and one medal for the two who were on the women’s 4x400m relay (Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Alexis Holmes).

Five Wildcats won six medals in athletics/track and field, four medaled in basketball, one medaled in volleyball and one (Lee Kiefer), who competed collegiately at Notre Dame and is a University of Kentucky College of Medicine student won two golds in fencing.

Kentucky ranked second on the Southeastern Conference Medal Table .

The SEC Medal Table ranking does not include UK College of Medicine student Lee Kiefer’s two golds because she competed collegiately for Notre Dame in fencing, a sport that SEC schools don’t compete in at the varsity level.

A school-record 24 University of Kentucky student-athletes, alumni and coaches represented nine countries across six sports at the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad in France from July 26-Aug. 11, 2024.

The UK Athletics Olympic Games preview article listed 22 Wildcats set to compete at the Olympics, but once the Games began Tapiwanashe Makarawu, a signee for the 2024-25 Kentucky track and field team and Jelani Walker, who was on the UK track and field team as a freshman in 2018 before turning professional, were added to the list of Olympians with connections to the University of Kentucky.

Of UK’s 24 Olympians who competed in Paris, 12 of them have won a combined 22 medals in their collective Olympic Games experience that dates to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Wildcats finished the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with a then-school-record 12 individual medals — eight gold, three silver and one bronze.

2024 Kentucky Wildcats Olympic Medalists

GOLD
Bam Adebayo (Men’s Basketball)

• Gold– 5×5 Basketball – Team USA

Devin Booker (Men’s Basketball)

• Gold– 5×5 Basketball – Team USA

Anthony Davis (Men’s Basketball)

• Gold– 5×5 Basketball – Team USA

Alexis Holmes (Track and Field)

• Gold 4x400m Relay – Team USA

Lee Kiefer (Fencing), UK College of Medicine (competed collegiately for Notre Dame)

• Gold – Women’s Individual Foil – Team USA
• Gold – Women’s Team Foil – Team USA

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (Track and Field)

• Gold – 400m hurdles – Team USA
• Gold – 4x400m Relay – Team USA

Masai Russell (Track and Field)

• Gold 100m hurdles – Team USA

SILVER

Daniel Roberts (Track and Field)

• Silver – 110m hurdles – Team USA

Avery Skinner (Volleyball)

• Silver – Volleyball – Team USA

BRONZE

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (Track and Field)

• Bronze 100m hurdles – Team Puerto Rico

Rhyne Howard (Basketball)

• Bronze – 3×3 Basketball – Team USA

Additional notes on the Kentucky Wildcat 2024 Olympic Medalists

The 24 Olympians with UK connections passed the previous school record – 20 – for competitors and coaches who were part of the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo 2021 (officially the 2020 Olympics). The previous school record was nine, set in 1948, when all nine were associated with the UK men’s basketball team.

Over the years, UK athletes have represented 16 countries. This year’s event marked the first time that UK has had an athlete represent South Sudan.

The Paris Games marked the fifth consecutive Olympiad where UK men’s basketball players won gold — Bam Adebayo (2020 and 2024), Devin Booker (2020 and 2024), Anthony Davis (2012 and 2024), Keldon Johnson (2020), DeMarcus Cousins (2016) and Tayshaun Prince (2008).

Davis became the only player on Team USA to have won two Olympic gold medals, an NCAA National Championship and an NBA Championship.

Kentucky had the largest contingent on Team USA Basketball with three Wildcats on Men’s Basketball 5×5 and Rhyne Howard earning bronze in Women’s 3×3.

UK’s status as “Hurdle U” was on full display during the athletics (track and field) competition. Wildcats swept the gold medals in the women’s hurdles for the second-consecutive games with McLaughlin-Levrone repeating as 400-meter hurdles gold medalist in world-record time and Masai Russell winning the 100m hurdles. Jasmine-Camacho-Quinn, who won gold in the 100H in Tokyo, claimed bronze in Paris.

Wildcats also made up two-thirds of the 100m hurdles podium for the second-consecutive Olympics as UK Athletics Hall of Famer Keni Harrison earned silver in Tokyo.

Daniel Roberts (UK 2016-2019) earned silver in the men’s 110m hurdles.

Wildcats made up half of the American Record, gold medal, U.S. women’s 4x400m relay team with McLaughlin-Levrone running the fastest mile-relay split in decades and Alexis Holmes anchoring Team USA to the win.

2024 marked the eighth consecutive Olympiad featuring a Wildcat in track and field dating to Tim Harden in 1996

Avery Skinner, an NCAA National Champion with Kentucky Volleyball in 2020-21, earned silver with Team USA volleyball.

Ashley Kovacs, who competed as a thrower on the UK Track and Field Team from 2007-10, the USA Athletics/Track and Field team’s Women’s Throws Coach, coached two medalists – with Valerie Allman winning gold in the discus and Annette Echikunwoke claiming silver in the hammer throw.

Kovacs also coached her husband, Joe Kovacs, to a third-straight Olympic silver in the shot put.

Kiefer became a three-time gold medalist, repeating as gold medalist in women’s foil individual gold and winning another gold with the women’s team foil squad.

Kentucky Wildcat 2024 Olympic Games Results

 BASKETBALL

Adebola Adeyeye, Nigeria 5×5 Basketball (2022-23)

• Quarterfinalist

Rhyne Howard, USA 3×3 Basketball (UK 2018-22)

• Bronze medal

Bam Adebayo, USA 5×5 Basketball (UK 2016-17)

• Gold medal

Devin Booker, USA 5×5 Basketball (UK 2014-15)

• Gold medal

Anthony Davis, USA 5×5 Basketball (UK 2011-12)

• Gold medal

Wenyen Gabriel, South Sudan 5×5 Basketball (UK 2016-18)

• Ninth place after group stage

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Canada 5×5 Basketball (UK 2017-18)

• Quarterfinalist
  

Jamal Murray, Canada 5×5 Basketball (UK 2015-16)

• Quarterfinalist

Trey Lyles, Canada 5×5 Basketball (UK 2014-15)

• Quarterfinalist

VOLLEYBALL
Avery Skinner, USA Volleyball (UK 2017-21)

• Silver medal

ATHLETICS/TRACK AND FIELD

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, Puerto Rico Athletics/Track and Field (UK 2016-18)

• Bronze medal, 100m hurdles

Devynne Charlton, Bahamas Athletics/Track and Field (Volunteer Assistant Coach/Purdue Alum)

• Sixth place, 100m hurdles final

Andrew Evans, USA Athletics/Track and Field (UK 2012-2014)

• 17th place, discus qualifying round

Alexis Holmes, USA Athletics/Track and Field (UK 2019-2022)

• Gold medal, 4x400m relay (anchor leg and American record)
• Sixth place, 400m final

Ashley Kovacs (nee Muffet), USA Throws Coach, Athletics/Track and Field (2007-10)

• Coached three medalists

Tapiwanashe Makarawu, Zimbabwe Athletics/Track and Field (Incoming Team member)

• Sixth place, 200m final

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, USA Athletics/Track and Field (UK 2018)

• Two gold medals, 400m hurdles, 4x400m relay
• Broke her own world record in the 400H, and on the American Record 4x400m relay

Daniel Roberts, USA Athletics/Track and Field (UK 2017-2019)

• Silver medal, 110m hurdles

Masai Russell, USA Athletics/Track and Field (UK 2018-2023)

• Gold medal, 100m hurdles

Jelani Walker, Jamaica Athletics Track and Field (UK 2018)

• 11th place, 4x100m relay first round

DIVING
Julia Vincent, South Africa Diving (Assistant Coach/South Carolina alum)

• 11th place, 3m springboard diving

Ted Hautau, South Africa Diving Coach

• Coached Julia Vincent to 11th place, 3m springboard diving

FENCING
Lee Kiefer, USA Fencing (UK College of Medicine/Notre Dame Alum)

• Two gold medals, individual foil and team foil

Gerek Meinhardt, USA Fencing (UK College of Medicine/Notre Dame Alum)

• Fourth place, men’s team foil
• Table of 16, men’s individual foil