The Orange and Blue excelled at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
By the time the closing ceremonies brought the 54th games to an end on Sunday, a little over 3% of the 329 medals awarded hung around the necks of Florida Gators.
Twenty-one nations were represented by a record 41 Gators at the games, bringing home 11 medals: 4 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze. UF athletes have now tallied 74 gold medals and 156 overall in Olympic competitions.
The first gold medal for the United States and the Gators came from Caeleb Dressel, who anchored the U.S. 4x100m freestyle relay team on Saturday, July 27. The gold medal finish came in a time of 3 minutes, 9.28 seconds.
Dressel also took home the gold in the mixed 4x100m medley relay.
Dressel swam the 4x100m medley relay’s butterfly leg in the final men’s event of the meet. His 49.41 split was the fastest in the relay and put his team in second. The U.S. held on for silver after posting a time of 3:28.01.
After finishing his 2024 Paris Olympic stint with two gold medals and one silver, Dressel now has 10 Olympic gold medals and one silver.
On day three of the games, 2024 Gator graduate Emma Weyant won bronze in the women’s 400m IM with a time of 4:34.93. It was her second Olympic medal in the event after earning silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
“I’m so thankful to [Coach] Nesty and everybody else in Florida for helping me the last couple years get back to my prime,” Weyant said in an interview at the Olympic Trials after making the team. “Making the move back to Florida has really been everything to me.”
Bobby Finke collected his first Paris Olympic Games medal after taking home silver in the men’s 800m freestyle with a time of 7:38.75.
The two-time Tokyo gold medalist followed that up with another gold medal and set a new world record in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle with a time of 14 minutes 30.67 seconds. It eclipsed the world record of 14:31.02 previously set by China’s Sun Yang at the 2012 London Games.
Finke preserved Team USA’s 120-year Olympic gold medal streak in men’s individual events after Dressel failed to medal in the 50m freestyle final or qualify for the 100m butterfly final.
Former Gator Kieran Smith was originally an alternate on the U.S. Men’s 4×200 relay team but was brought back to anchor the final relay team. His split time of 1:44.80 was the fastest of the four Americans, who took home the silver with a team time of 7:00.78.
It was Smith’s first Olympic silver medal after a bronze in Tokyo.
Josh Liendo, who will be a junior for the Gators this year, won a silver medal as the top seed for Canada in the 100m butterfly. He set a Canadian record of 49.99 en route to claiming his first Olympic medal.
His 49.99 breaks his own Canadian record set at 2023 Worlds (50.34) and is the first 100m fly sub-50 for Canada. Liendo is also the first Black Canadian to win an Olympic medal in swimming.
Although she is not a Gator alum, UF volunteer swim coach Katie Ledecky became the first female swimmer to earn four consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 800m freestyle, and the first Team USA woman to win nine Olympic gold medals.
In track and field, Jasmine Moore, who was the first U.S. woman to qualify for Olympic competition in both the triple and the long jump, won a bronze medal for the U.S. in the women’s triple jump. She is the first American woman to earn an Olympic triple jump medal.
Moore doubled back five days later to win bronze in the long jump, becoming the first woman in history to medal in the long jump and triple jump in the same Olympics.
On Thursday, three-time world champion and 60m hurdle world indoor record holder Grant Holloway won his first Olympic gold medal in the 110m hurdles with a time of 12.99.
Holloway is the second fastest man to ever run the event with a 12.81 personal best.
“I’m a fireman,” Holloway told FloTrack after winning gold. “Everybody in that heat has run something hot but it’s my job to control it. It’s my job to put out everybody else’s flame and I was able to do that today.”
“Following Holloway’s race, Gainesville-native Noah Lyles brought home bronze in the 200m for Team USA. Lyles tested positive for COVID-19 two days after winning gold in the 100m by 0.005 of a second, but was still allowed to compete.”
Officials took the American off the track in a wheelchair after he collapsed following his 200m bronze. Lyles pulled out of the men’s 4x100m relay.