California was home to more winners than any other U.S. state at the 2024 Olympics. Of the 121 Golden State athletes on Team USA at the Paris games, 38 individuals claimed 22 medals.
Two U.S. teams took home medals on Sunday, the last days of the Games. Here’s a look into the lives and personalities of more of our 2024 California Olympic champions.
Gold Medal Winners
Five of the 18 players on the gold medal-winning U.S women's Olympic soccer team hail from California: Tierna Davidson (Menlo Park); Naomi Girma (San Jose); Catarina Macario (Los Angeles); Jenna Nighswonger (Huntington Beach); Trinity Rodman (Newport Beach); and Lynn Williams (Fresno). Rodman, the daughter of NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, scored three goals in the tournament.
The women’s basketball team took home gold in a dramatic one-point win over France. The 12-person team includes three Californians—Chelsea Gray (Hayward), Kelsey Plum (Poway), and Sabrina Ionescu (Walnut Creek). Plum scored 12 of the team’s 67 points.
Gold medals also went to the U.S. men’s basketball team, which includes California team members Jrue Holiday (Los Angeles) and Stephen Curry (Atherton/Woodside). Curry—who was born elsewhere, but made a name for himself with the Golden State Warriors—scored 24 points in the game, the most of any team member.
Jennifer Valente of San Diego won two gold medals in women’s track cycling events. She and three teammates won a team gold for the 4-kilometer team pursuit. She also won an individual gold for the track cycling omnium event, a four-race event that tests both sprinting and endurance. Valente now has five Olympic medals.
Tara Davis-Woodhall of Agoura Hills won gold in the women's long jump, marking her first Olympic medal.
San Clemente resident Caroline Marks claimed the women’s shortboard surfing gold medal after 10 days of intense surfing in Tahiti. This was Mark’s second trip to the Olympics after placing fourth in Tokyo in 2020. Marks, 22, started her athletic career as a barrel-racing equestrian but quickly switched to surfing, her older brothers’ favorite sport. By age 15, she had 17 national surfing titles to her name and became the youngest woman to qualify for the World Surf League Championship Tour. She won that event in 2023. The Southern California wave rider says she lives by the adage, “If you’re not winning, you’re learning.”
UCLA student Jordan Chiles brings home a gold as a member of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team. (A bronze she had won in the individual floor exercise was reallocated to Ana Barbosu of Romania following a ruling by the International Gymnastics Federation.) Chiles, 23, was part of an Olympics first: She shared the podium with Rebeca Andrade from Brazil (gold) and American Simone Biles (silver), the first three Black gymnasts to share the top three spots in an Olympics. At UCLA, Chiles won NCAA titles on uneven bars and floor exercise. She also won a silver medal in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo plus three medals at the Pan American Games in 2023. Chiles’ talents extend beyond tumbling—she also paints, draws, and plays the clarinet and saxophone.
Amit Elor from Walnut Creek won gold in the 68-kilogram freestyle final of women’s wrestling. Elor, 20, is an eight-time world champion and the youngest U.S. wrestler to win Olympic gold. This latest win is her 41st victory in a streak that has lasted since 2019. The East Bay native attended College Park High School and Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. She holds a purple belt in jiujitsu and enjoys hiking, cooking, and baking.
Silver Medal Winners
Jagger Eaton of Encinitas won silver in the men’s skateboard street final. A two-time Olympic medalist and the child of elite gymnast parents, Eaton started skateboarding competitively at age 4. He grew up practicing at an indoor skate park in Arizona that his father owned, then moved to northern San Diego County to advance his career. At age 11, Eaton entered the 2012 X Games and became the youngest-ever competitor at that time. In 2022, he won the World Skateboarding Championship. Now 23, Eaton spends his non-skating hours on a snowboard, wakeboard, or golf course.
Sagen Maddalena of Groveland nabbed a silver medal in the women's 50-meter rifle three-positions event. Maddalena, 30, is a sergeant in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit who got interested in shooting as a teenager in a 4-H club. She rose to marksmanship stardom as a college student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Maddalena is also an avid fly-fisher—her father taught her the sport in the rivers and lakes surrounding Groveland and Yosemite.
Brady Ellison scored two medals for the U.S. archery team, a silver in the men’s individual event and a bronze for the mixed-team recurve event with partner Casey Kaufhold. Ellison, 35, is a Montana native who has spent much of the last 15 years living and training in Chula Vista. Ellison now owns five medals—he won bronze at the men’s individual event in the 2016 Olympics and team silvers in 2012 and 2016.
Tom Scharr claimed silver in the men’s park skateboarding competition. Scharr, 24, was born and raised in Malibu and attended high school in Encinitas. He started competing in the X Games when he was 12 and has earned 11 X Games medals in five skateboarding disciplines. He was the first skateboarder to successfully complete a trick with 1,080 degrees of rotation—three full mid-air rotations—during a competition.
Haley Batten of Los Gatos won silver in the women’s cross-country mountain biking event. Her silver marked the best finish ever by a Team USA rider.
Taylor Spivey of Redondo Beach won silver in the mixed-team triathlon relay event alongside her three teammates. Spivey, 33, grew up in Manhattan Beach and worked as an ocean lifeguard. She graduated with a degree in architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she competed in long-distance swimming and was a member of the triathlon club team. Both her parents were competitive triathletes.
Jacklyn Luu of Milpitas takes home a silver medal as a member of the U.S. artistic swimming team. This was the team’s first medal in 20 years.
Bronze Medal Winners
Nyjah Huston of Laguna Beach took home the bronze medal at the men’s skateboard street final competition. One of the most decorated professional skateboarders in history, the 29-year-old has won 19 X Games medals (13 gold, four silver, and two bronze) and four World Skateboarding Championships. Born into a strict Rastafarian household in Davis, Huston began skateboarding at age 5 and signed his first contract at 7. When he turned 9, his parents bought an indoor skatepark in Woodland, where Huston spent his days practicing tricks. Now he owns his own private indoor skate park in San Clemente.
Packed with a roster of eight Californians, the U.S. men’s water polo team claimed bronze, their first Olympic medal in 16 years. The team includes Alex Bowen (Santee),
Kayla Canett of Fallbrook won bronze as a member of the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team—a version in which seven players play seven-minute halves. Canett, 26, started playing rugby at age 14 as a student at Fallbrook High School. She also played soccer and basketball. Leading up to this summer’s Olympics, Canett’s team trained at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center, a 155-acre complex in San Diego County that’s a designated training site for Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Nick Itkin of Los Angeles won bronze in the men’s individual foil fencing competition. This is Itkin’s second bronze—his first was for the team foil event at the 2020 Olympics. The 24-year-old started fencing at age 7 and is coached by his father, Michael Itkin, a competitive fencer from Ukraine. His mother and sister are also Olympic athletes who competed in rhythmic gymnastics. Itkin graduated from Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades.
Taylor Fritz of Rancho Palos Verdes earned a bronze medal in men’s doubles tennis with teammate Tommy Paul. The 26-year-old is the son of tennis-playing parents who introduced him to the sport at age 2. Fritz was ranked as the world’s No. 1 junior player before turning professional at age 17. In 2022, the Southern California native became the first American man to win the BNP Paribas Open since Andre Agassi won in 2001.
As members of the U.S. men’s volleyball team, four Californians have earned bronze medals: T.J. DeFalco from Huntington Beach, Garrett Muagututia from Oceanside, Taylor Averill from San Jose, and David Smith from Saugus.
As a member of the U.S. sailing team, San Francisco resident Hans Henken won bronze in the men's sailing competition for the 49er skiff.
