More than 50 athletes with ties to San Diego County are competing for Team USA or other countries during the 2024 Paris Olympics.
America's Finest City and its surrounding areas are representing in a wide range of sports from skateboarding and surfing to track & field and archery. With such an active atmosphere, it's only fitting we'd have athletes competing for several countries in track & field, rugby, BMX and more.
Here are the local athletes who have brought home medals, so far, at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
🥇 Naomi Girma (USWNT) - Women's soccer
The U.S. Women's National Team took home the gold medal, beating Brazil 1-0 in the final soccer match at the Paris Olympics on Saturday.
Among those winners is San Diego Wave FC player Naomi Girma. She is also the first-ever player of Ethiopian descent to play for the USWNT.
The ladies took Team USA to their first Olympic championship in 12 years.
🥇 Jaedyn Shaw - Women's soccer
Although San Diego Wave FC player Jaedyn Shaw didn't play in Saturday's victorious game, she's still on the winning U.S. Women's National Team, so she earned an Olympic gold medal.
🥈 Brooke Raboutou - Sport climbing
While not from San Diego, Brooke Raboutou was educated in America's Finest City. University of San Diego alum Raboutou claimed the silver medal in sport climbing’s boulder and lead event at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
She made history becoming the first American woman to medal in the sport. It's the second medal in sport climbing for Team USA.
Janja Garnbret, the Slovenian who won the combined gold when sport climbing made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games three years ago, hugged the silver medalist and cried together in joy after the final.
The USD alum has been climbing since the age of 2, with a pedigree in climbing — both her parents were world champion climbers in the 90s.
🥉 Alex Bowen - Santee
The U.S. men's water polo team beat Hungary in the bronze medal match with a penalty shootout victory with a score by Santee native Alex Bowen.
It's the three-time Olympian's first medal. The 2011 graduate of Santana High School attended Stanford University where he scored more than 200 goals.
With an 8-8 tied score, Team USA entered a penalty shootout. Hannes Daube, Max Irving and Bowen scored for the U.S., while Hungary was unable to score on any of its three attempts.
The bronze is Team USA's 10th ever medal in Olympic men's water polo, second all-time behind Hungary's 16. The team had not medaled at the Olympics since losing the gold medal match to Hungary and settling for silver at the 2008 Beijing Games.
🥉 Garrett Muagututia - Men's volleyball
The U.S. men’s volleyball secured bronze in a 3-0 win over Italy. The Americans won 25-23, 30-28, 26-24. The result is reassuring for the U.S. after a disappointing trip to the Tokyo Olympics, where they were eliminated in pool play.
The team included Oceanside volleyball player Garrett Muagututia, who attended Francis Parker High School. His dad was a U.S. Navy SEAL and played volleyball for the U.S. Navy team. He was also an Olympian, competing in the two-man bobsled event for American Samoa at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
Since winning their last gold medal in Beijing in 2008, the Americans have two medals (bronze in Rio and Paris) in their last four Olympics.
🥇 Kelsey Plum - Women’s basketball
USA women’s basketball eked out a 67-66 win against France to win its eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Paris.
Kelsey Plum, a Poway native, scored 12 points to help the US win over France.
As a collegiate athlete for Washington, Plum held the record for most points scored in NCAA women's basketball before Caitlin Clark broke it in February.
🥈 Nevin Harrison - Canoe Single 200m
American canoeist Nevin Harrison, who lives in San Diego and attended San Diego State, was attempting to repeat as Olympic champion in the women's C-1 200m sprint.
But Harrison's repeat bid was denied by Canada's Katie Vincent, who beat out the reigning champ by 0.1 seconds with a world-record time of 44.12 seconds. Harrison's second-place time was 44.13 — significantly better than the 45.93 she posted when she won the inaugural event at the Tokyo Games at age 19.
The event ended in a photo finish that left Harrison with a silver medal.
🥇🥇 Jennifer Valente - Women's cycling, track team pursuit
The United States won its first Olympic gold in the women's team pursuit cycling event. It's the 2nd gold for Scripps Ranch native Jennifer Valente, and fourth overall.
The U.S. beat New Zealand around the velodrome (that's cycling speak for a banked indoor track) in the gold medal match, putting up a final time of 4 minutes, 4 seconds over the race's 4 kilometers.
Valente was part of the bronze-winning team in Tokyo.
She then won her second gold of the game in the women's omnium to defend.
🥈 Tom Schaar - Park skateboarding
The skateboarder from Encinitas is taking home the silver in the men's park event. The 24-year-old earned a 92.23 on his second run, the highest of his three runs to take home his first Olympic medal.
Tate Carew, who went to Point Loma High School in San Diego, came in 5th place with a high score of 91.17.
Carew's best friend Gavin Bottger, of Oceanside, did not advance past the preliminary round.
🥇 Keegan Palmer - Park skateboarding (Australia)
Australia's Keegan Palmer, the defending champion from the Tokyo Games was born in San Diego before his family moved to Australia. Pictured above in the center, he maintains his title with another gold win with a top score of 93.11.
Brazil's Augusto Akio wins the bronze with 91.85.
🥉 Taylor Fritz - Tennis
Team USA earned another spot on the podium for men’s doubles tennis as Tommy Paul and San Diego County native Taylor Fritz (pictured on the left above) clinched the bronze win on Saturday.
Originally from Rancho Santa Fe, Fritz now lives in in Los Angeles and the Paris 2024 Olympics is his first Olympics experience.
🥉 U.S. Women's Rugby team
The U.S. women's rugby team, which trains at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center, had a historic win beating Australia with a game-winning conversion to secure team USA its first-ever Olympic rugby sevens medal.
Team USA's defense held strong early in the second half, holding the score to 7-7 until there was 1:25 remaining. In a photo finish, Alex Sedrick scored a try and hit the game-winning conversion on the final play to give Team USA a 14-12 victory over Australia.
Following the win, businesswoman Michele Kang announced a $4 million donation over four years for the team's future.
🥉 Hans Henken - Sailing skiff
The U.S. men's skiff team is made of Ian Barrows and Hans Henken, who has a long history with the Coronado Yacht Club.
The pair won bronze with 88 points at the Paris Olympics, behind Spain and New Zealand. It was the first sailing medal for Team USA since 2016.
🥈🥉 Brady Ellison - Archery
Brady Ellison, who has lived and trained in Chula Vista off-and-on, made his fifth Olympic appearance.
He and his mixed team pair Casey Kaufhold beat India, 6-2, to win the bronze medal in the mixed team archery competition.
In the individual competition, Ellison was less than five millimeters away from his first Olympic gold. In a winner-take-all fifth set, Ellison and South Korea's Kim Woo-jin shot a perfect 30 to send the match to a single, decisive shot. Ellison's shot was just a sliver further away from the very center if the target, cementing silver for the U.S. athlete.
It's Ellison's fourth and fifth Olympic medals — he's previously won two silvers and a bronze. It's the first Olympic medal for Kaufhold, the top-ranked women's archer in the world entering these games.
🥈 Jagger Eaton - Street skateboarding
The Encinitas local upgraded to silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Following the competition, Eaton told NBC 7 he "wouldn't be the skater I am without living in San Diego."
Eaton, a Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist, finished with a 281.04 total score in the final, putting him just one-tenth of a point behind Japan's Yuto Horigome, who successfully defended his gold medal.
Read the full story here and watch the highlights below:
🥈 Shanieka Ricketts - Triple Jump (Jamaica)
San Diego State Alum Shanieka Ricketts secured her first Olympic medal representing Jamaica at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Rickets lept 14.61m in her first jump, 14.87m in her second and secured top eight after three more attempts, SDSU Athletics said. On her final jump, she went 14.73m and secured a spot on the podium.
🥇 Caroline Marks - Women's surfing
While not technically a San Diegan, surf culture is so Southern California that we can claim Orange County surfer Caroline Marks as one of our own, right?
Marks, the reigning world champion, secured gold in the waters off the coast of Teahupo'o, Tahiti, triumphing over Brazilian Tatiana Weston-Webb with a score of 10.50 following days of weather delays. It was her first medal after missing the podium in Tokyo.
Marks, who hails from Melbourne Beach, Florida and now lives in San Clemente, California, shared her excitement before the final round, already knowing she'd be going home with a medal -- the only question remaining what color.
"I’m so happy. It feels so good … I was really emotional about not medalling in Tokyo, so I’m going to stop talking now because I’ll get emotional now that I know I’m going to get one," Marks said to Olympics. com after advancing to the gold medal final. "I sliced my foot a few times on the reef, so I’m glad it worked out. I’m just so happy. Best feeling ever — such a big heat. I’ve had some big moments in my career and that win felt pretty big. Stoked I got the score."
