Next stop, Paris: UofL Cardinals punch tickets to summer Olympics

Several Cardinals are taking flight to France for the 2024 Summer Olympics, including a history-making track and field athlete.

Senior Jayden Ulrich is the first Cardinal track and field athlete to represent the U.S. at the Olympics. She will compete in the women's discus throw.

"I couldn't be more excited to represent Team USA at the upcoming Olympic Games," Ulrich said. "It means so much that all the work I've put in is finally paying off!"

She won her spot after finishing second in the discus throw at U.S. Olympic Team Trials with a throw of 63.61 meters in the preliminaries and a 62.63 toss in the finals.

Ulrich is the second female Olympian in the history of UofL's track and field program after Chinwe Okoro '11 competed in the women's discus throw for Nigeria at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

UofL will be well-represented in Paris, with current student-athletes and alums taking part in swimming, diving, golf and basketball competitions.

Swimming

• Junior Denis Loktev will compete for Israel in the 200 free and the freestyle relays.
• Junior Denis Petrashov will represent Kyrgyzstan in breaststroke events.
• Junior Murilo Sartori will compete for Brazil on the 800 freestyle relay team.
• Graduate student Ilia Sibirtsev will swim for Uzbekistan in the 800 free.
• Nicolas Albiero '21,'22 will join Sartori on the Brazilian team and compete in the 200 fly.
• Andrej Barna '22 will represent Serbia in freestyle events.
• Evgenii Somov '22 was granted neutral status to swim at the games and will compete in the 100 breast.
• Daria Golovaty, who will be a first-year student at UofL in fall 2024, will swim for Israel in the 4×200 freestyle relay.

Diving

• Senior Else Praasterink will compete in 10M platform for Netherlands.

Golf

• Matthias Schmid '21 will represent Germany.

Basketball

• Former men's basketball player Carlik Jones will represent South Sudan.

A few Cardinals also will be working at the Olympics - associate head swimming coach Reed Fujan will coach the Uzbekistan swimmers in Paris while former field hockey player Suzanne (Irwin) Bush '06 will join the broadcast team as NBC's field hockey analyst for the games.

The Paris Olympics are scheduled to run July 26-Aug. 11. Check gocards.com for more information on Cardinal Olympians.