Photo by BYU Athletics
Athletes with Utah ties returning with 8 medals from Paris Olympics
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah | August 12, 2024 — It was a successful Summer Games for Olympians with Utah ties who collectively won eight medals—three silver and five bronze—in Paris.
Team USA distance runner Grant Fisher, who lives and trains in Park City as part of the Run Elite Program, is returning to Utah with a matching set of bronze medals in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters.
Former BYU distance runner Kenneth Rooks earned a silver medal for Team USA in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, running the seventh-fastest time in Olympic history.
Park City native Haley Batten overcame a broken wheel to win the silver medal and post Team USA’s best-ever finish in mountain biking.
The U.S. women’s rugby sevens team featured two Utah athletes who earned bronze medals in Paris: Stephanie Rovetti, who played both basketball and rugby at BYU, and Alex “Spiff” Sedrick, a Herriman High School alum who scored the winning try in the bronze medal match vs. Australia.
A pair of U.S. sport climbers who live and train in Salt Lake City, where USA Climbing moved its headquarters and training facilities in 2018, also earned medals, with Brooke Raboutou winning the silver and Sam Watson setting a world record in his bronze medal climb.
In all, 34 athletes, who’ve either lived or competed as professionals or collegians in Utah, took part in the 2024 Paris Olympics, which concluded Sunday.
Twenty-three Utah Olympians represented Team USA in Paris, while another 11 athletes with ties to the Beehive State competed for other countries: five from Canada and one each from France, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway and Sweden.
Nine current or former BYU athletes took part in the Paris Olympics, the University of Utah was represented by seven Olympians, and Utah State sent one alumnus to the Games.