American universities are often considered the best in the world for providing a world-class education. They’re also a rich environment for superstar athletes who go on to play in the NBA and NFL. But what about the biggest sports event of them all?
Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti ranks the U.S universities with the most athletes in Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Data is from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
This includes both current and former students. Students who competed at multiple schools are listed for all their alma maters.
U.S. Olympians Go to School in California
Stanford University has the most Team USA Olympic athletes of any college at Paris 2024. Its ranks include U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky, who has won nine Olympic gold medals, the most in history for a female swimmer.
Stanford’s history with the Olympics dates back more than a century to the 1912 Stockholm Games. George Horine, Stanford’s first Olympian to win a medal, made his mark in the high jump event.
But the 2016 Rio Olympics was the university’s most successful one to date, when its athletes won 27 medals (12 gold, 7 silver, and 6 bronze). Katie Ledecky, of course, was a big part of that success.
Following Stanford, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has 17 athletes, and the University of Southern California (USC) has 16.
In total, 169 U.S. universities are represented in Team USA at Paris 2024. And as CNBC reports, some of them really specialize as well. For example, the men’s saber team (an event in fencing) is all Harvard.
And several athletes with ties to American universities are also competing for other countries. Per NCAA statistics, more than a 100 Olympians from Canada and 40 from Australia have gone to school in America. USC tops the list for most Olympians overall (58 athletes, 22 countries) at Paris 2024.
