Meet the 2024 Paris "Calympians": From National Champions at Cal to 1st-time Olympians
21 of the 33 1st-time "Calympians" will be representing countries other than the United States
Earning the title of “Olympian” is always a great achievement for athletes. For 33 of the 57 Paris “Calympians”, their lives (and almost surely bodies - to be tattooed with those Olympic rings) will be changed forever by achieving their Olympic Dreams this year. We have already introduced the 12 1st-time Americans in our series (part 1, part 2). Let’s meet the non-US Calympians who are at their first Olympic Games.
Cal National Champions
Readers will unlikely be surprised by the high correlation between winning national championships at Cal and being an Olympian. This is also a natural starting point since many of these Cal alumni might already be familiar names to Cal fans due to their collegiate successes.
Nikolaos Papanikolaou (Greece - Men’s Water Polo)
Years at Cal: 2019-23
Age: 23
The most decorated player in the rich Cal Men’s Water Polo history, Nikolaos Papanikolaou, AKA “Papa” to his friends (and those covering Cal Men’s Water Polo), led Cal to be three-time reigning NCAA Champions. In the process, Papa was the Cutino Award (water polo’s Heisman) winner for all three years, being the first Cal Bear to achieve that feat.
Both Papa and his fellow teammate goalie Adrien Weinberg (1st-time USA Calympian) are well-deserved first-time Olympians in Paris. While Weinberg’s place on Team USA and his role as the starting goalie was essentially assured since last summer, Papa’s path to the Greek national team required a great spring season as a professional in Greece with the club Panathinaikos.
https://x.com/CalWaterPolo/status/1747413615748297181
A dominant center in college, Papa is the second all-time leading scorer in Cal history with 253 goals. He is also highly proficient in drawing exclusions to give the Golden Bears power plays. 2024 could very well be the first of many Olympics for Papa.
The Greek squad is the reigning Silver medalist from Tokyo in 2021. They are in the same Group (Group A) as the United States.
Rowan Hamilton (Canada - Men’s Hammer Throw)
Year at Cal: 2024
Age: 24
ICYMI, Cal Athletics capped the 2023-24 year with an individual NCAA championship title from Rowan Hamilton. Hamilton won the Hammer Throw NCAA title with a winning toss of 77.18m (253-2), his then personal best.
You can check out the winning throw in the embedded YouTube video below.
Hamilton joined Cal after graduating from the University of British Columbia in 2023. At UBC, Rowan Hamilton was already a three-time NAIA Champion (2019, 2022, 2023).
He came to Cal to work with Cal throwing coach Mohamad Saatara, who has several other athletes in this post. “Coach Mo” improved Hamilton’s results to earn the Olympic berth. Hamilton is a longshot to medal as the 13th-ranked men’s hammer thrower in the world this year.
Of course, Cal is also no stranger to having a Canadian Olympic hammer thrower who also won NCAA titles. Camryn Rogers will also be competing in Paris as a second-time Calympian. Rogers is one of the favorites to medal in women’s hammer throw.
Cal Men’s Rowing: 2022-23 IRA National Champions
Cal Men’s Rowing has also achieved plenty of recent success that was only (temporarily?) halted in 2024 by the rowers taking an Olympic sabbatical year. For the most part, the year off has paid off as the majority of the Cal Varsity Eight boat (the same roster except for one) that won the national title in 2022 and 2023 are 2024 Paris Olympians.
The seven rowers on that back-to-back national champion boat include 2x Calympians Angus Dawson (Australia) and Gennaro di Mauro (Italy) to go with 1st-time Olympians Ollie Maclean (New Zealand), Tim Roth (Switzerland), and Frederik Breuer (Germany). Campbell Crouch nearly made the New Zealand team (and was mistakenly announced as an Olympian by some outlets) but was not on the final roster. USA Calympian Gus Rodriguez joined those seven for the 2023 IRA championship.
Ollie Maclean (New Zealand - Rowing Men’s Four)
Years at Cal: 2021-23
Age: 26
An alternate at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Ollie Maclean has earned a spot on the New Zealand Men’s Four boat.
The 2023 Pac-12 Men’s Rowing Athlete of the Year started his collegiate career at Northeastern before transferring to Cal. He earned his Cal degree in 2022.
Maclean and his New Zealand crewmate are on a roll heading into the Paris races. The New Zealand four won Gold at the 2024 World Rowing Cup III after a Silver at the Rowing Cup II.
Tim Roth (Switzerland - Rowing Men’s Four)
Years at Cal: 2022-present
Age: 23
Also in the Men’s Four is Tim Roth for the Switzerland crew. Roth and his Swiss crew just missed the podium at the 2024 World Rowing Cup III by placing 4th.
Cal Men’s Rowing also has representatives across the field in Men’s Eight event. Frederik Breuer (Germany), Angus Dawson (Australia), Gennaro di Mauro (Italy), Olav Molenaar (Netherlands), and Christian Tabash (USA) are all vying for the podium. Chances are good that some of them will earn that elusive medal.
Frederik Breuer (Germany - Rowing Men’s Eight)
Years at Cal: 2021-present
Age: 22
Another two-time National Champion at Cal, Breuer took the year off to train with the German national team. The 2021 Pac-12 Newcomer of the Year won a Silver with his German crew at the 2024 World Rowing Cup III.
Olav Molenaar (Netherlands - Rowing Men’s Eight)
Years at Cal: 2019-22
Age: 25
Continuing the lineage of having a Cal Bear on the Dutch Olympic Men’s Eight boat this cycle is Olav Molenaar. Unlike the guys mentioned above, Molenaar was only rowing on the 2nd Varsity Eight (2V8) boat at Cal.
While the men’s IRA national championship depends solely on the V8 boat (unlike the women where the NCAA national championship is a combined result of the V8, 2V8, and V4 boats), each of the other boats can also earn the national championship of that class.
On the 2V8 boat, Molenaar and crewmates won the 2019 national title. They fell just short in 2022 when they finished 2nd.
The Dutch Eight crew has medaled at the 2024 World Rowing Cup I (Silver) and II (Bronze) to be an Olympic medal contender.
Inger Kavlie (Norway - Rowing Women’s Double Sculls)
Years at Cal: 2014-17
Age: 30
Inger Kavlie was on the Varsity Eight boat that led Cal to the NCAA Championship in 2016. She also rowed on the top boat in 2014 and 2015 when the Golden Bears placed 3rd and 2nd nationally, respectively.
In 2024, she and her partner Thea Helseth medaled at the 2024 World Rowing Cup II (Bronze) and III (Silver) to put them as one of the pairs to watch in this event.
Inger Kavlie’s breakout year earned her the May Rower of the Month honor from WorldRowing.com.
ROWER OF THE MONTH – Norway’s Inger Seim Kavlie has been racing internationally for a decade now, but 2024 looks like being her breakout year. After winning bronze in the women’s single sculls at World Rowing Cup I in Varese, Kavlie teamed up with Thea Helseth in the women’s double sculls at the 2024 European Rowing Championships and beat reigning world and Olympic champions Romania twice on their way to gold. It was Norway’s first-ever women’s medal in an Olympic boat class. She is our Rower of the Month.
In addition to Men’s Water Polo and Rowing, the other perennial Cal National Championship contender is of course Cal Swimming (and Diving).
Jeremy Bagshaw (Canada - Swimming Men’s 4x200 Free Relay)
Years at Cal: 2010-14
Age: 32
After five Olympic Trials, Dr. Jeremy Bagshaw has finally earned the honor of being a Canadian Olympian. He is also a medical doctor after just completing medical school at the University of Limerick in Ireland in 2024. He plans to be a general practitioner with a focus on sports medicine. He will serve as one of the Canadian swimming team captains in Paris.
At Cal, Bagshaw was a part of three Team NCAA Championships in 2011, 2012, and 2014. As one of the few distance swimmers on those teams, Bagshaw memorably had a fantastic swim in the mile (1650 yards freestyle) in 2014 to drop some serious time in one of the earlier heats. It completely fired up the team when his result was good enough to earn him the NCAA runner-up and a bunch of unexpected points in a tight team race against Texas.
It still feels surreal to write this, but I have finally made the dream come true for the eleven-year-old kid who, 21 years ago, wrote on his goal-setting sheet, “I want to swim at the Olympics.”
My journey here has included many ups and downs and unexpected but happy detours. Even though it was a longer road than I had thought, I wouldn’t have changed any of it.
I know everyone always says this, but I truly could not have achieved this without my family, friends, and coaches, who have supported me continuously throughout the past 28 years of my swimming career. They say it takes a village, and that could not be more true in this case. For those of you who have been here with me over the years, I just wanted to share my deepest thanks; “thank you” does not begin to cover how much your support and love have meant to me, and I would not be writing this without you.
My road to Paris has included immense personal growth, appreciating and loving the journey for what it is, and letting go of what I first wanted it to be. I would be lying if I said there weren’t times when I couldn’t see the bigger picture, but now, stepping back, I can see why it took me this long to arrive here.
I am incredibly proud to represent Canada this summer at the Paris Olympic Games, and I am so excited to see what the rest of Team Canada has in store.
Jarod Hatch (Philippines - Swimming Men’s 100 Fly)
Years at Cal: 2017-21
Age: 25
A member of the NCAA winning team in 2019, Hatch contributed points to four consecutive Pac-12 titles during his time in Berkeley. A Bay Area native, Hatch represents the Philippines due to his Filipino heritage on his mom’s side.
Like a few other 2024 Calympians: Annie Xu and Kerry Xu (USA Badminton), Georgia Bell (Great Britain Women’s 1500m), and probably others, Jarod Hatch had retired from swimming before deciding to pursue his Olympic dream again.
Retired after college for about 1.5 years, Hatch came out of retirement in October of 2022 with a new mindset that he drew from the NBA greats. Per the MorganHillTimes.com:
“The LeBron and Kobe documentaries, seeing how those athletes think and perform at the top level, one thing that sticks with me is if I want to be an Olympian one day, the first step is believing you’re at that level,” Hatch said. “I need to have the mindset that I’m here, I’m an Olympic level swimmer and I’m going to operate that way. If I don’t think that way, then it’s what do I need to change to operate at that level? Having more confidence [is key]. If I want to race in Paris, I need to act like that, I need to carry myself like that. Once I started to realize that, that’s when I took charge of my career.”
Since coming out of retirement, Hatch swam at the 2023 World Aquatics Championship and had some successes with Bronzes at the 2023 Southeast Asian Games in 50 and 100 Fly.
He owns the Philppines national record for 100 Fly.
Lucas Henveaux (Belgium - Swimming Men’s 400 Free)
Years at Cal: 2023 as a Graduate Student
Age: 23
A member of the Cal National Champion Team in 2023, Lucas Henveaux has his unique path to the Paris Olympics. He was a collegiate golfer who turned to competitive swimming rather late.
SwimSwam had this story during his lone season at Cal.
Henveaux was roped into swimming at a young age—his dad, Andres Henveaux, is the head coach of Belgian swim club Liege Natation and owns a local pool. Meanwhile, he also played golf. Henveaux competed in both sports simultaneously throughout most of his childhood, but at age 15, he saw no future in swimming.
Meanwhile, Henveaux’s golf skills were beginning to progress. He stopped swimming seriously and began focusing on golf after his sophomore year of high school, and saw himself rise up the Belgian junior rankings. Upon graduating high school in 2017, he spent a year at the Sotogrande International School in Spain, where he studied and practiced golf for six hours a day. Then, in fall 2018, he moved to the United States with eyes set on being a pro golfer, and joined the University of South Carolina-Beaufort’s team to play in the NAIA.
However, in his first season of college golf, Henveaux was facing the same roadblock he faced in swimming. It became evident that the atmosphere of golf was much more competitive in the U.S., and he just felt like he wasn’t good.
Due to his frustrations with golf, Henveaux left the United States after the 2018-19 season and returned to Belgium. He enrolled in university to pursue a degree in international business as a NARP (non-athletic regular person), and spent his first few months at home away from sports. At the same time, his younger sister Camile Henveaux, an eventual European juniors qualifier, was beginning to amp up her swim training.
Due to the constant presence of both his dad and sister in the sport, Henveaux started swimming again for fun. He also gained more confidence as a swimmer—in his college years, he grew to a height of 6’4 and was no longer the small guy in the water.
When COVID-19 lockdowns ended in late 2020, Henveaux went back into serious swim training, and he began a two-year stretch of doing 10-11 high volume, high-intensity practice sessions per week.
One thing led to another, and by April 2022, Henveaux had dropped to best times of 1:48.30 in the 200 free, 3:51.99 in the 400 free, and 8:06.70 in the 800 free. Around that same time, Henveaux’s performances were beginning to attract the attention of Cal assistant coach David Marsh.
A few months after Henveaux’s meeting with Marsh, he began receiving texts from Cal head coach Dave Durden, who gave him an offer about a month prior to Euros. Having enrolled in college four years before the 2022-23 season, Henveaux still had at least one year of NCAA eligibility left, and Cal seemed like a match made in heaven—he was drawn to the team and the coaching staff, wanted a school that was strong academically (he got his undergrad degree in Belgium after three years, and is currently doing a certificate program in entrepreneurship at Cal), and liked the competitiveness of the NCAA.
“Swimming in the NCAA is obviously very appealing,” Hevenaux said. “People from our team, you know, like Bjorn [Seeliger] and Destin [Lasco] are the fastest in the world. For me, coming here was a no-brainer.”
Henveaux said his first few months at Cal were nothing but positive—his teammates welcomed him with open arms, and he was impressed by the way the coaching staff handled the team, saying that there “wasn’t another place in the world that has the same quality of coach that [Cal] does.”
Henveaux made plenty of impact at Cal in his one year, including scoring plenty of points in the distance events (9th in 500y Free and 1650y Free) and swimming a leg of Cal’s 3rd place 4x200y Free Relay.
Ziyad Saleem (Sudan - Swimming Men’s 100 Back and 200 Back)
Years at Cal: 2021-present
Age: 21
Ziyad Saleem is only the 6th swimmer to ever represent Sudan at the Olympics. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Sudanese parents, Saleem took Golds at the 2024 African Championships for both 100 Back and 200 Back.
While he did not get to race at the NCAA Championships being one of the last ones out despite meeting the NCAA B cut, Saleem was still a member of the 2022 and 2023 NCAA Champion Teams at Cal. He might just earn a swim at the NCAA Championships next year.
The Press Demoocrat had a nice story on him:
Not many think about swimming and Sudan in the same breath — but it is athletes such as Saleem who are helping put the sport on the map for the country in northern Africa that has a long coastline on the Red Sea.
When Saleem won a medal five years ago in Tunisia for one of his country's big successes in an international meet, he received royal treatment afterward.
So imagine the triumph in May when Saleem captured Sudan's first swimming gold medal at an African Championships with victory in the 200-meter backstroke. Saleem treasured his moment atop the podium as the national anthem played — then he got to do it again after winning the 100 back.
“It’s super cool being one of the first ones to medal and really be at the top of the sport in Sudan,” Saleem said. “For me, it’s more about teaching the stuff I’ve learned in the U.S. and all the training and high-level swimming I’m able to do here and kind of take it back to Sudan. I try helping out coaches at these world championships, giving them some of the tips I learned here in the U.S., and I think that’s just the biggest thing, extending what I’ve learned in the U.S. over to Sudan and hopefully those kids can learn and become better swimmers.”
A world away from Sudan’s turmoil, Saleem relishes his new life in the diverse Bay Area swimming next to decorated U.S. Olympian Ryan Murphy in the Cal pool day after day, hour after hour, set after set.
Once in a while, Saleem can surprise Murphy and beat him during their backstroke warmups. And that’s always fun to give the gold medalist a run for his money, even if it’s just in practice and not under competition pressure.
Saleem is part of Cal’s rich tradition in the Backstroke. He had commited to Iowa originally but that program was cut. When his improvement late in high school earned him a chance at Cal, Saleem took it of course.
“I knew it would be a place I’d really enjoy just having the world-class athletes here, a person like Murph," Saleem said. "I learn from him so much in and out of the water, what to do, his pointers. He’s a great person to have help you. When I first got here it was really surreal just seeing him in the water. But now since I’ve grown a relationship with him it’s not faded but I still admire him a lot. He’s a big reason why I chose to come to Cal just to have a world-record holder to train with every day.”
Murphy loves swimming with Saleem, too.
“Ziyad is awesome, one of the nicest guys I’ve trained with at Cal,” Murphy said. “He’s a happy person and hard worker.”
Once again, due to Substack email length limit, I would need to publish the rest of this list in another post.
The plan is also to have a daily post of that day’s scheduled Cal event with a short recap of the previous day starting tomorrow. Meanwhile, enjoy the Paris Opening Ceremony whenever you get to watch it!
GO BEARS!
Dont forget Lily Zhang for Table Tennis!
I wonder how an athlete in a team race sport like rowing gets singled out for individual achievement like getting the pac 12 newcomer of the year award