A Golden Forecast of 2024 in Cal Olympic Sports

Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be the focal point for many aspiring "Calympians"

Happy 2024!

With the brand new year only a few days old, I figure it is more interesting to look forward to the rest of the school year than review the fall semester (Another Men’s Water Polo NCAA Championship! A surprising America East championship for Field Hockey!) My post(s) on Volleyball (new star in Maggie Li, a new head coach named at the end of the year!) and Soccer (two Cal Bears were drafted in the MLS draft but they will be back next fall before turning pro!) will have to wait.

Last week, I saw in the theater The Boys in the Boats, directed by George Clooney based upon the best-selling book by Cal alum Daniel James Brown. The predictable but feel-good, nonetheless, story about the underdogs, AKA Depression Era Washington Huskies men's eight crew, that won the US championship and then the 1936 Gold Medal in Berlin showed how much of a bigger deal rowing was back in the day and interestingly lumped Cal with the rich East Coast elites (Penn and Cornell) as early obstacles for the UW boat, before they advanced to the final boss that was the Nazis boat. Spectators rode in moving trains to follow the boats in the 4-mile national championship race (the IRA National Championship has since been significantly shortened to just 2 km now). The PBS American Experience documentary on the same topic is worth a look (the historic footage in it has also been faithfully reproduced by Clooney in his film), if just for the large crowds that gathered for the rowing championships.

Of course, the feat accomplished by the UW boys has been replicated by the Cal Bears in three Olympics around that period. Cal crews representing the USA won the gold medals at the 1928 Amsterdam, 1932 Los Angeles, and 1948 London Olympic Games.

A lot has changed since then with rowing becoming a niche sport, even though it was already highly associated with the English and East Coast elites 100 years ago, and collegiate rowing championships being dominated by foreign rowers. Many Cal fans missed the exciting 5+ minutes in the last two early Junes when Cal Varsity Eight won the IRA National Championships. Of course, the winning Cal boat was filled with an international coalition of Golden Bears hailing from Wales, Australia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and the United States. This summer, the Cal superteam will (most likely) be spread across several boats representing various countries. Then again, having Cal rowers spread out in more events also means that there is a stronger Cal flavor to the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

2024 Paris Summer Olympics

In a bit of a surprise, Cal Rowing overtook Swimming in having more “Calympians” winning medals in the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games. While the swimmers, thanks to Ryan Murphy, still brought home more medals, each rower only has one shot at a medal while there is no such cap for the swimmers.

Over the past summer, three International first-time “Calympians” have already booked their individual spots. They are Canadian “Calympian” and former multiple-time NCAA champion Camryn Rogers (women’s hammer throw), Lithuanian “Calympian” Mykolas Alekna (men’s discus), and Belgian “Calympian” Lucas Henveaux (men’s swimming).

Ten, four former and six former, Cal Men’s Rowing Bears raced in the World Rowing Championship this past September. Four of them earned 2024 Paris Olympics berths by medalling. Olav Molenaar and the Dutch Eight team won Silver. Angus Dawson and Jack Robertson won Bronze as a part of the Australia Eight crew. Ollie Maclean helped New Zealand to a bronze in men’s four. While off the podium, Niki Van Sprang and his Dutch Four also qualified for Paris. The other Cal Bears have more chances to book their spot in Paris.

They should be joined by an additional three dozen past, current, and future Cal Bears who will compete and maybe an additional dozen Cal Bears will be in Paris as coaches. Cal should have again between 40-60 representatives AKA “Calympians” at the Summer Olympics this summer.

Several other “Calympians” who should be selected to national teams to represent already clinched Olympic berths included Adrian Weinberg, Johnny Hooper, and Lucas Cupido for USA Men’s Water Polo, Kitty-Lynn Joustra for the Netherlands Women’s Water Polo, Alex Morgan for USA Women’s Soccer. Numerous additional Cal Bears will be representing their country to fight for Olympic qualifications this winter/spring, particularly in women’s soccer (New Zealand and Nigeria), women’s water polo (Canada), and even women’s field hockey (USA).

The US Olympic Swimming Trials on June 15-23 will decide the fate of the American swimmers. While Cal Olympic legend Ryan Murphy is a good bet to add to his Olympic medal tally, we will have to wait until June to figure out how many other Cal Bears will join him on Team USA. Destin Lasco, Jack Alexy (2023 Golden Goggle Breakout Performer for winning five medals in his international debut), Gabriel Jett, and Dare Rose are current Cal Bears to look out for on the men’s side. Isabelle Stadden needs to improve a bit on her recent top-5/6 finishes in the 2023 US Championships to make the Olympic squad for backstroke where only the top-2 finishers become Olympians. Recent Cal Bears like Trenton Julian and Abbey Weitzeil are also still active and threats to make the Olympic Games for their 1st and 3rd Olympic Games, respectively.

𝐏𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬

Ryan Murphy, Dare Rose, and Jack Alexy win 1st in the 4x100 medley setting a championship record at 3:27.20

Breaking a 13-year-old record!

That's how you finish off a great week in the pool!

#GoBears | #AQUAFukuoka23

https://twitter.com/calmenswim/status/1685698878610567168

Internationally, Cal should have many more familiar faces representing swimming like Hugo Gonzalez (Spain) and Ayla Spitz (Israel) or current Bears like Bjorn Seeliger (Sweden), Robin Hanson (Sweden), Ziyad Saleem (Sudan), and Leah Polonsky (Israel). All of the above competed at the World Aquatics Championships last summer in Fukuoka, Japan.

More Cal Swimming representatives may come out of the phenomenal Cal Women’s Class of 2025 which included top-three ranked swimmers in the country. Alex Schackell, Teagan O’Dell, and Claire Weinstein are names to watch out for at the US Olympic Trials.

Another future Cal Bears to look out for is Great Britain women's gymnast Ondine Achampong who was a part of the GB squad that took silver at the 2022 World Championships.

While known more for their PGA results, Cal alumni Max Homa and Collin Morikawa (2020 “Calympian”) are also in the mix for possible Olympic berths. The complication of some pro golfers moving to LIV which does not award OWGR points may make it easier for the Cal duo, who have remained faithful to PGA (the supposed merge with LIV did not get done before the previously announced end of 2023 deadline). A few of the Cal pros as double specialists in the ATP and WTA tours may also qualify as tennis Olympians.

Three-time Calympian in table tennis Lily Zhang is also still active and could be a realistic medal threat after playing as a pro in Germany (pre-COVID, not sure if she went back after COVID).

I would not be surprised if I left out some other obvious names to watch (some of the international Cal Bears are harder to track), but expect plenty of Cal Bears at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games again.

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Three-peat Bids Part 2 and 3

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Cal Men’s Water Polo was able to pull off a three-peat (I have used this term so much this year that I hope I don’t get sued by Pat Riley) last December, both Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving and Cal Men’s Crew will look to match that feat this March and June, respectively, from Indianapolis, IN and Lake Mercer, New Jersey. Unlike Cal Men’s Water Polo, which looked good on paper but took a circuitous way to a third straight championship, these two Cal squads will need some new Golden Bears to step up to win another championship in 2024.

Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving will likely face a new challenger in 2024 than perennial rival Texas. Arizona State, winner of the 2023 Pac-12 title for the first time in their program history, will be the biggest contender against the Cal Bears for the 2024 title. Led by French superstar Leon Marchand, who completed the rare feat of being undefeated in individual events all season long in 2023 matching the feat accomplished on the women’s side by Cal legend Natalie Coughlin in 2003, ASU is seeking their first-ever men’s team NCAA title.

ASU head coach Bob Bowman has a different philosophy than Cal director (now promoted to head both men and women) Dave Durden. Bowman has his swimmers going all out for the entire year with the Sun Devils already putting up impressive times in the fall. Durden’s squad is notorious for dropping time in those two weeks between the Pac-12 and the NCAA championships. Golden Bears got the experience of winning at the NCAA Championships, often out-performing the expected results to turn supposed tight team races into routs. Can the Bears do that again against a talented and deep ASU squad in 2024?

The Olympic year adds some weirdness to the training since the Olympic Games are competed in long course meters while NCAA races are competed in short course yards pools. Some swimmers have little issue switching between the two while other swimmers only dominate on short or long courses due to their turning or underwater prowess. Cal returned most but not all of their key contributors from the last two squads that won the back-to-back national titles. While men’s swimming doesn’t generally get as many freshman contributions unless they are special athletes like Ryan Murphy, Cal men’s squad took a hit when Aaron Schakell, older brother of Cal recruit Alex mentioned in the last section, opted to return to Carmel, IN to train for the 2024 Olympics after spending the fall in Berkeley (I’m not sure if he does lose a year of eligibility because of a few fall meet appearances…hopefully not). Schakell was looking like a 200y Free and 800y Free Relay contributor for the Bears.

Of course, with the spring semester not yet started, Durden may still pull a rabbit out of thin air and get a solid contributor in a foreign graduate student transfer (like how Cal got Belgium “Calympian” Lucas Henveaux at this time last year). I believe the NIL rule change recently does make more international swimmers who might once have taken some sponsorships to compete in the past still NCAA-eligible.

Trying to project into late March, it should be a tight team race between the two Pac-12 rivals in Cal and ASU. For once, Cal should actually have an edge in diving over ASU. For the number of times that Cal had lost the team Swimming AND Diving championship to Texas due to Texas diving gaining points in the three diving events, Cal diving coach Pei Lin’s squad could provide some valuable dozen points to tip the team race in Cal’s favor. Joshua Thai finished 6th in platform diving last year. Canadian freshman Geoffrey Vavitsas could contribute right away as well given his pedigree. Sophomore Conrad Eck also already got an NCAA Zone-qualifying score this fall.

While Cal Men’s Swimming will need some newbies to step up, they can also rely on dependable Bears like Destin Lasco (backstrokes and 200 IM), who scored 53 points, and Gabriel Jett (200 Free, 200 Fly), who scored 46 points. Bjorn Seeliger (sprint and 100 back) and Jack Alexy (freestyle) are also mainstays in scoring individually and in relays. Some of the since-graduated Hugo Gonzalez’s 50 points will be made up by improvements to the existing Cal Bears especially since Cal won the team title while only picking up one individual win (Lasco in 200y Back), and Durden’s squad is a conveyor belt of swimming studs who blossom after training in Berkeley.

https://twitter.com/CalMRowing/status/1674830346226139136

It will be a very different story for Cal Men’s Crew in 2024. With the main IRA Championship decided solely by the Varsity 8 race, Cal will have a completely different Varsity 8 boat in 2024 after the entire 2x IRA champion boat roster is missing from the listed Cal roster other than coxswain Luca Vieira. One can logically assume that the 6 rowers who still had eligibility have opted to take an Olympic redshirt for the 2024 season.

Fortunately for the Cal Bears, they also swept all of the races in 2023 at the IRA Championship. While Cal’s 2nd Varsity 8 boat also had a trio of since-graduated seniors, one would assume that Cal’s top boat in 2024 will have the remaining five of these 2023 2V8+ national champions. Throwing some talented freshmen and Cal’s crew’s perennial great depth from the other boats, maybe there will not be much of a drop-off with a new crew? Besides, rivals Washington and Yale are also full of international rowers with Olympic aspirations and responsibilities. Cal could still be the best in the US collegiate world. We just won’t know until early June, most likely.

The Boys in the Boat book and movie waxed poetic about a boat working together to achieve “swing” when everything clicks all at once. Having the majority of 2V8+ promoted to V8+ together might help with that. Cal head coach Scott Frandsen must also have anticipated this Olympic year challenge years to be able to counter via recruiting and other means. Frandsen, a former Canadian “Calympian”, is seeking his 4th IRA Championship title, 3rd as the Cal head coach after winning one as an assistant coach back in 2016. Cal is also tied with rival Washington for 2nd with 19 IRA titles. Cornell, due to their longer history in this contest, still leads the way with 26 titles.

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NCAA Postseason Women’s Gymnastics and Women’s Water Polo in Bear Territory

On the topic of the Olympic year and the NCAA field being weaker due to redshirts of Olympians, Cal Women’s Water Polo has a chance to surprise in this upcoming Olympic season where Berkeley will also host the NCAA Championships. Cal won the men’s water polo titles the last two times that Spieker was the site of the championship final. Cal women are still seeking a breakthrough title. With Olympic redshirts impacting Stanford, UCLA, and USC more than Cal (no Cal players on the No.1 Team USA), this is a golden opportunity for the Bears to surprise.

Also hosting the postseason this year is Cal Women’s Gymnastics with the Berkeley Regional. Cal achieved the first regional win in program history a year early when they won the Pittsburgh Regional. They have a good shot of earning back-to-back regional titles. Coming off a 2023 season where the Bears missed the NCAA Championship final by having to count a fall in bars, the apparatus where they had been the most steady before that NCAA semifinal meet, Cal will return all of the routines except the all-around of Nevaeh DeSouza, still with the team as a volunteer coach. Freshman Kyen Mayhew should be an instant contributor on at least floor and vault. Sophomore eMjae Frazier is still young and capable of rewriting the Cal history book more in her Cal career. Senior Andi Li has been arguably the most reliable gymnast yet in program history. Maddie Williams and Mya Lauzon both took a big step forward last season to turn from specialists to all-around. Gaby Perea and Ella Cesario got something to prove after the way last season ended. Cal should continue to break new team records (4 of the top 5 in program history came from 2023) and could finally make it to the NCAA Championship Final session as one of the “Four on the Floor” for the first time in program history. The season starts this Saturday in Las Vegas.

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Cal Baseball: Catch Them Before They Turn Pro

https://twitter.com/CalBaseball/status/1734649580736983073

Coming off the first World Series win with a significant Cal alumni contributor in Texas Rangers 2nd Baseman Marcus Semien since outfielder Allen Craig won with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011, Cal Baseball is poised to create more future MLB Cal Bears.

Catcher Caleb Lomavita (0.316/0.367/0.612 with a team-high 16 homers and 9 steals in 10 attempts) and Center Fielder Rodney Green Jr. (0.293/0.388/0.558 with 14 homers and 29 steals in 31 attempts) are both projected to be 2024 MLB Draft picks in the first three rounds right now. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel has Lomavita as the 44th best prospect (both college and high school) last summer and Green Jr. as an honorable mention outside the top 50.

MLB Pipeline is even higher on the two Cal Bears. Lomavita, the junior from Hawaii, is their second-best catcher overall behind Stanford's Malcolm Moore and ranked at 21st. Rodney Green Jr. can also be found on the list of top-100 prospects, coming in at 96th. 

Cal may or may not have enough pitching (head coach Mike Neu’s pitching experience has got to pay off one of these years and Cal has got a lot of guys with experience within the program) to have team success in 2024, but they should again be a fun team to watch just with the offensive talent along.

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Rugby coming off a seven-free fall season

Perennial national championship contender Cal Rugby has not won a rugby 15s natty since 2017 (when they also last won a rugby 7s title). They will enter the 2024 rugby 15s season with a different preparation than recent years as the fall 7s season was eliminated (supposedly not by Cal) despite that format being the one played at the Olympics. Time will tell if the Bears will be sharper in 15s this year with that being the focus of fall training. Check out head coach Jack Clark's answers to some questions about this season.

Q: Will Cal be participating in a sevens season this year?
 
Clark: None of the fall tournaments we have been participating in over the last decade will happen this year, so we will not have a fall sevens campaign. I'm disappointed, and I could also imagine how the U.S. Olympic Committee might see the Olympic form of the game being devalued. So many teams are keen to play XV's at the exclusion of sevens. We are attempting to be good at both, but it's not how many other teams think. USA Rugby's plan for this year is to tack on a sevens championship in June. Without the benefit of a fall sevens season, I think this is a mistake; but sometimes the entire collegiate sports landscape makes me scratch my head. We will have to assess our options when the time comes and make a decision if the planned June event makes sense.  

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Other Ranked Cal Teams to watch

Finally, I should give a quick shout-out to the following Cal national championship contenders (or more generally, the expected-to-be-ranked teams). 

Cal Beach Volleyball should return to the NCAA Championship, still in Alabama, now that the field has been expanded. Golden Bears should be a borderline top-10 team when the first rankings drop. Cal returns a lot of experience throughout the entire lineup. Coming off a historic season where they defeated USC for the first time in program history, Cal is trending up to be a national title contender and hopefully be the first school other than UCLA and USC to win the NCAA title.

Unlike Cal Beach Volleyball, Cal Women’s Rowing has just treaded water in recent years. While still among the field that makes the NCAA championships with all three boats, Cal Women’s Rowing has dropped to 8th overall in 2023. The 2V8+ boat finished 3rd overall but the other two boats V8+ and V4+ only qualified for the petite final (7th-12th place). It is plausible for Cal to jump back up to be a top-5 program in 2024.

Cal Women's Tennis will find out their first team ranking on Wednesday, January 3rd. With three individuals ranked in the top 36: Hannah Viller Moeller (12), Jessica Alsola (17), and Katja Wiersholm (36th) from a strong fall, the team should be ranked in the Top-25.

There are some complaints because college golf changed this past offseason the ranking system that will ultimately decide who makes the NCAA tournament. However, both Cal men and women are safely ranked in the top-25 thanks to their strong fall results. This fall, Cal men checked in at 22nd while the women were just one spot behind at 23rd. 

Cal Men's Gymnastics will also be a top-10ish squad in the country. Unfortunately, due to the scoring in men's gymnastics that rewards more bonus points for more difficult routines, Cal is not a legitimate national championship threat even if they should qualify for the NCAA Championships yet again.

In short, there is plenty to look forward to in 2024 in Cal Olympic sports. What is always the most fun are the unexpected overachieving stories. It will probably not lead to a feature movie being made about them in 100 years, but there should be an abundance of moments for Cal fans to cheer about in the coming months.

GO BEARS!