What to Know
- Team USA is in the lead for the total medal count at the Tokyo Olympics.
- Fourteen of those medals, as of Friday, July 30, are from athletes with SoCal ties.
- A majority of those medals come from the U.S. softball team, which won silver in the final game against host country Japan.
One week into the Tokyo Olympics, Team USA has pulled into the lead when it comes to the total medal count.
Over 100 athletes with ties to Southern California are participating in the Games this summer, including some of those medal-winners.
Here’s a list of this year’s local Olympians so far. As of Friday, July 30, there are 14 athletes with SoCal ties who have made it to the Olympic podium.
Gold Medalists
AP Photo/Matthias Schrader United States men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team of Caeleb Dressel, Blake Pieroni, Bowen Beck and Zach Apple, celebrate on the podium after winning the gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Monday, July 26, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.
4x100m Freestyle Swimming Relay
Team USA won the gold in the men’s swimming relay, and two of the team’s members train at the Mission Viejo Nadadores Swim Club:
Zach Apple, who hails from Ohio, had a blistering 46.69 anchor leg in the relay, allowing the U.S. to touch more than a second ahead of Italy, which took silver.
Blake Pieroni is from Indiana, and his mid-47 leg in the middle of the race helped Team USA pull ahead of France.
Silver Medalists
AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki Silver medalist team United States celebrate on the podium during the medal ceremony for softball at the at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 27, 2021, in Yokohama, Japan.
Team USA Softball
The Olympic softball team won silver after Japan beat the undefeated team 2-0 during the gold medal match.
Team USA won the 2018 Women’s World Championship, and were favorites to win the tournament.
Going into the gold medal game, U.S. softball was undefeated, thanks in part to the skills of seven women from SoCal:
Ally Carda, UCLA grad from Elk Grove outside Sacramento;
Rachel Garcia, Palmdale native and UCLA graduate from the Class of 2021;
Dejah Mulipola, Garden Grove native and Pacifica High School grad;
Aubree Munroe, Brea native and Brea Olinda High School grad;
Madilyn “Bubba” Nickles, also a UCLA graduate from the Class of 2021;
Janie Reed, Placentia native, El Dorado High School grad and wife of Dodgers player Jake Reed, and;
Delaney Spaulding, Rancho Cucamonga native, Etiwanda High School grad and member of UCLA’s Class of 2017.
Sabine Shut-Kery
The equestrian dressage silver medalist is from Krefeld, Germany, but trains in Thousand Oaks, where she operates a boutique dressage training business.
Previously, Shut-Kery has competed internationally as a Grand Prix rider and trainer. In 2018, she earned a spot on the U.S. Nations Cup team, which won gold.
Her winning Tokyo performance came during her first-ever appearance in the Olympics.
Matthias Schrader/AP Kathryn McLaughlin, Paige Madden, Allison Schmitt and Katie Ledecky of the United States women’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay team celebrate after their second place finish in the final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 29, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.
Katie McLaughlin
The Dana Point native and graduate of Santa Margarita Catholic High School was the starting member of the team that won silver in the women’s freestyle 4x200m swimming relay.
The silver-medal victory was during McLaughlin’s first time in the Olympics. She finished fourth at this year’s Olympic Trials, overcoming a neck injury that prevented her from competing in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Working with teammates Katie Ledecky, Allison Schmidt and Paige Madden, she was able to swim “lights out,” according to Ledecky, to pull the team up to second place behind China.
Bronze Medalists
Bronze medallist Jagger Eaton of the US poses on the podium at the end of the men’s street prelims during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Sports Park Skateboarding in Tokyo on July 25, 2021.
Jagger Eaton
The Arizona native trains in Southern California, won the bronze as a first-time Olympian during skateboarding’s Olympic debut.
He won the medal even with a broken ankle, he said after the event.
“I tore two ligaments and gave myself two fractures,” an injury he received after skating on an already torqued ankle during the world championships in Rome in the first week of June, to make sure he could qualify for the Olympic Games.
That unsurprising persistence comes from someone who started skating at age four and set a world record as the X-Games’ youngest competitor at age 11.
ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP via Getty Images Bronze medallists (from L) USA’s Erika Brown, USA’s Abbey Weitzeil, USA’s Natalie Hinds and USA’s Simone Manuel pose on the podium after the final of the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay swimming event during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Tokyo on July 25, 2021.
Abbey Weitzeil
The Saugus native and graduate of Saugus High School and UC Berkeley won medals in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 — one gold, in the 4x100m medley, and one silver, in the 4x100m freestyle.
She joined teammates Natalie Hinds, Simone Manuel and Erika Brown to earn Team USA the bronze, with a time of 3:32:81.
Australia won gold and set a new world record, while Canada won silver.
As a child in Saugus, CA, Olympian Abbey Weitzeil didn’t actually enjoy swimming that much. But at age 24, she’s won multiple Olympic medals and is representing the U.S. in Tokyo. Colleen Williams reports for NBC4.
Annie Lazor
The Michigan native, who trained at the Mission Viejo Nadadores swim club, qualified for her first Olympics in Tokyo just weeks after her father died at age 61.
She earned her bronze for Team USA in the 200m breaststroke, just barely edging out the ROC’s Evgenia Chikunova with a final time of 2:20.84.
