Buff athletes at the 2020 (actually 2021) Tokyo Olympics (Possible spoilers later on for anyone watching events on DVR or on delayed broadcasts)

[AztecBuff]

As the Olympics have come to a close, a couple things:

#ForeverBuff Jake Riley, who came from "nowhere" (but really with I'm sure a LOT of work) to make the Olympic marathon team, moved up through most of the marathon yesterday to finish 29th in the 100+ men field. (Was following on live results, and he was back around 79th place early on in the race, then started picking off runners as the race developed, peaking at around 20th place through the 35 Km (~21 mile) point. After that he fell back a little as, I'm sure like for most of the runners, the sweltering heat and humidity of Sapporo caused some damage the last 5 or so miles or so.)

(Note - unlike the other #ForeverBuffs I kept track of in this thread, I don't believe Mr. Riley ever competed as a Buff (he ran for/ at Stanford his undergrad years), but he did go to CU for grad school. Per https://www.colorado.edu/mechanical/2021/07/28/alumni-erin-huck-jake-riley-compete-tokyo-olympics , he just earned his Masters in Mechanical Engineering. Best wishes to him in both his overall life and athletic journeys!)


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Also, a nice historical article on the 1st Buff Olympian, both his Olympic experience and his rich overall life as an ambassador much of his adult life. -




Best wishes to him down in Arizona!

 

[AztecBuff]

As the games have come to a close, just wanted to mention that it looks like the Pac 12 website has updated its medal count page (https://pac-12.com/olympics/tokyo-2020/olympians-list), and it shows the conference ending in 5th place overall, with 59 total medals (17 gold and 21 each silver and bronze).
(Note that although, I'd guess, a large % of the medals were won by athletes in individual events, I assume the Pac 12 "credited itself" with a gold in team sports while, of course, probably none of the teams were made up totally of Pac 12 alums. For example, the women's volleyball team which won its 1st gold medal EVER last night mainly seemed to have Big 10 alums on its team, but did have one from the Pac 12 (Middle blocker and Stanford alum Foluke Akinradewo), but the Pac 12 is considered to have earned a full gold in the event the way they counted it.)

Also re volleyball (mainly since it's one of my favorite spectator sports), wanted to mention the state of Colorado did contribute more than its share to the gold, as 2 of the main 7 starters on the team were from the Centennial State, setter Jordyn Poulter (who attended Eaglecrest HS in Centennial before playing at Illiinois in college) and middle blocker Haleigh Washington (who attended Doherty HS in the Springs before playing collegiately at Penn State). In addition to the main thing of helping their team win the gold, they were also both honored individually by being named to the All-Tournament (or as it was called the "Dream") team for being the best at their positions out of ANY of the teams competing in the Olympics.E

Edit to post Pac 12 tweet-

 

[AztecBuff]

 

[Not Sure]

It’s a little thing, and maybe I’m overreacting, but the three Olympians who weren’t varsity athletes at CU are not Buffs at heart. They’re Buffs. Period. I wasn’t a varsity athlete at CU, but I’m still a Buff. /rant

 

[buffgal]

That tweet hit me the same way. I went to grad school at CU and I'm a Buff, a Forever Buff.