LEXINGTON, Ky. — When Kentucky Wildcats athletes, current and former, combined three years ago to win 10 medals in the Tokyo Olympics, it stood as one of the proudest moments in University of Kentucky sports history.
With that very high bar to clear entering the 2024 Paris Olympics, ex-Cats sports stars went to France and did something exceptional: They topped their medal count from Tokyo.
In Paris, former Kentucky Wildcats athletes combined to win 11 medals — and matched the seven gold medals that UK sports figures won in Tokyo.
For those adding at home, athletes who rocked Kentucky blue in college have now combined to win 21 Olympics medals, 14 of them gold, over the past two Summer Games.
(In my “UK medal count,” I am not including the two gold medals won in foil fencing in Paris nor the one gold claimed in Tokyo by University of Kentucky medical school student Lee Kiefer.
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The reason is the Paul Laurence Dunbar alumna competed as a collegiate fencer for Notre Dame, where she won four NCAA championships. UK does not offer fencing as a varsity sport.
In Paris, Kiefer joined Manual High School alumnus Yared Nuguse, who took the bronze medal in the men’s 1,500-meter run, as state of Kentucky products who won Olympic medals).
Interestingly, it is the recruiting of two former Kentucky head coaches — ex-Wildcats track and field coach Edrick Floreal (now at Texas) and ex-Cats men’s hoops coach John Calipari (now at Arkansas) — which deserves ample credit for launching UK’s gold rush over the past two Olympics.
What ex-Cats are doing in Olympics women’s hurdles races can only be described as astounding.
When former Kentucky hurdlers Masai Russell (100 meters) and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (400 meters) swept gold in the women’s hurdles events in Paris, it marked the second straight Olympics in which UK products won both Olympic women’s hurdles races.
In Tokyo, it was ex-Cats stars McLaughlin-Levrone (400) and Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (100) who swept the hurdles gold.
This year, Camacho-Quinn ran third in the 100 meters hurdles behind Russell. Three years ago, it was former Kentucky stars Camacho-Quinn and Kendra Harrison who ran 1-2 in the Olympic 100 hurdles.
Add in the silver medal that ex-Kentucky star Daniel Roberts won in the men’s 110-meter hurdles in Paris, and former UK hurdlers have won seven Olympic medals combined in the past two Summer Games.
In France, McLaughlin-Levrone and ex-UK star Alexis Holmes combined to form one half of Team USA’s gold medal-winning 4-by-400 relay team. That quartet, which also included Gabby Thomas and Shamier Little, set an American record (3:15.27) while crushing the competition in “Secretariat wins the Belmont” fashion.
Former Kentucky stars Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker and Anthony Davis were on Team USA’s gold medal-claiming men’s basketball roster. All three made meaningful contributions as the Americans, led by Steph Curry’s torrid outside shooting and LeBron James’ stat-stuffing all-around play, won a tense gold medal game 98-87 over host France.
Quietly, Booker was Team USA’s second-leading scorer, 15 points, and contributed six rebounds and three assists to the win over the French.
Afterward, Steve Kerr, the Team USA head coach, ended his news conference by saying “Devin Booker is an incredible basketball player. Nobody asked about him. He was our unsung MVP. I just wanted to say that.”
Davis, too, was a huge factor in Team USA staving off France. In a high-energy 20 minutes of game time, the ex-UK big man had eight points, nine rebounds, four blocks and two steals.
Adebayo logged nine minutes of clock in the gold medal game and had two points and one board while providing physical, active defense.
It was the second straight Olympics in which a gold medal-winning U.S. men’s basketball roster boasted three former Kentucky players. Keldon Johnson joined Booker and Adebayo on Team USA in Tokyo.
All-time, 13 players who played men’s college basketball for UK have combined to win 16 Olympic gold medals while hooping for the red, white and blue.
Even with that, the biggest disappointment in Paris from the Kentucky perspective came in men’s hoops when a talented Team Canada roster — featuring ex-Wildcats Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jamal Murray and Trey Lyles — failed to medal.
In France, two of the premier athletes to perform for Kentucky in the 21st century added Olympic medals to their resumes.
Avery Skinner, one of the stars of UK volleyball’s 2020 NCAA champions, earned a silver medal as part of Team USA’s indoor women’s squad.
Former Kentucky women’s basketball star Rhyne Howard won a bronze medal in Paris as part of Team USA’s 3-on-3 squad.
This past Saturday, when six ex-Cats — Russell (100 hurdles); McLaughlin-Levrone and Holmes (4-by-400 relay); and Adebayo, Booker and Davis (men’s hoops) — combined to claim six gold medals within hours of each other was an especially “golden” day for UK sports.
During a year when Kentucky Athletics has vacated a 10-win football season (from 2021) due to NCAA rules violations and is facing a lawsuit making distressing allegations of sexual harassment during the tenure of a former UK swim coach, the feel-good vibes created by the ex-Cats in Paris came at a most-welcome time.
