The day of the women’s foil individual gold medal bout, Lauren Scruggs spent an hour lying down in her room, thinking about what she was about to do and the road to get there. Going into the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the 21-year-old from Queens wasn’t projected to medal, let alone compete for gold. But […]
Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone may only have just turned 25, but standing on the start line at the Olympic stadium is nothing new for her. The New Jersey native—who’s already broken five world records—is returning for her third Olympic Games in Paris with hopes of adding another gold (or two) to her medal count. As a 16-year-old, […]
But college wasn’t all studying for Thomas—it’s also where her track career began in earnest. According to her official Olympics profile, she won a whopping 22 conference titles in six different track events while she was a student and became the first NCAA sprint champion in Ivy League history with a winning time of 22.38 […]
If you’ve been tuning in to events like the pole vault, steeplechase, or 100-meter dash at the Paris Games, you might’ve noticed something a little…different about the Olympic track. And no, your TV’s display isn’t glitching: The surface really is purple. Well, to be specific, two different shades of purple: Organizers chose a delicate lavender […]
In the months leading up to the Paris Games, one of the biggest questions wasn’t only which athletes would be competing, but whether the Seine river would end up being safe enough to host them for some of the swimming events. As the Games progressed, speculation only intensified. In advance of the men’s and women’s […]
What happens when the sport you love, the one you have spent your entire life dedicated to, decides you are no longer eligible to compete? That is the reality that many trans women athletes across a variety of sports are currently living, one where their dreams of success have been shattered. Laws to ban transgender […]
Being a face of a newly minted Olympic sport would stress out anyone, let alone someone who’s barely out of her teens. But Logan Edra, a 21-year-old California native who now lives in Florida, is handling the pressure with more chill than athletes twice her age. “If I fail, then I fail,” she tells SELF. […]
While a lot of people think artistic swimming is delightfully antiquated—a bunch of “bathing beauties” in floral swim caps and cherry-lipped smiles—that idea is a tired old stereotype that Daniella Ramirez, a Team USA artistic swimmer set to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games, is sick of hearing. She’s amassed a TikTok following with her […]
One of the best things about the Olympics is that nothing’s set in stone. Athletes having the day of their lives can—and often do—upset event favorites to clinch a spot on the podium. And that’s pretty much what happened in the women’s Olympic road cycling race on August 4. That’s when Team USA’s Kristen Faulkner […]
American women’s soccer fans could be forgiven for feeling a bit nervous heading into the Paris Games. Last year, the US National Women’s Team exited the World Cup earlier than ever, not even reaching the quarter-finals following a 5-4 loss to Sweden in the Round of 16. And some of the team’s long-time superstars, including […]