Team USA’s first individual gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics went to a Stanford junior taking a gap year to focus on swimming.
Torri Huske, 21, chased down teammate Gretchen Walsh to capture the gold medal in the 100-meter butterfly on Saturday in France.
Huske’s 55.59 time beat Walsh by 0.04 seconds as the Americans went one-two on the podium.
Tears filled Huske’s eyes when she looked up to see the results.
“I feel like I’m in shock right now,” she said on the NBC broadcast. “I don’t even know how to process it. I feel like I’m going to cry but I’m also smiling. It’s really surreal. I’m so thankful to be here.”
Nearing the end of competition on Sunday, the United States was leading all countries with 12 medals, three golds, while Australia was leading the gold medal count with four.
Huske, with two medals, is the early star for Team USA during this summer’s Games.
Saturday, she clocked the fastest split as part of the Americans’ 4×100 freestyle relay team that captured a silver.
And on Sunday, she got redemption in the 100-meter butterfly three years after suffering heartbreak in Tokyo.
In those Olympics, her first as an 18-year-old, she was on a world-record pace while leading the race until the final few meters, but finished 0.15 seconds from gold and 0.01 seconds from the podium.
Later, as a freshman at Stanford in 2021-2022, she was a seven-time All-American and a national champion in the 800-meter freestyle relay.
The following year as a sophomore, she was the Pac-12 Swimmer of the Year.
A favorite to medal at the Olympics this cycle, she decided to take a gap year and redshirt her junior year, a gamble that paid off this weekend.
A native of Virginia, she also takes pride in her Asian-American heritage.
“Representation is really important in the sport,” Huske told The Athletic last year. “A little Asian-American girl might see someone like me and then be like, ‘Oh, I can do this too.’ We all relate to people who we see ourselves in.”
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Looking to make history in the pool, Murphy squeaks by
By the skin of his teeth, Cal legend and Ryan Murphy qualified for the 100-meter backstroke final.
Murphy’s 52.72 time in the semifinals on Sunday was barely good enough to sneak into the final, to be held at 12 p.m. PT on Monday.
He’s medaled in two consecutive Olympics in the 100-meter backstroke, winning the gold in 2016 in Rio and the bronze at Tokyo in 2021.
He’s also a favorite in the 200-meter backstroke, which begins Wednesday.
With a medal in each the 100 and 200 in Paris, Murphy can make history as the first Olympian ever to medal in both backstroke events in three consecutive Olympics.
The 29-year-old and former eight-time individual NCAA champion at Cal is looking to build on his career total of six Olympic medals, four of them gold.
This story will be updated.