Auburn athletes compete in 5 sports at the Tokyo Olympics

0


[ad_1]

AUBURN, Alabama – A total of 14 athletes from five sports qualified for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Originally scheduled for last year, the opening ceremonies are scheduled for July 23rd and the Games will end on August 8th.

The group of qualifiers includes five athletes who will compete for the United States and one who will represent the US Virgin Islands. There is a chance several other teams with Auburn connections could be added to the teams late in the process if they can meet Olympic qualifying standards in their events.

gymnastics

The best chance of a medal of any Auburn athlete is Sunisa Lee, who will be a newcomer to coach Jeff Graba’s Tigers in the coming season. When Lee competes in Tokyo, she will make Auburn University history as the first AU gymnast to compete in the Olympics.

At the United States Olympic Trials in St. Louis, she qualified as No. 1 on bars and bars. She also took second place in the all-around competition. “It was an incredible experience to watch Suni achieve what she has been working towards for years,” said Graba.

Before the tests, Lee won the national parallel bars and came second on the bars and in all-around. At the 2019 World Championships in Germany, she won a team gold medal as well as silver on the floor and bronze on bars.

Lee will begin the team competition on July 25th, which is her first chance to win an Olympic medal.

Sunisa Lee will compete as an all-rounder for Team USA at the Olympic Games. (Photo: Jerome Miron, USA TODAY Sports)

“It means so much to me and I’ve worked so hard over the past few years,” said Lee after qualifying for the US team. “Just getting on the floor and doing whatever I should be doing feels great.”

Soft ball

Former Tiger All-American second baseman Emily Carosone and the Italian team qualified for the Olympics two years ago. As a tune-up for their trip to Tokyo, the team won the European Championship this summer, with Carosone driving the decisive and victorious runs home in the title game.

That summer she hit .474 with nine hits in 19 at-bats at the European Championships. She scored 12 runs, added six RBI, and scored a percentage of 0.643 on the base.

Carosone, who played a major role on Auburn’s two College World Series trips, is an assistant coach for the Tigers. Base percentage (.534) and hit by pitches (85). She ranks in the top three in career RBI, doubles, home runs, slugging percentage and games started. Carosone also holds Auburn’s single-season records for runs, slugging percent, and hit by pitch.

swim

Auburn’s most successful Olympic-level athletes were in the sport, which included world record holders Rowdy Gaines, Cesar Cielo and Kirsty Coventry, who also won gold medals.

The youngest members of the Auburn team to swim in Tokyo are Santiago Grassi and Julie Meynen, who competed for the Tigers from 2016-20. Grassi, who swam for the Tigers Butterfly and Freestyle, will represent Argentina at the Olympic Games for the second time. Meynen, who trained in Auburn this summer, will represent Luxembourg and compete in Tokyo in the 50s and 100s freestyle.

“It means so much,” said Meynen, who also took part in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “It was tough because I wasn’t sure I would go, so I’m really relieved that I can show all the work I’ve done here in Auburn at the Olympics. Even though it was a tough year last year, I’m really looking forward to it. After five years of training, that’s the gift for me, so to speak. I’m extremely excited. ”Meynen is the second fastest swimmer in the AU women in both the 50s and 100s freestyle.

Annie Lazor, who was for Auburn Senior in 2016, will swim for Team USA, as will Zach Apple, who competed for the Tigers from 2015-18 before moving to Indiana. The swimming group also includes Marcelo Chierighini from Brazil, who competed for Auburn from 2010-14, Luis Martinez from Guatemala (2014-18) and Adriel Sanes, who represents the US Virgin Islands. As a transfer from Denver, he will be a member of the AU men’s team in 2021-22.

tennis

A two-time college All-American and four-year-old Letterman will be the first Auburn tennis player to compete in the Olympics. Tim Pütz, who played for Auburn’s now retired head coach Eric Shore, will represent Germany in the doubles competition.

In 2009, Pütz reached the NCAA double finals with his teammate Alexey Tsyrenov and won 89 college doubles. He won 93 singles matches for the Tigers and reached the semifinals at the 2010 NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships.

Pütz is number 39 in the world in the doubles ranking and has won four ATP event titles in his career, including wins in Lyon and Estoril in 2021 while playing with Hugo Nys. He is expected to play with Kevin Krawietz, who was the partner of Auburn alum Andreas Mies in winning the French Open doubles championships in 2019 and 2020.

athletics

One woman and three men have formed their Olympic teams and there is the possibility of late registrations.

The woman on the way to Tokyo is Rachel Dincoff, who qualified for Team USA in her last throw in the discus competition at the Olympic Trials with a loss of 197 feet and six inches.

A 2014-16 All-American for the Tigers, a native of Waterloo, Indiana, is the first Auburn athlete to represent the United States in the Olympics and the 43rd Auburn athlete to form an Olympic team starting with Hurdler Percy Beard, who represented the USA in 1932. Dincoff, who also competed for the Tigers in the shot put, is the Auburn School’s record holder in the discus.

The most experienced Auburn Olympic champion, high jumper Donald Thomas, will make his four trips to the Olympic Games as a representative of the Bahamas. Thomas turned 37 on July 1st. He finished seventh in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and also took part in the 2012 and 2008 Olympic Games.

Former world champion Thomas has a personal best of 2.37 meters, which is 7 feet and 9.31 inches. The world record of 2.45 meters by Javier Sotomayor of 2.45 meters (8 feet, 1/4 inch) was set in 1983. Thomas holds the Auburn record at 2.29 meters (seven feet, 6.16 inches), a mark he broke in 2007.

Two sprinters traveling to Tokyo are Kai Selvon, who is in the 4×100 women’s relay for Trinidad & Tobago, and Nathon Allen, who is a replacement for the 4×400 men’s relay for Jamaica.

Selvon received nine All-American awards when she ran for the Tigers and is taking part in the Olympics for the second time with her first trip in 2012. Allen was also a standout figure at Auburn and won an Olympic silver medal in the 2016 Games in the 4×400 relay. At the 2019 World Championships, he won silver in two seasons.

[ad_2]

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.