{"id":24499,"date":"2024-08-12T13:23:29","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T18:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/?p=24499"},"modified":"2024-08-12T13:23:29","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T18:23:29","slug":"bears-leave-paris-with-two-more-golds-and-a-school-record-4-olympic-medals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2024\/08\/bears-leave-paris-with-two-more-golds-and-a-school-record-4-olympic-medals\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears leave Paris with two more golds and a school-record 4 Olympic medals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-24501\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/olympic-medals-aug24.jpg\" alt=\"Clockwise from top left: John Peers, Brittney Griner, Kristy Wallace, and Avery Skinner, each holding Olympic medals\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/olympic-medals-aug24.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/olympic-medals-aug24-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/olympic-medals-aug24-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/olympic-medals-aug24-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the 2024 Summer Olympics complete, Baylor Bears are coming home from Paris with <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BaylorAthletics\/status\/1822664520344748355\">a school-record four medals<\/a> (earned by four different Olympians) &#8212; continuing <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2024\/07\/baylors-history-of-olympic-excellence-to-continue-in-paris\/\">BU&#8217;s long history of Olympic excellence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Former Baylor men&#8217;s tennis standout\u00a0<strong>John Peers<\/strong> got things started for Baylor, winning gold for his native Australia in men&#8217;s doubles. Appearing in his third Olympics, Peers won his second medal (having won bronze in mixed doubles in Tokyo) by sweeping through this year&#8217;s Olympic rounds.<\/p>\n<p>Also appearing in her third Olympics, <strong>Brittney Griner<\/strong> (BSED &#8217;19) won her third Olympic gold with women&#8217;s basketball (extending the Team USA run to eight straight golds). Griner joins Michael Johnson (BBA &#8217;91, four golds) and Jeremy Wariner (three) as the only Bears to win three or more Olympic gold medals.<\/p>\n<p>Former Baylor volleyball all-American <strong>Avery Skinner<\/strong> fell just short of giving the Bears their third gold of the Paris Olympics, as the U.S. women&#8217;s volleyball team lost to Italy in the championship, finishing with the silver &#8212; the first Olympic volleyball medal in Baylor history.<\/p>\n<p>On the Games&#8217; final weekend, the only thing keeping <strong>Kristy Wallace<\/strong> (BSED &#8217;18) and the Australian women&#8217;s basketball from the gold medal game was Griner&#8217;s Team USA; the Americans beat the Aussies in the semifinals, but Australia rebounded to win the bronze.<\/p>\n<p>Baylor&#8217;s two gold medals were more than 166 of the 206 participating countries in this year&#8217;s Olympics, and their four total medals would have ranked in the top third of all countries for 2024. And that doesn&#8217;t even count the 10 medals (five gold, three silver, two bronze) coached by Baylor track and field head coach <strong>Michael Ford<\/strong> (BBA &#8217;97) in his role as Team USA&#8217;s men&#8217;s sprints\/hurdles coach.<\/p>\n<p>All-time, Baylor athletes have now won 20 total medals (14 gold, four silver, and two bronze) dating back to 1904 &#8212; more than 85 other countries.<\/p>\n<p>Sic \u2019em, Baylor Olympians!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the 2024 Summer Olympics complete, Baylor Bears are coming home from Paris with a school-record four medals (earned by four different Olympians) &#8212; continuing BU&#8217;s long history of Olympic excellence. Former Baylor men&#8217;s tennis standout\u00a0John Peers got things started for Baylor, winning gold for his native Australia in men&#8217;s doubles. Appearing in his third [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}