The Olympics opening ceremony is this Friday, and Connecticut and Long Island have both sent athletes to Paris.
Three Long Island and 11 Connecticut athletes have qualified for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics.
They include swimmers, rowers, soccer and basketball players, and track athletes.
Eighteen-year-old Syla Swords played basketball at Long Island Lutheran in Brookfield. She will be the youngest player to ever represent Canada on the Olympic women’s basketball team.
Crystal Dunn (Rockville Center) and Alyssa Naeher (Bridgeport) will both play for the United States women’s soccer team. They both won Bronze medals with the team at the Tokyo games in 2021, and the World Cup in 2019.
Also from Connecticut, Ali Truwit will represent Team USA in the pool just a year after losing her foot in a shark attack. Truwit swam at Yale University.
Former Connecticut College student and sailor Maggie Shea is headed to her second Olympic games. She fell in love with competitive sailing while at the school in 2011.
Jeffrey Bresnahan, her former coach, said he’s excited to watch her in the water.
“We’re pretty excited. This is her second time, she’s really striving to be on the podium this time. They had some tragedy last time, there was a late penalty that was pretty controversial that kept them out of the medal race. So, she and her partner, Steph Roble, have been working really hard over the past three years to prepare for that,” Bresnahan said.
Shea has won two bronze medals in world championship races. She will compete in the waters of Marseille in the South of France in the 49er FX class, a high-performance skiff sailed by two people. It’s considered one of the most challenging boats of the Olympics.
Read more about where Team USA is from here.
Coverage of the Olympics will be available on NBC and Peacock.
