Wisconsin athletes to watch in 2024 Olympics in Paris

As the opening ceremony kicks off the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris Friday, plenty of athletes with Wisconsin ties will take the world stage to compete for gold.

Many of them don’t play the major revenue sports more widely broadcast year-round, but the Olympics are an opportunity to see some of the most talented competitors the state has produced.

Sports reporter JR Radcliffe from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has followed the careers of many of these athletes, and he’s written a series of articles on their journeys to the Olympics.

He spoke to WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” about the Olympians with connections to Wisconsin to keep an eye on.

The following was edited for clarity and brevity.

Rob Ferrett: Who are some of the Wisconsin athletes that we don’t get to see as much normally that we’ll get to watch on the global stage now in Paris?

JR Radcliffe: The University of Wisconsin has a ton of people who are competing, not necessarily for Team USA. They’ve got rowers who are all over the map. That’s a sport that doesn’t get a lot of attention. 

There’s a rugby player, Alec Kelter, who’s been to multiple Olympics at age 33, playing in sevens rugby. So these are sports that might not always get the shine, but they are going to be out there and for multiple countries. 

In track and field, from the University of Wisconsin, you’ve got Moh Ahmed, a distance runner who’s been there a million times. He’s competing for Canada. Morgan McDonald is competing for his home country of Australia, and Ollie Hoare and Adam Spencer — all UW athletes.

RF: Tell us about Olympic sprinter Kenny Bednarek from Rice Lake, who you wrote a feature on for the Journal Sentinel.

JR: This guy, along with the basketball players, is the most high profile Wisconsin athlete in these games. He’s going to be running in two high-profile events, that being the 100 meters and the 200 meters in Paris. He did win the silver medal in 2021 in Tokyo in the 200 meters. That is his specialty event.

He’s 25 years old. I was lucky enough to watch him run at the state track and field meet in La Crosse (in 2018). He absolutely lit up the entire venue. Everybody had to be there to watch him run. The high school scene has known about him for a long time and now he’s on a national stage. He’s already come home with an Olympic medal, and he is poised to do that at the very least again.

RF: Wisconsin has a lot of athletes competing in wheelchair basketball at the Paralympics, most of whom are connected to UW-Whitewater. How strong is the program there?

JR: Whitewater is the home of wheelchair basketball in the United States. That is the premier program, and it nurtures Olympian after Olympian. Head coach Jake Williams himself has two gold medals to his name already. Many of these Olympians, who are themselves Wisconsin natives, already have experience at the Paralympics.

There’s John Boie from Milton, Nate Hinze from Cedar Grove, Talen Jourdan of Deerfield, and on the women’s side, you’ve got Becca Murray from Germantown and Emily Oberst of Milwaukee. Emily Oberst did not go to Whitewater, but the rest did, and many of them have Paralympic and national experience.