Meet the Colorado athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris

• The sports range from women's 100m breaststroke and pairs rowing to equestrian dressage and golf.

What we're watching: Colorado athletes are poised to win big as they defend titles from the Tokyo Games three years ago.

• The women's soccer team features three Colorado players — Lindsey Horan, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Smith — who are looking for Olympic gold after finishing with a disappointing bronze in 2021.
• In track and field, Longmont's Valarie Allman is looking for her second gold in the women's discus throw after dominating the competition in Tokyo.
• Aurora's Jordyn Poulter and Colorado Springs' Haleigh Washington lead Team USA as it tries to defend its gold medal in volleyball.

The bottom line: Turn on the TV to watch the Olympics and you're likely to see a Colorado athlete on the screen.

Go deeper: Check back for continual updates through the Olympics.

3x3 Men's Basketball

Two of the four members of the first-ever Team USA 3x3 men's basketball team to qualify for the Olympics live here.

Littleton's Jimmer Fredette, 35, is the former 2011 national college player of the year from his days at Brigham Young University, where he led the nation in scoring.

• He played parts of six seasons in the NBA and then in overseas leagues.
• In the 2023 World Cup, where Team USA finished with the silver medal, he led all scorers with 59.

Canyon Barry of Colorado Springs is a 3x3 veteran with experience in two World Cups and numerous other international tournaments.

• The 30-year-old played college ball at Charleston and Florida and then in the NBA's G League for the Iowa Wolves.
• His family is steeped in basketball history. His father is NBA Hall of Famer Rick Barry and his brother, Brent, is also an NBA champion.

The two other team members are Kareem Maddox and Dylan Travis.

Fun fact: Barry shoots free-throws underhanded, a shot perfected by his father.

Basketball

Derrick White's magical year just keeps getting better.

State of play: The Parker native and Boston Celtics guard helped lead his team to the NBA championship and earned a new four-year contract extension. Then, he answered a call to join Team USA in Paris to compete for an Olympic gold as part of the modern-day Dream Team.

What he's saying: "It's unreal, everywhere you go it feels like new guys calling you, 'Champ'," he told reporters. "The ups, the downs, it just makes it all worth it."

Between the lines: White, 30, played Division II basketball on a partial scholarship at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs before transferring to CU Boulder his senior year. A standout season helped him get drafted 29th.

Fun fact: He actually was headed for a family vacation when he was asked to replace Kawhi Leonard on the team.

What we're watching: In Team USA's first victory Sunday against Serbia, White played 16 minutes with 2 points and one assist.

• The team plays South Sudan on July 31.

Cycling

Durango's Christopher Blevins returns for his second Olympics and leads a handful of cyclists from Colorado into the Paris Games.

Blevins, 26, started racing at age 12 and shifted to mountain biking ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Games. He finished 14th in the cross-country mountain bike race.

Dig in: His pre-race ritual includes eating pancakes and drinking coffee three hours before the start and then meditating.

Riley Amos, 22, is making his Olympic debut. He is the under-23 gold medalist in this year's UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and won four USA Cycling national titles as a junior in high school.

• He lists Denver as his hometown but rides in Durango with Blevins, his training partner.

Fun fact: He first started mountain biking at age 2.

Olivia Cummins, 20, will compete in the women's team pursuit track cycling race for Team USA. She is from Fort Collins and attends Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction.

• She races road bikes and track — a sport she began at age 5. "I wouldn't be who I am today without cycling. It has taught me everything I know about compassion, integrity, teamwork, relationships, and so much more," she says on her Team USA page.

Grant Koontz, the 30-year-old track cyclist, calls Nederland home and stands out with his mullet haircut.

• Instead of a car at age 16, he received a bike for his birthday. He went on to win a national championship in college and dozens of other medals for USA Cycling on the track and road.

Equestrian

Olympic veteran Adrienne Lyle is galloping into new territory as she saddles up for this year's Games on her partner's back, 12-year-old Helix.

The big picture: The 39-year-old, who spends her summers training in Greenwood Village, specializes in competitive dressage, one of three equestrian Olympic disciplines.

• Dressage is essentially horse ballet, where both the rider and horse show off — in sync — skills like trotting in place and making smooth turns, made possible by acute control and training.

Flashback: In 2021, she and her riding partner Salvino won the team silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

The intrigue: Her journey to the Olympics is unique for two reasons, she said in a video posted on social media.

• For starters, she and Helix have a new partnership, a first in her equestrian career, which presents the challenge of getting to know each other.
• She's also a new mother. Her daughter was born at the end of September 2023.

What she's saying: "I'm still training just as hard and just as focused as before," but having her daughter in tow is "just kind of added another fun dimension to it," she said.

What's next: The dressage equestrian events run through Aug. 4.

Golf

Denver's own Wyndham Clark makes his Olympic debut today in the first round of the men's golf competition.

Zoom in: The 30-year-old won his first PGA Tour championship last year and the U.S. Open.

• This year, however, he missed the cut in three of the four majors due to multiple injuries.

What he's saying: "It's been a unique year," Clark told Sports Illustrated yesterday. But, he added, "I feel like I'm finally getting to where I can swing at the level that I know I can swing."

Fun facts: Wyndham started playing golf at 3 years old, when his mother brought him to a driving range. When he finished hitting the first bucket of balls, he asked for another, according to his Team USA profile.

• He won the Colorado state golf championship twice while attending Valor Christian High School in Highlands Ranch and was named the Colorado player of the year in 2011.

Rowing

Two seconds is all that separated Jessica Thoennes from Olympic glory three years ago.

Zoom in: Thoennes, a rower from Highlands Ranch, took fourth place in the U.S. women's eight-person rowing team in the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Games, missing out on a bronze by a pair of seconds.

• Now, Thoennes joins Azja Czajkowski, who's making her Olympic debut in Paris, for another shot at a podium finish — this time for the U.S. women's pair team.

The intrigue: Thoennes, who attended Mountain Vista High School, hadn't rowed before walking on to the team at the University of Washington.

What they're saying: "I've always been scrappy. I've never been the No. 1 … I'm a bit of a stubborn creature and I just keep working at things," Thoennes told the Highlands Ranch Herald about her work ethic, which she credits with getting her to the Olympics.

What's next: Women's pair rowing begins Sunday.

Shooting

Littleton's own Rylan Kissell will join Keith Sanderson, who lives in Monument, as sharpshooters in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The big picture: Sanderson, a San Antonio native, is making his fourth Olympic appearance, while Kissell, a recent University of Alaska Fairbanks grad, will make his debut at the Games.

Zoom in: Kissell, 22, attended Dakota Ridge High School in Littleton before embarking on a decorated college career highlighted by a national title in 2023.

• He trained at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to prepare for the Summer Games.

Sanderson began his shooting career in a U.S. Marine Corps competition in 1996.

• He made his Olympic debut in Beijing in 2008, placing fifth in the rapid-fire pistol category.

What's next: Shooting competitions begin Friday.

Soccer

A cohort of Colorado women will lead the U.S. women's soccer team in Paris with a unified goal: Returning the gold medal to American soil.

The big picture: The team begins its 2024 Olympic campaign on Thursday against Zambia, which is making its second overall appearance in the games.

• Meanwhile, the USWNT is one of two teams that have appeared in all eight editions of the tournament (the other is Brazil) since the sport debuted at the Olympics in 1996.

State of play: Lindsey Horan (Golden) is captain, while Mallory Swanson (Highlands Ranch) and Sophia Smith (Windsor) will serve as the primary attacking players for the gold-medal favorite team.

Horan, a midfielder, is the team's most veteran player, with 148 appearances for the national team, and 35 career goals.

• Horan attended Golden High School, opting to turn pro after graduating.

Swanson, a forward, has netted 34 career goals. She became the youngest player to ever score for the U.S. team during her 2016 Olympics appearance at age 18.

• Swanson attended Mountain Vista High School.

Smith, a forward, has 19 career goals with the team, and despite being the youngest Coloradan on the squad, at 23, she's arguably its biggest rising star.

• Smith, who attended Fossil Ridge High School, was selected first overall by Portland Thorns RC during the 2020 NWSL College Draft.

The intrigue: The USWNT hasn't won Olympic gold since 2012 in London, its longest stretch without a top finish since winning its first title in 1996.

• The team won a bronze during the 2020 games.

Sport climbing

Two Colorado climbers will return to the Olympics looking to land on the podium after finishing just outside medal position three years ago.

State of play: Boulder's Brooke Raboutou, 23, and Broomfield's Colin Duffy, 20, will compete in their respective bouldering and lead climbing competitions starting Monday.

• Raboutou finished 5th in the women's combined in Tokyo and Duffy landed in 7th.

Zoom in: Raboutou started climbing at age 1 thanks to help from her father, a World Cup climbing champion himself, who built small rock walls in their basement. By age 11, she was completing professional-level ascents, she says.

• Duffy also started as a youngster and was the youngest member of the U.S. climbing team at the 2021 Olympics. He attends CU-Boulder and wants to study engineering

Swimming

The much-hyped Olympic swimming competitions will feature Denver's Emma Weber in the breaststroke.

State of play: This is the 20-year-old's first Olympics but not her first moment in the spotlight. Weber was the state champion in the 100-meter breaststroke and 200-meter individual medley at Regis Jesuit High School and helped lead the University of Virginia to a national championship this March.

• She finished second in the U.S. Olympic trials just behind reigning Olympic gold medalist Lydia Jacoby and ahead of world-record holder Lilly King.
• Weber didn't expect to qualify and instead bought spectator tickets to cheer on her college teammates, her mother told reporters.

Fun fact: Her great-grandmother, Louise Weigel, competed in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics as a figure skater.

What to watch: The first 100-meter breaststroke heats air at 3am July 28 on Peacock and NBCOlympics.com. The final is July 29.

Triathlon

If competing in one Olympic sport seems hard, try two.

Zoom in: That's a challenge Boulder-based Taylor Knibb, 26, isn't afraid to take on. She's appearing in the cycling and triathlon competitions for Team USA in her second Olympics.

• In 2021, Knibb was the youngest woman ever to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Triathlon Team at 23.

The latest: Despite Knibb finishing 19th out of 34 riders Saturday and crashing four times on the rain-slickened course, she's kept her spirits — and sense of humor — up.

• "Regardless of what happened today, hopefully I'll continue the sport [of road cycling]. But who knows, I might not be allowed back," she joked in an interview with Cycling Weekly.

What's next: Knibb is scheduled to compete today in the women's triathlon, which consists of a roughly 1-mile swim, 25-mile cycle and 6-mile run.

• The triathlon swim got underway in the Seine, which has been closely monitored for its cleanliness.
• "This will test out the water quality [of the Seine]," Knibb told Cycling Weekly with a smile while pointing at a bloodied leg injury she sustained from her cycling falls.

Volleyball

Aurora's Jordyn Poulter and Colorado Springs' Haleigh Washington are going for the gold — again — on the U.S. women's volleyball team at the Olympic Games in Paris.

The big picture: Both Coloradans are two-time Olympians who won gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Zoom in: Poulter, 26, is a 6-foot-2-inch setter who was named the best in that position at the previous Games.

• She played volleyball for the University of Illinois from 2015-18 and has competed in every major tournament for the U.S., including the FIVB Volleyball Nations League.
• Poulter plays two instruments — the piano and guitar — and aspires to be a filmmaker.

Washington, 28, is a 6-foot-3-inch middle blocker who began playing professional volleyball in Italy in 2018.

• She was named best middle blocker at the Tokyo Games. At Penn State, she led the team to the 2014 NCAA national championship before graduating in 2017.
• Washington is near-fluent in Italian and her hobbies include reading, writing, hiking and puzzles.

What's next: The U.S. women's team faces China on July 29 and Serbia on July 31.