• Olympics Website
The 2024 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad and officially branded as Paris 2024, gets underway this week. Competition begins on Wednesday, July 24 with the opening ceremonies taking place on Friday, July 26, and the competition running through August 11 in France.
Five student-athletes who competed in the OVC or associated with an OVC school will compete:
- Rugby Sevens - Lauren Doyle, Eastern Illinois (2009-12) (United States)
- 3000-meter Steeplechase - Ahmed Jaziri, Eastern Kentucky (2020-21) (Tunisia)
- 5000 meters - Edwin Kurgat, UT Martin (2017-18) (Kenya)
- Weightlifting - Wes Kitts, Austin Peay (2008-13 - football) (United States)
- Shooting - Ivan Roe, Murray State (2014-18) (United States)
Doyle, a member of the EIU Athletics Hall of Fame, will be competing in her third Olympic games and has been representing her country on the national stage as part of the U.S. Women's Rugby Sevens Team. Doyle joined Team USA halfway through her senior year in 2012 and after a residency at the Olympic Training Center made her international Women's Sevens tournament debut at the 2012 Dubai Sevens. She established herself as a player to watch, leading all players in try-scoring at the 2015 Olympics qualifiers. She was also a major player on the 2015 silver-medal winning US Women's National Rugby Sevens team at the 2015 PanAm Games. A year later, Doyle made her Olympics debut in Rio de Janeiro. She scored a try in a group stage victory over Colombia and the U.S. eventually made it to the quarter-finals before falling to eventual silver-medalist New Zealand. Doyle returned to the Games in Tokyo where the US finished with a perfect 3-0-0 record in the group stage before being eliminated in the quarterfinals, dropping a match to Great Britain. Additionally, Doyle's leadership and experience have been recognized in an official capacity when Team USA Coach Emilie Bydwell named her a co-captain of the squad along with teammate Naya Tapper. The U.S. rugby team begins play on Sunday, July 28.
Jaziri competed for one season in the OVC, winning the 2020-21 Cross Country Championship (held in the spring semester due to the pandemic) and earning a spot in the NCAA Cross Country Championships, where he finished third overall. Prior to the All-American finish in cross country that season, he raced in the 3,000 meter at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships (finishing sixth to earn All-American honors), making him one of only 47 student-athletes nationally to compete in both events that week. During the outdoor season that year he broke the school steeplechase record and earned second-team All-American honors with a 10th place finish in the steeplechase at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. The Rades, Tunisia product qualified for the Paris Olympics recording a personal-best time of 8:14.93 on September 10, 2023, in Zagreb, Croatia. He will compete in the first round of the men's 3,000-meter steeplechase on August 5.
Kurgat ran cross country at UT Martin for two years (2017-18) before transferring to Iowa State. He won the 2017 OVC Cross Country Championship in 2017 (time of 23:59.79 in the 8k in Charleston, Ill.) and later won the 2019 NCAA Division I cross country championship while competing for Iowa State.
Kitts competed as a football student-athlete at Austin Peay, playing running back from 2008-12. In 26 games he tallied 1,180 rushing yards and 83 receiving yards while scoring five touchdowns. After shifting to weightlifting, Kitts competed in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, finishing eighth, lifting 177 kilograms in the snatch and 213 kilograms in the clean and jerk. He holds five senior American records across two weight classes. Kitts, a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, is a two-time Pan American Champion and Pan American Games Champion. He won the gold medal in his event at the 2023 Pan American Weightlifting Championships held in Bariloche, Argentina. Weightlifting begins on August 7.
Roe earned a position on Team USA by winning both smallbore and air rifle competitions in the trials in a field of 77 competitors. He currently serves as a Sargent in the US Army and has been on training fulltime after receiving a direct appointment to the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit after completing Infantry One Station Unit Training at the then-called Fort Benning, Georgia in July 2019 (which is now called Fort Moore). During his OVC career at Murray State he earned four All-American honors, was twice named OVC Smallbore Athlete of the Year, once named OVC Air Rifle Athlete of the Year, earned seven first-team All-OVC honors (four in air rifle, three in smallbore) and was the 2014-15 OVC Freshman of the Year. The shooting competition begins on July 26.