There has been a UCLA athlete in every Summer Olympics since 1920, with the exception of 1924. In all, 436 Bruins have participated as competitors and coaches in the Summer Games, with our athletes winning 270 medals: 136 gold, 71 silver and 63 bronze.
As 49 Bruins dig in at the ’24 Olympics in Paris, we look back at 24 very cool UCLA Olympic connections.
1. 1932 Olympics
No one believed Los Angeles would make good on its promise to host the 10th Summer Olympics at the height of the Great Depression. And in 1932, UCLA had just moved to its new Westwood campus. But they pulled it off. Here, India’s gold medal–winning men’s field hockey team practices on campus. That’s Royce Hall and Powell Library in the background.
2. Florence Griffith Joyner
Gold medal–winning sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, who attended UCLA in the early 1980s, is remembered almost as much for her sense of style as she is for shattering world records. Griffith Joyner won a silver medal in the 200 meters during the 1984 games here in Los Angeles and dominated in 1988 in Seoul, winning gold in the 100 meters, the 200 meters and the 400-meter relay, along with a silver in the 100-meter relay.
3. Jackie Robinson
The Olympian who wasn’t. At UCLA, Jackie Robinson was the first person to letter in four varsity sports in a single year, and he later famously broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. He was selected for the 1940 Olympics as a long jumper, but the Games were canceled due to World War II.
4. Jackie Joyner-Kersee
A 1986 graduate, Jackie Joyner-Kersee is considered one of America’s greatest Olympians, having won three gold medals, one silver and two bronze medals over four Olympics. Joyner-Kersee set a world record in the heptathlon, scoring 7,291 points and winning gold, at the Summer Olympics in 1988. She won a silver medal in the event in 1984. Joyner-Kersee’s coach and husband, Bob Kersee, also trained her sister-in-law, the late Florence Griffith Joyner.
5. Karch Kiraly and U.S. women’s volleyball
After a stellar UCLA and Olympic career as an athlete — he won gold three times (indoor volleyball in 1984 and 1988; beach volleyball in 1996) — Karch Kiraly has found success as the head coach of U.S. women’s volleyball, guiding the team to a bronze in Rio in 2016 and to its first-ever gold medal at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. With Kiraly, who graduated from UCLA 1983, as head coach again and current UCLA head women’s volleyball coach Alfee Reft as a member of the staff, the team enters Paris ranked No. 5 in the world.
On the men’s side, UCLA head coach John Speraw will pilot the Olympic squad, which includes former Bruins Micah Ma’a and Garrett Muagututia. Paris will be the first time in Olympics history that coaches from the same university have led women’s and men’s national teams in the same sport for three consecutive Olympiads.
6. U.S. women’s soccer
UCLA Bruins have played a big role on every U.S. women’s soccer team at the Olympics. After a streak of three straight gold medals — 2004, 2008 and 2012 — the team failed to medal in 2016 but bounced back by winning bronze at the 2020 Games (after losing in the semifinals to a Canadian team that would go on to win gold with former Bruin Jessie Fleming). With former UCLA player Mallory Swanson on the team, the U.S. squad looks to get back to its gold-winning ways in Paris.
7. 1984, the year of U.S. gymnastics
In 1984, more than 160,000 spectators came to Pauley Pavilion to watch gymnastics. Then-UCLA student Mitch Gaylord was the first American gymnast to score a perfect 10 in the Olympics (on the rings). He won four medals overall. On the horizontal bar, he pulled off his signature “Gaylord II,” considered one of the hardest moves in the sport. Gaylord’s teammate Peter Vidmar, also a UCLA alumnus, won two golds and a silver. And Pauley is where Mary Lou Retton became the first American gymnast to win the all-around gold.
8. UCLA Bruin Marching Band
The UCLA Marching Band actually had to audition to take part in the opening and closing ceremonies at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during the 1984 Olympics. And they nailed it. Thirty-five band members also performed at venues across the city for individual events.
9. Meb Keflezighi
Eritrean-born Mebrahtom “Meb” Keflezighi, UCLA’s most accomplished long-distance runner, competed in four Games, wrapping up his Olympic career with the 2106 Rio Games, when he was 41. Keflezighi won the silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, becoming the first American male to win an Olympic medal in the marathon since Frank Shorter took silver in 1976. He won the New York City Marathon in 2009. And in 2014, one year after the terrorist bombings, he became the first American man to win the Boston Marathon in 31 years when he broke the tape “for one of the most poignant victories in the history of sports,” in the words of the marathon trials organizers.
10. Rafer Johnson
Rafer Johnson, who chose UCLA because of the school’s long history with athletes of color, was a two-time Olympian decathlete, winning silver in 1956 and gold in 1960 at the Rome Olympics. Johnson, who helped found the Special Olympics and who died in 2020, carried the torch on its final leg for the 1984 Olympics opening ceremony, lighting the Olympic flame to begin the Games.
11. Chuan-Kwang “C.K.” Yang
Known as the “Iron Man of Asia,” Bruin Chuan-Kwang Yang won the decathlon event at the Asian Games in 1954 and 1958, and finished eighth in the decathlon at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, he competed against former UCLA teammate Rafer Johnson. The contest between Yang, competing for Taiwan, and Johnson, came down to the final event, with Yang winning silver and his close friend Johnson taking gold.
12. Ducky Drake
UCLA track coach Ducky Drake, for whom Drake Stadium is named, served as a coach for the U.S. track and field teams during four Olympics. During the 1960 games, Rafer Johnson and C.K. Yang took turns consulting with him on strategy during their decathlon events.
13. Special Olympics
In 2015, UCLA hosted the Special Olympics, which were co-founded by Rafer Johnson in 1968. Johnson received the UCLA Medal, the university’s highest honor, in recognition of his decades of leadership with the Special Olympics and unwavering efforts toward equality for all.
14. Michelle Kwan
A two-time Olympic medalist (1998 and 2002), Bruin Michelle Kwan remains the most-decorated figure skater in U.S. history, having also won five world championships and nine national titles. While attending UCLA, she studied American literature.
15. Mike Burton
Mike Burton, who met his wife while both were swimmers for UCLA in 1965, won three gold medals as a swimmer. In 1968, “Iron Mike” took gold in the 400- and 1,500-meter freestyle in Mexico City and was the first man in history to defend his title in the 1,500-meter freestyle four years later in Munich.
16. UCLA as the Olympic Village in 1984
For the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, athletes trained in both of UCLA’s gyms, the new John Wooden Center, Sunset Canyon Recreation Center and Drake Stadium. ABC television took over Spaulding Field, Ackerman Union housed the press corps and the new Peter V. Ueberroth building on Le Conte Avenue opened as the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee’s headquarters (transferred to UCLA in 1985). The committee commandeered the ground floor of the James West Alumni Center, which served as the official entryway to the Olympic Village.
17. Dave and Mark Schultz
Brothers Dave and Mark Schultz were both Olympic and world champion freestyle wrestlers who attended UCLA together in 1979. Both won gold in their weight class at the Los Angeles Games in 1984. Their story was the subject of the critically acclaimed 2014 film “Foxcatcher.”
18. U.S. women’s basketball
Nine Bruins have been part of women’s Olympic basketball teams, including two members of the silver medal–winning 1976 U.S. team, UCLA legend Ann Meyers Drysdale (above), who played, and Billie Moore, who coached. For 2024, five more Bruins were added to the tally— Emily Bessoir and Lina Sontag will compete for Germany, Angela Dugalić for Serbia and Nirra Fields for Canada, with former UCLA player and three-time all-Pac-12 honoree Noelle Quinn serving as an assistant coach for Canada.
19. Adam Krikorian and U.S. women’s water polo
After winning Olympic bronze in 2004, former Bruin player and coach Adam Krikorian guided the U.S. women’s water polo team to its first gold medal in 2012, then repeated the feat in 2016, when he was named Coach of the Games, and again in 2020. This year, Krikorian’s roster includes alums Rachel Fattal, Maddie Musseman and Tara Prentice, and he’ll be assisted by former UCLA player and coach Molly Cahill.
20. U.S. men’s basketball
Dating back to 1936 when five Bruins were on the team, UCLA has played a prominent role in men’s basketball. More than a dozen Bruins have played or coached for the Olympic team, including luminaries like Walt Hazzard, Reggie Miller, Steve Alford, Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook. Having captured gold at the last four Olympic Games, the current team — with two-time NBA all-star, 2020 gold medalist and former Bruin Jrue Holiday — hopes to continue the streak.
21. James LuValle
Of the five Black alumni whose names appear on campus buildings, James LuValle is perhaps the least well known. LuValle (on the right) competed in track in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, winning bronze in the 400 meters. Not your average student athlete, LuValle founded what is now UCLA’s Graduate Student Association while he was earning his master’s in chemistry and physics. He shrugged off his nickname, “the Westwood Whirlwind,” telling people, “Just call me Jimmy” — the reason why LuValle’s coffee shop is called “Jimmy’s.”
22. Madison Kocian
Kocian, who graduated from UCLA in 2020 — a year in which she was named the Pac-12’s scholar-athlete of the year — helped lead the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to its second consecutive gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics with her high score on the uneven bars, an event in which she went on to win an individual silver medal. In 2018, Kocian and the UCLA gymnastics team won the NCAA championship— its first title in eight years.
23. Tom Daley
Daley (above, left), the darling of British diving, has won four Olympic medals in both individual and synchronized events over five Olympic Games, beginning in London in 2012, where he captured bronze. Now an assistant coach for the UCLA diving team, Daley brought home his fourth medal — a gold — at the Games in Paris.
24. UCLA and the 2028 Olympics
UCLA has been selected as the site for the Olympic Village for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Olympic athletes and support personnel will be housed in student residence halls on the Hill, with some Olympic events taking place at facilities like Pauley Pavilion and the Los Angeles Tennis Center. In preparation, L.A. Metro is extending its Purple (D) Line to Westwood to better connect UCLA with other venues across the city. Above, Tony Bernardo, dean of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, speaks with John Harper, chief operating officer of LA28, about how the city will shape the 2028 Games.
