Let The Games Begin

The Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games will be floating down the Seine today. 

While a few events have already been played, the schedule starts full force tomorrow. Of the 26 Princeton athletes in Paris, there will be 12 who compete by the end of the weekend. 

Remember, the best way to follow #PrincetonInParis is on the Olympics site on goprincetontigers.com (click HERE for that) and Princeton Athletics social media. 

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The first Princeton athlete to compete in Paris will be fencer Hadley Husisian, one of the six Tiger undergrads in Paris. 

Husisian finished third in the epee at the NCAA championships as a freshman in 2023, which makes her one of the youngest members of the U.S. fencing team. She then took this past year off to try to qualify for the Olympics, and now she's in Paris at the age of 21 years ... and one day.

In addition to the Opening Ceremonies, Husisian also celebrates her 21st birthday today. Now that's how you celebrate in style.

Speaking of Husisian, she was part of the NCAA's "Olympians Made Here" campaign. More than 75 percent of the United States Olympic Team is made up of current or former NCAA athletes.

You can see her in this video (she's the third fencer to speak):

Olympians are built here and I think that is absolutely true 🗣️ Hadley Husisian#OlympainsMadeHere x @USAFencing pic.twitter.com/zi2Y2KngTs

— NCAA (@NCAA) July 25, 2024

Her Olympic debut is tomorrow at 10 am in Paris, which means 4 am at her family's home in Oakton, Va.

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Hey, everything can't be about the Olympics, right? In fact, not that far after these Games end, the NFL season will begin. Training camps are now getting underway.

TigerBlog's favorite team this year? It wouldn't be a team on the field (though he'll be rooting hard for Andrei Iosivas and the Cincinnati Bengals). 

No, it would be a broadcasting team. One of the teams that CBS announced for the season is play-by-play man Tom McCarthy (former Princeton broadcaster) with Jay Feeley and Ross Tucker (former Princeton offensive lineman).

There aren't too many people easier to root for than McCarthy and Tucker. And there aren't too many people who are living out their dreams the way they are. 

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TB's feature story on Beth Yeager was mentioned here yesterday. Again, if you didn't read it (yet), you can do so by clicking HERE. 

Yeager and the United States field hockey team will begin their Olympic run tomorrow at 1:45 Eastern against Argentina, one of the medal favorites. Can the U.S. get to the quarterfinals? That's the goal.

As you watch the Games on TV these next two weeks, you'll be inundated with stories about the athletes and what they've overcome to be there and all of the other glorification that the Olympic coverage employs.

What you won't see are the ones who aren't there, the ones who either just missed out on qualifying or, even more heartbreakingly, would have been there but suffered an injury. It puts those in both groups into the position of either giving up the Olympic dream or rededicating themselves to another four-year cycle.

One of the athletes in the second group is Jillian Wolgemuth, who played at Duke and who was Yeager's teammate through all of the Olympic qualifying. Instead of getting ready to play in Paris, though, Wolgemuth is out, having torn her ACL in the second-to-last game the U.S. team played before the Olympics. 

She wrote THIS for USA Field Hockey, which includes this:

I will likely cry when I see my teammates belt out the national anthem without me on Saturday and then play in some of the biggest matches of our careers. But more than that, I will be proud to have helped them get there. The Olympics is just another tournament. There will be more opportunities to compete at the highest level, to collapse on the turf after a running session, to be in the thick of it with my teammates.

She's someone to root for and to hope you see in Los Angeles in 2028.

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Finally, even as the Olympic Games kick off, remember — the 2024-25 Princeton Athletic year is four weeks away, with the women's soccer team at home against Miami.

Oh, and TB guarantees you that he will call the United States Olympic Team "the Tigers" at some point in the next two weeks. 

Enjoy the Games, and your weekend.