Ashleigh The Great

So what has been the single greatest individual performance ever by a Princetonian in any Olympic Games? 

You could make a case that it goes all the way back to the very first modern Games, in Athens in 1896, when Robert Garrett became Princeton's first gold medalist. In fact, he won two — in the shot put and the discus.

He'd actually never seen a discus until the boat ride to Greece. The first one he held weighed 20 pounds and was made by a blacksmith. It wasn't until he got to Athens that one of the Greek throwers gave him an actual one, which weighed four pounds, that he had a real sense of what he was doing.

The only reason the Greeks let him borrow a discus is that they didn't think he was much of a threat to their dominance of the event. Instead, he won gold.

Bill Bradley was the second-leading scorer on the 1964 USA men's basketball team that did win gold. It's only close game was a 69-61 win over Yugoslavia in which the Americans were up 35-34 at the half, and Bradley had his Olympic-high of 18 points in that one. 

That same year, Jed Graef set the world record while winning gold in the 200 meter backstroke. His record would stand for three years before it was broken.

It's easy to point to the gold medals that Princetonians have won, a total that is approaching 40. Caroline Lind won two in rowing. Sarah Fillier led the Olympic ice hockey tournament in goals scored in 2022. 

One of TigerBlog's favorite stories about a Princeton gold medalist dates back to the second Games in 1900, which also were the first of three that have occurred in Paris. Princeton's Frank Jarvis won the gold medal in the 100 meter dash (in then world record time of 10.8), which was nice enough. The cool part is that Jarvis was a direct descendant of George Washington.

Not all of the top performances have resulted in gold, of course. The silver that Gevvie Stone won in singles rowing was massively impressive — and led to the great picture of her with the American flag afterwards.

For that matter, the great performances don't always result in medals. You can add Lizzie Bird's seventh-place finish in the steeplechase from Tuesday to that list. 

Speaking of Tuesday, Bird's performance was incredible, though it might not have been the best of a Princeton athlete in Paris that day. 

In fact, you can make a case that what Ashleigh Johnson did in the women's water polo quarterfinals was in fact the greatest single individual performance a Princeton athlete has had in an Olympic Games. Sometimes it takes TB a while to get to the point.

Johnson has already won two gold medals as the goalie for the Americans, who have won three straight overall. That streak would have ended stunningly Tuesday in the quarterfinals against Hungary had Johnson not done what she did.

The other three quarterfinal winners averaged 12.7 goals in their games. For the record, that was Spain (18-8 over Canada), the Netherlands (11-8 over Italy) and Australia (9-6 over Greece). 

The final of the match between the USA and Hungary? How about 5-4 U.S.?

And how did Ashleigh Johnson play? She was extraordinary, finishing with 17 saves, including two in the final 90 seconds, as well as a steal during that late frantic push.

You don't usually win international water polo matches with five goals. Or any water polo matches, for that matter.

Johnson was amazing, launching herself out of the water to tip away shots, reacting in milliseconds to keep Hungarian drives out of the U.S. goal, coming up clutch time after time after time. 

If you watched it like TB did, you probably gasped "wow" about the same number of times he did, which was pretty much every time Hungary took a shot. She shut out the Hungarians for the final 11:34, and her team needed every play she made, since the score was tied 4-4 for nearly nine minutes before the winning goal was scored by Rachel Fattal with 3:02 left.

Almost solely because of Johnson, the U.S. is still in medal contention. Next up will be the semifinals today at 2:35 Eastern time against Australia, while Spain will play the Netherlands at 8:35 this morning. 

The bronze medal game will be Saturday at 4:35 am Saturday, and the gold will be determined at 9:35 Saturday. 

Should the United States win gold again, Johnson would become the first Princeton alum to win gold in three separate Olympiads.