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(SportsCenter/Twitter)
A Kevin Durant-led U.S. men's basketball team got redemption from their early loss to France as they beat the team 87-82 to nab the team's fifth straight gold medal on Saturday. Durant, a former Longhorn, scored two free throws with eight seconds left on the clock to seal the deal.
The women's basketball team, aided by University of Texas alum Ariel Adkins, followed soon after as they defeated Japan for their seventh-straight gold in the event. Finally, UT alum Chiaka Ogbogu joined her team in a tearful huddle as the women's indoor volleyball team clinched their first-ever Olympic gold and won the final medal for Team USA.
From medal-winning penalty kicks to shocking upsets, Austin athletes took home 10 medals—six gold and four silver—as the most-long awaited Games in history came to an end on Sunday.
Here's how Austin athletes fared in the Tokyo Olympics:
Basketball: two golds
KEVIN DURANT 🇺🇸@TeamUSA x #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/0e8oCY8fmt
— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 7, 2021
Kevin Durant-gold
Kevin Durant, who attended UT his freshman year before joining the NBA Draft, became U.S. men's basketball's all-time leading scorer as he surpassed Carmelo Anthony with 406 total points at the Games. With three gold medals, he also tied Anthony as the winningest player in team history. Durant led the team with 29 points as they beat France for the silver medal, landing the final two points of the match to earn the team's fourth straight gold.
When not in the red, white and blue, Durant plays for the Brooklyn Nets and recently extended his contract with the team for four more years. The 32-year-old NBA star, who is often considered one of the best current players in the league could have enough in the tank for one or two more Games before his decorated career is up.
An unforgettable first for Ariel Atkins! 🇺🇸🥇#TogetherDC x #USABWNT pic.twitter.com/A96C34x5Gc
— Washington Mystics (@WashMystics) August 8, 2021
Ariel Atkins-gold
Less than a day after men's basketball won gold, the U.S. women's team once again established their dominance in the sport as they toppled home team Japan in the final.
Ariel Atkins, a Team USA point guard and former Longhorn, played beside five-time Olympic gold medalists Sue Bird and Diane Taurasi as they each became the most decorated Olympians in the sport. The duo is passing the torch to the younger generation as they fight off quickly improving competition and search for their eighth consecutive gold medal. Atkins, a first-time Olympian who currently plays for the WNBA's Washington Mystics, is likely to be part of that crew.
Volleyball: one gold
Pile of emotions. #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/wCbmqOc6uD
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) August 8, 2021
Chiaka Ogbogu
Prior to the Tokyo Games, the U.S. women's indoor volleyball team was the most medaled team in the sport to never win gold.
That all changed when the team swept Brazil to take their first gold in the Olympic final, aided by UT alum and middle blocker Chiaka Ogbogu.
"It doesn't even compare," Ogbogu said after the team advanced to the semifinals. "I feel like I have just had a lot of childlike joy for this... To know that we have made it to the semifinals in a year of losses and a year of waiting. We are finally here. It's amazing."
Swimming: one gold, two silver
If your friends don’t hype you up like Lydia Jacoby’s LEAVE THEM pic.twitter.com/nKw51B1nOe
— Coach Christi, DNP 👩🏾⚕️🥎 (@SnapMyAd) July 28, 2021
Lydia Jacoby- one gold, one silver
Lydia Jacoby has shocked the world as a dual Olympic medalist before she even starts her freshman year of college at the University of Texas. At 17, Jacoby became a fan favorite as she secured her first-ever gold with a surprise win in the women's 100-meter breastroke. The teenager went on to land a silver in the women's 4x100-meter medley relay as well.
Jacoby beat the odds to get on the podium—from a goggle mishap to training with "the whales and sea lions" as fellow residents in her hometown of Seward, Alaska like to joke. There is just one Olympic-sized pool in all of Alaska, and it's nearly 120 miles from where she grew up. Jacoby trained in a pool half that length as she became the first Olympic gold medalist from her home state.
OLYMPIC HISTORY IS MADE‼️@katieledecky wins the first-EVER Olympic gold medal in the women's 1500m free and teammate Erica Sullivan wins the silver.@TeamUSA x #TokyoOlympics #OlympicHERstory pic.twitter.com/fTLlcWFgEg
— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) July 28, 2021
Erica Sullivan- silver
Longhorn Erica Sullivan finished just behind U.S. star Katie Ledecky as she won silver in the first-ever women's 1,500-meter freestyle Olympic race. At 20, Sullivan is already a two-time Olympian and fan favorite as she opens up about her adversity and unique experience as an Asian-American and queer woman in the sport.
"I'm multicultural. I'm queer. I'm a lot of minorities. That's what America is," Sullivan said at the press conference after her race. "To me, America is not about being a majority. It's about having your own start. The American dream is coming to a country to be able to establish what you want to do with your life."
Track and field: one gold, one silver
After winning his second consecutive gold in the shot put, Ryan Crouser had a message for his grandpa 🙏
— ESPN (@espn) August 5, 2021
Crouser bested his previous Olympic record FIVE TIMES in the finals. pic.twitter.com/gkKVt2wZv1
Ryan Crouser
Former Longhorn Ryan Crouser previously won gold at the 2016 Olympic Games, and he broke his own Olympic record immediately as he took his first throw in the men's shot put at the 2020 Games. Crouser bested the Olympic record five times before taking home his second gold medal and ended with a note to his grandpa.
"Grandpa, we did it, 2020 Olympic champion!" Crouser's note read as he tearfully celebrated his victory. Crouser's grandfather died shortly before the Olympic Games, and he dedicated the medal to him.
"A special moment for me," Crouser told NBC after the competition. "It's been a little bit of a rough couple of weeks. My grandpa passed away. He was the one that got me into throwing. This was my first meet without him. I wrote that note for him. It was special to throw one for him."
There goes Jamaica! 👋@TeamUSA grabs the SILVER in the women's 4x100 relay. #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/s0zA28oxqc
— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 6, 2021
Teahna Daniels
Former Longhorn Teahna Daniels broke her personal record as she was the only Team USA athlete to advance to the women's 100-meter finals alongside Jamaican greats Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah. It was the women's 4x100-meter race, however, that brought the first-time Olympian onto the podium as she helped the defending champs take home a silver medal in the race.
Falling only to Team Jamaica, who set a national record as they led the race by several steps, teammates Daniels, Javianne Oliver, Jenna Prandini and Gabby Thomas celebrated the second-place title after years of adversity.
Soccer: one gold
IT’S THAT TEXAS TOUCH FOR CANADA 🤘🏾@TexasSoccer’s Julia Grosso gets the Olympic Gold. pic.twitter.com/0UvLPKa0HR
— Longhorn Network (@LonghornNetwork) August 6, 2021
Julia Grosso, gold, Team Canada
Current Longhorn Julia Grosso was part of the Canadian team that upset favorites Team USA in the semifinals of the women's soccer tournament, and it was Grosso herself who scored the penalty kick that clinched the gold medal for her team in the final.
Grosso's father Carlos and the rest of her family watched the nerve-wracking match at home in British Columbia as the UT midfielder won her first Olympic gold.
"We're so ecstatic," Carlos told CBC's The Early Edition just after the win. Carlos said Grosso, 20, expected "nothing less than gold" from her first-ever Olympics.
Grosso is Texas Soccer's first-ever Olympian.
Softball: one silver
(Team USA Softball/Twitter)
Cat Osterman
Cat Osterman, the "Michael Jordan of softball," has officially retired after clinching a silver medal to end her nearly two-decade Olympic career.
While the team hoped to win gold as they fought for redemption against home team Japan, Team USA lost once again to the hosts after the sport's 12-year hiatus from the Games. Still, the Olympians celebrated their journey through adversity in the pandemic as they took home the silver in the Games.
"To be able to say you're a three-time Olympic medalist is a pretty special deal, right?" Osterman told Austonia. "I played for a long time. But those are the pinnacle, in my mind, and kind of what elicits the dream to keep playing."
Near-medalists and new Olympians
While some saw their dreams realized with Olympic medal success, others celebrated making the national team as they left without reaching the podium.
Seven Austin athletes left Tokyo in Week 1 after not placing in their competitions, while these others just missed medal status as the Olympics wrapped up:
- UT alum Tara Davis, the first women's long jump Olympian from UT, finished sixth in the women's long jump final after immediately qualifying for the finals in the prelims. Her win was celebrated by two-time Paralympian and boyfriend Hunter Woodhall, who called her his "hero" after overcoming mental health issues and other obstacles during the pandemic.
- Fellow Longhorn long jumper Steffin McCarter was 1 1/2 inches from reaching the finals in the men's competition after placing seventh in his group.
- Jamaican Stacey-Ann Williams, a UT alum, placed seventh in the finals alongside her teammates in the 4x400-meter mixed relay, which combined men and women in a race for the first time in Olympic history.
- Melissa Gonzalez, a former UT track runner who joined Team Colombia for the Olympics, placed 6th in her semifinal heat for the women's 400-meter hurdles.
- Jonathan Jones, a former UT track star who holds the 400-meter record for his home country of Barbados, finished eighth in the semifinal for Team Barbados in his signature race.
- UT alum Pedrya Seymour placed eighth in the semifinals for the women's 100-meter hurdles as she represented Team Bahamas.
- Joanna Evans, a former Longhorn also competing for the Bahamas, was second in her heat for the women's 400-meter freestyle swimming competition but did not have the time to advance. Evans was also seventh in her heat for the 200-meter freestyle race.
- Joseph Schooling, a UT alum who gave Singapore its first-ever gold medal as he beat star Michael Phelps in the 2016 Olympics, fell short in an upset as he finished sixth in his heat for the men's 100-meter freestyle and eighth in his heat for the 100-meter butterfly.
- Hailey Hernandez, an 18-year-old diver and Texas native who is attending UT in the fall, advanced to the finals for the women's 3-meter springboard and finished ninth overall for her first Olympics.
- Jordan Windle, also of the esteemed UT diving program, finished in ninth place in the men's 10-meter platform final.
- UT alum Jhonnatan Vegas, a PGA Tour golfer who represented Venezuela, tied for 16th in the finals of men's individual stroke play.
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Cat Osterman is retiring from softball after a 17-year Olympic career and three Olympic medals. (USA Softball/Twitter)
Osterman, a three-time Olympian who has been called the "Michael Jordan of softball," will officially retire from the international realm at 38 after a decorated career that included Olympic golds, years of retirement and plenty of adversity—from a worldwide pandemic to dashed gold-medal dreams.
Osterman and her crew left Tokyo on a bittersweet note on Tuesday with a silver medal in hand.
Osterman with Team USA in 2008. (Antoni Majewski/Twitter)
Osterman in the final in 2021. (Antoni Majewski/Twitter)
After a year of sparse in-person training and over a decadelong hiatus, Team USA and Osterman flew to the finals. In five games, the team beat Italy (2-0), Canada (1-0), Mexico (2-0), Australia (2-1), and Japan (2-1).
Deja vu struck in the final match. On one side, Osterman and fellow 2008 Olympic teammate Monica Abbott took the mound; on the other was the 39-year-old Yukiko Ueno, a familiar foe who helped the team beat Team USA last go-round.
"Just like 13 years ago," Ueno said in a press conference, "we were facing each other in the final."
Ueno, who had lost hopes at gold to Osterman in '04, outpitched her longtime opponent with six scoreless innings as Team USA was held to just three hits. The same team that squandered their gold-medal hopes 13 years before had done it once again.
"There's a little bit of disappointment in not bringing home the gold since that's the eye on the prize when you go over there and you know you have a shot at it," Osterman told Austonia. "But more than anything, I'm very proud of the way our team handled everything that was part of this journey and not just the six games."
It's that very loss at the 2008 Olympics that partially motivated Osterman to get back on the mound. She officially put down the glove in 2015 after six seasons with the USSSA Pride, took time with family and began coaching at Texas State University, where she stayed until 2020. She continues to live in San Marcos.
Osterman helped ace Randi Rupp to greatness while a coach at Texas State University. (Active Voice Health/Twitter)
Because the 2012 and 2016 Games did not include softball, she thought her Olympic endeavors were well over—until talks of softball at Tokyo 2020 entered the conversation.
"It wasn't until 2016 or 2017, that it ever crossed my mind to possibly put the USA uniform on again," Osterman said. "After the World Championships in 2010, I walked away, and I thought that my career on the international stage was done. So this was a pleasant kind of new opportunity."
Three years after facing any competition, Osterman was on the field once more with world-class athletes. Some, like Osterman and Abbott, had been playing together long enough to form a formidable "Fire and Ice" duo on the mound. Others had just graduated college.
Osterman said playing with a younger generation of athletes was one of the most rewarding aspects of this year's Games.
"It can be very different when you have 24- and 38-year-olds on the same field," Osterman said. "The adversity put us in some challenging positions and we came through with flying colors. And this group will forever be special just because what we had to go through is so different."
While on the mound, Osterman's job was to give the team a calm start. Off of the field, she felt her role had much of the same effect: she knew that new Olympic feeling, and she served as a deep breath to her first-time teammates.
"There's no words to explain how nervous and excited you get knowing that the whole world can be watching," Osterman. "I think using those emotions and figuring out how to get all our butterflies lined up and going in the right direction, so that way we were all moving together, was kind of my role outside of pitching."
We've heard her retire once before, but this time Osterman said she's gone for good—even from coaching. After her final time with Team USA on Sept. 27, she plans on returning to Austin, where she'll look to work for a nonprofit.
A gold and two silvers will have to do for one of the most decorated athletes in U.S. softball history.
"To be able to say you're a three-time Olympic medalist is a pretty special deal, right?" Osterman. "I played for a long time. But those are the pinnacle, in my mind, and kind of what elicits the dream to keep playing."
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