July 10, 2008
BERKELEY - The University of California will be well represented at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing with a record 45 athletes and coaches from 16 different countries having qualified for the Games, as of July 22.
To help Golden Bear fans follow the Cal delegation this summer, Cal Athletics has built a special website at CalBears.com/Olympics, complete with bio information, schedules, results, feature stories and the history of the Bears at the Games. In addition, there is a sortable database of all Cal Olympic results.
The 2008 Cal contingent is the largest ever for the school at one Olympics - topping the total of 38 from 1996 and 2000 - and with several foreign squads still to be determined, the total could grow even higher.
Four years ago in Athens, 34 Bears participated and they came home with 15 medals, an amount that would have placed Cal 18th in the medal standings had the university been counted as its own country.
This year's group leans heavily toward the water with 30 athletes and coaches coming in the sports of swimming, water polo and rowing. The other sports featuring Golden Bears are basketball, field hockey, softball, table tennis and track & field.
At the U.S. Olympic trials in swimming, three athletes with Cal ties qualified - Natalie Coughlin, Emily Silver and Nathan Adrian - and Bears women's swimming coach Teri McKeever was named an assistant coach for the U.S. team. Coughlin, the world record-holder in the 100 backstroke who captured five medals at the 2004 Olympics, will swim three individual events (100 back, 100 free and 200 individual medley) and up to three relays. Emily Silver will be on the 400 free relay, while Adrian will be part of the men's 400 free relay squad.
The remaining swimmers come from 12 countries, providing a true cross-section of Cal's diversified student body: Brazil (Henrique Barbosa), Croatia (Duje Draganja), Estonia (Martti Aljand, Martin Liivamagi), Hong Kong (Sherry Tsai, Hannah Wilson), Israel (Guy Barnea), Lithuania (Rolandas Gimbutis), New Zealand (Lauren Boyle), Philippines (Miguel Molina), Poland (Bart Kizierowski), Serbia (Milorad Cavic), Slovenia (Damir Dugonjic, Jernej Godec, Sara Isakovic) and Switzerland (Dominik Meichtry).
In rowing, Erin Cafaro, who was a member of two NCAA championship teams at Cal, will be in the U.S. eight, and Julie Nichols, Class of 2000, is an alternate in the single scull. Former Bear rower Laurel Korholz, a three-time Olympian as a competitor, serves as an assistant U.S. coach, while Iva Obradovic, who was a teammate of Cafaro's in 2005, will row the single scull for Serbia.
On the men's side, newly hired Cal men's crew head coach Mike Teti will lead the U.S. Olympic team in Beijing. Former Bear Jake Wetzel will row in the Canadian eight. He was a member of three IRA-winning crews at Cal and captured a silver medal in the four at the 2004 Olympics. In addition, fellow Canadian Scott Frandsen, a veteran of the 2004 Games in the eight, will be active in two events in Beijing - pairs and four - and 2006 Cal graduate Elliot Hovey will compete in the U.S. double sculls.
Water polo will again have a strong Cal flavor with Elsie Windes and Heather Petri on the U.S. women's squad and John Mann as an alternate on the U.S. men's team. Petri helped the United States to a silver medal in 2000 and a bronze medal in 2004.
Two-time first-team All-American Vicky Galindo has earned a spot on the U.S. softball team. In the sport's final year in the Olympics, she will be trying to help the Americans to their fourth consecutive gold medal.
Jason Kidd, the 1994 Pac-10 Player of the Year for the Bears, returns to the U.S. men's basketball squad. As a tri-captain in 2000, he guided the team to the gold medal.
Three members of the USA track & field team are Cal graduates in long jumper Grace Upshaw, shot putter Kristin Heaston and marathoner Magdalena Lewy. Upshaw and Heaston both competed in Athens in 2004, while Lewy, now an assistant coach for the Bears, was runner-up in the U.S. trials in Boston to earn her selection.
In men's track & field, Amin Nikfar qualified for the Iranian squad in the shot put June 26 with a personal-best throw of 65-4 to reach the Olympic 'B' standard. Born in Santa Clara, Calif., with Iranian heritage, Nikfar competed for the Bears from 2001-04. The other Cal men's track and field Olympian is current student-athlete Martin Maric who made the Croatian Olympic team in the discus with an Olympic "B" qualifying and personal-best mark of 62.68 meters on July 22.
Both Cal head field hockey coach Shellie Onstead and her assistant, Peter Milkovich, will be making the trip to Beijing. Onstead serves as an assistant coach on the U.S. women's staff, and Milkovich will be an assistant for the Canada men's team.
Finally, former Cal student Jackie Lee has been added as an alternate for the U.S. table tennis team.
In the history of their participation in the Olympics, Golden Bears have captured 143 medals - 83 gold, 35 silver and 25 bronze. The first medals came at the 1920 Games when Ludy Langer claimed silver in swimming, Brick Muller (high jump), Harry Liversedge (shot put) and Brutus Hamilton (decathlon) succeeded on the track, and six Cal rugby players helped the U.S. to gold.
Swimmer Matt Biondi, who captured eight medals at the 1988 Games in Seoul, leads all Bears with 11 career medals. Coughlin's five medals from 2004 put her second in Cal annals, with butterfly specialist Mary T. Meagher next with four medals gleaned from the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.
Cal Olympic Participants by Year
1906 - 1
1912 - 2
1920 - 12
1924 - 14
1928 - 10
1932 - 13
1936 - 2
1948 - 16
1952 - 3
1956 - 2
1960 - 8
1964 - 6
1968 - 7
1972 - 9
1976 - 17
1980 - 29
1984 - 25
1988 - 24
1992 - 23
1996 - 38
2000 - 38
2004 - 34
2008 - 45
