10 notable feats from NCAA athletes at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Two swimmers from Yale are snorkeling in the clear waters near Turks and Caicos Islands on May 24, 2023. One is Ali Truwit, who graduated two days before. The other is teammate Sophie Pilkinton. The day is warm and beautiful, an unforgettable way to celebrate an Ivy League diploma — until a shark suddenly attacks and alters Truwit's life forever, biting off her left foot. Something that seems more out of a night at the cinema is suddenly a real-life nightmare.

The two women — one gushing blood and the other stunned — somehow swim 75 yards back to the boat, where Pilkinton applies a tourniquet that saves her friend's life. A week later, on Truwit's 23rd birthday, her leg is amputated just below the knee.

Now it is the late summer of 2024 and Truwit holds up two silver Paralympic swimming medals from the 400-meter freestyle and 100-meter backstroke. She has gone from nearly bleeding to death in the Atlantic to the medal podium in Paris in under 16 months.

"When you are truly faced with death and you understand what a second chance at life means," she says, "you want to make the most of it."

➡️ MORE: Student-athletes at Paris 2024 Olympics

In 2021, on historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, the lead runners in the 1,500-meter final are sprinting toward the finish line during the NCAA Division I Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Here they come, Oregon freshman Cole Hocker in yellow and Notre Dame junior Yared Nuguse in green.

In the fight to the finish, Hocker has the best final kick, barely, and wins by 0.25 seconds, spreading his arms to the sky in complete I-did-it joy.

"It was a feeling I have never felt," Hocker says that day about the push the big crowd gave him.

Now it is Aug. 6, 2024, and the final of the men's Olympic 1,500 meters has the crowd roaring in the Stade de France in Paris. Here they come sprinting toward the finish line in the red and blue of Team USA, with the same will as three years before to get there first. At the end, it is Hocker again, a 30-1 long shot who shocks the track world, spreading his arms to the sky in I-really-did-it elation. He is only the second American man to claim a gold medal in the event in 116 years. And it is Nuguse grabbing the bronze, giving the USA two men on the 1,500 podium for the first time since 1912.

At the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, the extraordinary journeys of NCAA athletes like Truwit, Hocker and Nuguse took center stage. Their stories showcased unparalleled resilience, determination and triumph on the world's biggest stage. From life-altering setbacks and historic rivalries to unexpected podium finishes, these athletes, past and present, carried the pride of their universities with them.

Below are just some of the notable accomplishments and unforgettable stories that define a summer where NCAA athletes left an indelible mark on history.

1. The medal haul

Current and former NCAA athletes brought home 330 medals from the Paris Olympics. Some programs have turned out Olympians like Ford turns out SUVs. Stanford Cardinal athletes won 34 medals, which was more than most nations. California Bears won 17 medals, while Texas Longhorns brought home 16 and the Virginia Cavaliers earned 14. Southern California has produced at least one gold medalist in every Summer Olympics since 1912 and 341 overall medals in history. This year, the Trojans won 13 medals, six of those gold, and had athletes as flag bearers for six different nations.

On the Paralympic side, 35 former, current and incoming NCAA athletes earned 51 pieces of hardware for Team USA at the Paralympics. The athletes came from 35 different schools from all three divisions.

Victory never looked so good! 👏

1,200+ current, former, and incoming student-athletes from 251 schools, nearly 60 conferences, and 125 teams and countries brought the 🔥 to the !

— NCAA (@NCAA)

2. The French phenom

Every person in France, it seemed, was cheering for a certain NCAA champion from the Arizona desert. Leon Marchand was the biggest fish in the swimming pond with four gold medals, setting Olympic records in all of them. The Arizona State swimmer became the face of the Games in his native land, from Lille to Marseille. The man who helped turn him into a French torpedo was veteran U.S. college coach Bob Bowman, who also once trained another swimming prodigy, Michael Phelps. Bowman has now moved on from Arizona State to Texas, with his spare time likely spent honing Marchand for a golden assault in Los Angeles in 2028. Marchand went into the Olympics with 200,000 followers on Instagram. He left with 1.3 million. That's one hot former Sun Devil.

3. Back-to-back fencing gold

Former Notre Dame fencer Lee Kiefer defended her gold medal in the individual foil and contributed to another gold for the U.S. in the team foil. In the process, the former NCAA champion became the first American fencer in history to own three Olympic gold medals and the first American woman to win two fencing golds at a single Games. Her Fighting Irish pride remained strong, as she gave a shoutout to the Notre Dame community following her individual gold medal. "My Notre Dame coach, my Notre Dame family, they have always been there for me, and they were a huge, huge part of making a jump in my career and confidence," she said. For Kiefer, who is currently pursuing a degree at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, fencing has long been a family affair that has continued into college, with her sister and brother also competing in NCAA fencing. Notre Dame is also where she met her husband, Gerek Meinhardt, a four-time Olympic fencer and national champion.

4. Pommel horse guy

An electrical engineering major from Penn State, aka "the pommel horse guy," captured the hearts of Americans everywhere. By the time Stephen Nedoroscik finished his routine to help the U.S. men to their first gymnastics team medal in 16 years, he was a folk hero. The pommel horse specialist, who made the leap from an unknown engineering whiz with glasses to a national sports star in 36 seconds, later went on to win the individual bronze. The same day as his defining moment in the team finals, he solved a Rubik's cube in under 10 seconds.

5. A rugby run for the ages

The U.S. women's rugby team claimed the country's first Olympic rugby medal since 1924 with a miraculous length-of-the-field walk-off scoring dash — that's the sport's answer to a grand slam with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. A star for the team was Ilona Maher, who played for three years at Quinnipiac while studying nursing. Former NCAA rugby products Sammy Sullivan (Army West Point), Lauren Doyle (Eastern Illinois) and Ariana Ramsey (Dartmouth) were also part of the historic team, as were former two-sport Wisconsin star Alev Kelter and former Brigham Young basketball player Stephanie Rovetti. All were part of a larger mission to bring more eyeballs to the sport and grow the game in the U.S.

6. Paralympic powerhouse

Christie Raleigh Crossley stole the show at the Paralympics. She won five Paralympic swimming medals, including a pair of golds. She also broke a world record in one event and a Paralympic record in another. Her journey to this point was nothing short of remarkable. She was named the 2006 Atlantic Coast Conference freshman of the year in swimming and an All-American at Florida State before suffering a neck and back injury in 2007 after being hit by a drunk driver and then sustaining a brain injury in 2008 as a pedestrian in a hit and run. After taking time away from the sport, she returned to NCAA swimming, this time at Division III Rowan to swim with her sister, where she would win an NCAA title.

7. Historic gold

Olivia Chambers started her senior year at the University of Northern Iowa with an impressive trio of Paralympic medals. The legally blind swimmer, who was named the Missouri Valley Conference's most courageous athlete in June, won a gold and two silvers in Paris and became the first athlete from the University of Northern Iowa to medal in the Olympics or Paralympics since 1952. Chambers, who began losing her eyesight at the age of 16, credited the support of her college coaches and teammates for encouraging her to pursue the Paralympics. "Especially when I first came, I had not accepted the fact that my sight was never going to come back and that I would be visually impaired for the rest of my life. But they really helped me embrace who I was now and really encouraged me to take the next step of doing para swimming, which has led me to all these amazing opportunities that I would never have gotten if they hadn't encouraged me, or if honestly, I hadn't even become blind," she said.

8. The Paralympic spirit

A former track athlete from Purdue Northwest, Jaydin Blackwell was born premature at 26 weeks and later diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Blackwell won two gold medals in track and set a world record in the 100 meters in Paris. "I'm just glad that I can do the things that I can do," he said. Something else he did won him widespread admiration. Before the start of the 100 meters, Blackwell stopped his preparation to help Chinese runner Zhuo Peng secure a loose band on his hamstring in the adjacent lane, patted him on the chest and returned to his spot. The race could go on.

9. Golden couple of the Games

Hunter Woodhall, who was the first double amputee ever to be offered a Division I track scholarship when he went to Arkansas, won Paralympic gold in the 400 meters in the same stadium where his wife and former Texas standout, Tara Davis-Woodhall, won the long jump in the Olympics. They were 2024's royal couple in track and field.

10. Dominance from DePaul

Noelle Malkamaki won a gold medal and set a world record in shot put at the Paralympics. She is without a developed right hand but still competed for DePaul and was one of the best in the Big East Conference. It was at DePaul that Malkamaki was introduced to adaptive athletics, creating an internal identity crisis at first that she worked through to become one of the best in the sport. Malkamaki's impact at DePaul continues to be honored, as she was nominated by the Big East as one of its two 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year honorees. The award recognizes the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes.