Paris Bound! Two Badger rowers named 2024 U.S. Olympians
March 25, 2024 | Women's Rowing
UW women’s or men’s rower has competed in every Olympics since 1968
MADISON, Wis. – Two Wisconsin alumni – Sophia Vitas and Maddie Wanamaker – have been selected as members of the 2024 U.S. Olympic rowing team, USRowing announced on Monday.
They are among the first 21 named to the rowing team.
Wanamaker will compete in her second-straight Olympic games after she finished seventh in the women's four at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Neenah native is a decorated international rower, most recently finishing fourth in the women's four at the 2023 World Rowing Championships and winning gold in the four at the 2023 World Rowing Cup II. Now a six-time member of the U.S. Senior National Team, Wanamaker began rowing in 2013 as a walk-on at UW, leading the team to a pair of top-10 NCAA finishes in 2016 and 2017. She is one of the 13 women who will make up the women's four and women's eight crews in Paris, though which event she will race in is still to be determined.
Vitas, now a five-time U.S. Senior National Team member, will be making her Olympic debut in the women's double sculls. This past September, she captured a bronze medal in the women's double sculls at the 2023 World Rowing Championships, helping the USA secure an Olympic spot in the boat class. The Franklin native began rowing in 2013 as a walk-on at UW, helping the novice eight to a Big Ten Championship title in 2014 and the second varsity eight to a fourth-place finish in the NCAA Championships petite final in 2016.
Vitas is set to become the 19th all-time Wisconsin women's rowers to make the Olympic team including boycotts and alternates and bring UW's total for both men's and women's rowing to 32 Olympians.
UW's first women's Olympians – Carie Graves, Peggy McCarthy and Jackie Zoch – all won bronze at the 1976 Olympics in the women's eight in the first Games that included women's events in Montreal. UW's first Olympian was Stewart MacDonald, who coxed the men's pair to a fifth-place finish in Mexico City in 1968.
Sixty-seven athletes, including six Badgers, were invited to the 2024 Olympic Selection Camp from March 3-24 in Sarasota, Florida, at Nathan Benderson Park.
The camp selected the women's double sculls, lightweight women's double sculls, women's four, men's four and women's eight that will compete at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games this summer.
The camp also selected the men's eight that will compete at the 2024 World Rowing Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Switzerland on May 19-21 for a chance to represent the U.S. at the Olympic Games.
Men's and women's quadruple sculls crews are expected to come out of the camp as well that will race at the 2024. U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials from April 4-7 in Sarasota, Florida. Those winners will then compete at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta to get their boat qualified for the Olympics.
The women's single sculls, women's pair and men's pair for the Olympics will also be chosen at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. The complete Olympic team will be named by June 7.
The Olympic Games Paris 2024 take place from July 26 through Aug. 11 in France. Final selections to the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team are subject to U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee approval.
