How NC State’s athletes did at the Paris Olympics

The Paris Olympics are coming to an end this weekend and NC State’s 13 athletes are all finished with their competition. The Pack earned five Olympic medals in an historic showing during the 33rd edition of the games, which included the first-ever tennis medal in program history. 

Here’s a look at how each Wolfpack representative did at the Paris Olympics.

Swimming

The swimming pool is where NC State had a majority of its athletes in the Olympic games. The Pack sent 10 swimmers to Paris and this group had an impressive showing on the global stage. 

Former NC State swimming star Katharine Berkoff paced the group with a pair of medals in her debut. Berkoff, a five-time NCAA champion, found the podium in her lone individual event with a bronze medal in the 100-meter backstroke finals. 

The Missoula, Mont., native clocked a 57.98 in the event to find the podium for the first time in her career. While she never finished lower than third in any of her three individual swims in the 100 backstroke, Berkoff’s talents were later used on the 4×100 medley relay preliminary round. 

Berkoff helped Team USA qualify for the final, where it later set a world record with a 3:49.63 mark to claim gold. Berkoff became the first Wolfpack female athlete to medal at the Olympics since 1984.

While Berkoff earned two medals at the Olympics, she was not the only former Wolfpack athlete to leave with hardware from the pool. 

Ryan Held, a two-time Olympian, earned a gold medal after helping the U.S. 4×100 freestyle relay team qualify for the final. He was not in the final, but the Amercians won gold, which marked his second Olympic gold medal in his career. 

Although the Pack found two medals in the swimming pool, NC State swim added another in the open-water competition. Freshman David Betlehem earned bronze in the men’s 10k with a finishing time of 1:51:09 for Hungary. That capped a successful Olympic debut for Betlehem, who also finished fourth in the men’s 1,500 freestyle in the pool. 

While Betlehem found the podium, incoming freshman Bettina Fabian finished fifth in the women’s 10k open-water swim with a 2:04:16 mark for Hungary. 

Former Pack standout Sophie Hansson finished sixth in the 200-meter breaststroke final and added a 13th-place finish in the 100-meter breaststroke. Nyls Korstanje, who represented the Netherlands, finished sixth in the 100-meter freestyle final with a 50.83 to round out the Wolfpack’s swim individual finalists. 

Although he didn’t make a final, former Pack relay star Bartosz Piszczorowicz made his Olympic debut and helped Team Poland to a 13th-place finish in the 4×100 freestyle relay. He swam a 48.39 split, the fastest of the team in the event. Kacper Stokowski helped Team Poland’s 4×100 medley relay team to a sixth-place finish with a 3:48.19 overall mark in its heat.

The Wolfpack had two other swimmers compete as individuals at the Olympic games. Kaii Winkler, an incoming freshman, swam a 52.64 in his 100-meter butterfly heat to make his Olympic debut for Germany. 

Andreas Vazaios, the Pack’s first four-time Olympian, competed in two relays with Greece, the 4×200 freestyle and the 4×100 freestyle, but neither team made the final. 

Tennis

Former NC State star Diana Shnaider became the first Wolfpack tennis player to make the Olympic games. And she finished her trip to Paris with a silver medal, alongside Mira Andreeva, in women’s doubles at Roland Garros. 

Shnaider and Andreeva cruised through the competition before falling in three sets to Italy in the gold medal match. The former ACC Rookie of the Year also competed in singles, but was bounced from the games in the second round.

Basketball

It had been a while since NC State men’s basketball had a representative compete in the Olympic games, Kenny Carr in 1976 to be exact, but former Wolfpack guard Lorenzo Brown changed that this year. He was Spain’s starting point guard for the team’s three Olympic games. 

Brown averaged 6.0 points, 2.0 rebounds and 7.0 assists in 26 minutes of action a game with Spain, who did not advance to the quarterfinal round in Paris.

Track and field

Rounding out the Wolfpack’s Olympians is former sprinter McKenzie Long, who departed NC State as the program’s record holder in the 200-meter dash. And at the Olympics, Long made the final in the event. 

Long finished seventh with a 22.42 in the 200, just 0.22 off the podium in a tightly-contested race in Paris.