The 2024 Summer Olympics kick off this weekend in Paris, with the opening ceremonies on Friday and medals starting to be awarded on Saturday.
Over the next two weeks, thousands of the best athletes in the world will compete to chance their gold medal dream. Three of those athletes have ties to the Treasure Valley.
Boise native Matteo Jorgenson, Caldwell native Alyssa Mendoza and former Boise State track and field athlete Marisa Howard will be chasing that dream as part of Team USA.
It will be the first Olympic experience for all three.
JORGENSON, cycling
Jorgenson made the U.S. road cycling team and will compete in the road race event on Aug. 3. The 273-kilometer course will start and finish in Paris’s Trocadero neighborhood, located across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
The Boise native is coming off an eighth-place finish at this month’s Tour de France and nearly won the 19th stage of the race, holding the stage’s lead late before eventual Tour champion Tadej Pogacar passed him with two kilometers left on the climb to Isola 2000 ski resort.