Cougars head to Paris Olympics

PULLMAN — A contingent of seven past Washington State athletes are making their way to Paris, France this week for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, July 26 to Aug. 11. The group will represent six different nations while competing in men's and women's track & field, women's rowing, women's soccer, and men's basketball.

Competing for Team USA will be C.J. Allen (track and field) and Trinity Rodman (women's soccer), recent graduate Maribel Caicedo represents Ecuador in track and field, while another recent graduate, Jasneet Nijjar, will compete for her native Canada in track and field. Charisma Taylor will shine for The Bahamas in track and field while men's basketball player Josh Hawkinson will represent Japan and rower Ieva Adomavičiūtė will compete for Lithuania in Paris over the next few weeks.

Allen left WSU following the 2017 season as a two-time second-team All-American and two-time Pac-12 Champion in the 400m Hurdles. He qualified for his first Olympic Team by finishing second last month at the USA Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. Allen currently ranks seventh in the world in the 400m Hurdles and the second highest-ranked American.

Also competing in her first Olympics for Team USA is Rodman, one of the young brights spots for USA Soccer. Rodman attended WSU in the Fall of 2020 but was unable to compete after the fall season was delayed due to COVID-19. That winter, she declared for the NWSL Draft and was selected with the second overall pick by the Washington Spirit, the second-straight year WSU had the No. 2 overall selection (Morgan Weaver in 2020), while becoming the youngest player ever to be drafted. That season she was named NWSL Rookie of the Year and U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year.

Caicedo, WSU's school record holder in the 100m Hurdles, capped her tremendous Cougar career last month by finishing second at the NCAA Championships. The native of Guayaquil, Ecuador, shattered the school record, lowering it by more than a half second during the season as she earned First-Team All-America honors. Caicedo enters the Paris Games with the 15th-fastest time in the world this season.

Nijjar, a Surrey, British Columbia native, capped her Cougar career holding four individual school records and a member of one relay school mark. At last month's Canadian Olympic Trials, she ran 51.84 in the 400m event, breaking WSU's school record that had stood since 1988. By finishing fourth at the Trials, Nijjar earned a spot on the 4x400 Relay squad for her first Olympic berth.

Taylor, a native of Nassau, Bahamas who spent 2018-21 in Pullman, left her mark on the Cougar record book. She remains the school's career leader in the triple jump and fourth all-time in the 100m Hurdles, both events she will compete for in Paris. Earlier this summer, at the Bahamas Olympic qualifying, she captured the triple jump title and finished second in the 100m Hurdles.

Adomavičiūtė, who graduated from WSU in 2017, was a member of four Cougar teams that reached the NCAA Championships, while also winning gold in single sculls at the U-23 World Championships in 2015 and 2016. Since graduating from WSU, Adomavičiūtė has added one more gold to her collection in 2018 in the Women's Double Sculls at the World Championships. She will compete in the women's pair rowing event in Paris.

Hawkinson, from Shoreline, Wash, spent four years in a Cougar uniform (2013-17), departing as one of the best rebounders in school history. He owns three of the top four single-season rebounding marks while his 1,015 career rebounds remain as the program record. Since leaving WSU, Hawkinson has flourished playing professionally in Japan, where he has received dual citizenship. This year marks the second-straight Olympic bid for Team Japan and first Olympic Games for Hawkinson.