UCF Knights win two former Olympic medalists in Paris 2024

As the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris began on July 26, the University of Central Florida named two of its graduates Olympic medalists.

By the closing ceremony on August 11, that number had doubled.

Former UCF Knights rower Viktorija Senkute and former UCF women’s soccer player Sarai Linder joined the elite ranks of former Knights colleagues by winning bronze medals in the City of Lights.

“The goal for my first Olympics was to have fun and enjoy the ride,” Senkute said in an Instagram post. “I still have to pinch myself and make sure that ride really happened.”

Senkute and Linder are the third and fourth UCF graduates in school history to win an Olympic medal, respectively, and the first since Phil Dalhausser won gold for Team USA in beach volleyball at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Dalhausser, however, was not a collegiate athlete during his time as a Knight. The last Olympic medal was won by Michelle Akers with the U.S. women’s national soccer team, which won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games 28 years ago. With Linder’s bronze medal in Paris, the women’s soccer team becomes the first UCF team to produce multiple Olympic medalists.

Senkute, in turn, is the first former UCF rower to win an Olympic medal – at the very first Olympic Games in which former Knights rowers participated.

Senkute and Linder are also the first non-American Olympic medalists in UCF history.

Linder competed with the German women’s national soccer team, which brought home one of 33 medals, giving Germany 10th place in the overall medal table. It is the fifth Olympic medal for the program in its history since women’s soccer debuted at the Games in 1996, and the fourth time it has been a bronze medal.

Competing for her native Lithuania, Senkute won the country’s 27th Olympic medal in its history and the first of four medals at the 2024 Games. In rowing, Paris marks the fourth time Lithuania has won medals in the sport, although the other three times were in the double sculls.

“This is crazy, I still feel like I’m in a dream,” Senkute told the Associated Press. “This is a really big day for Lithuania, for all the Baltic countries and for UCF. Everyone from UCF was watching and cheering, everyone from Lithuania.”

“It unites so many countries, so many people.”

To learn more about how each of UCF’s Olympians fared in Paris, scroll down:

---

Viktorija Senkute (rowing, women’s singles)

Photo by OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images

The Lithuanian showed a strong performance early on in Paris, winning her heat with a time of 7:30.01. This was also the fastest time of the 32 rowers in the women’s singles event.

The four-time All-AAC honoree was a bit slower in her quarterfinal race with a time of 7:33.35, but still took the win over Anna Prakaten of Uzbekistan by over two seconds.

However, she rowed the fastest time of her career in the single sculls with a time of 7:19.15 in the semifinals. Although she finished just under two seconds behind New Zealand’s Emma Twigg, who won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Senkute showed what made her a medal contender: her endurance.

Halfway through the semifinals (all races are 2,000 meters long), Senkute was almost tied with Team USA’s Kara Kohler, with a lead of only about 0.11 seconds. In the end, the Lithuanian was just over three seconds ahead.

Senkute would need that stamina in the gold medal race, where she made her slowest start of the regatta. She crossed the 500-meter line in fourth place and fell to fifth at the halfway mark, 5.63 seconds behind the leader. So she turned on the afterburners.

In the second half, Senkute was the fastest woman on the water. Over that stretch, she was over two seconds faster than the next fastest rower, leader and eventual gold medalist Karolien Florijin of the Netherlands. She was about 2.5 seconds faster than Australia’s Tara Rigney, who had held the bronze position for the first three-quarters of the race.

When the Lithuanian crossed the finish line, she had clocked a time of 7 minutes, 20.85 seconds, the second fastest single sculls time of her career, and 0.53 seconds ahead of Rigney, securing her the bronze medal. She shared the podium with Florijin and Twigg, with her silver medal being the second consecutive Olympic medal of her career.

“What an honour it was to be on the starting line with all those strong women – you are my inspiration,” said Sewnkute. “And to be on the podium with two Olympic champions is a dream come true. Sometimes even rowing is a sport where every centimetre counts.”

Photo by Henk Jan Dijks/Marcel ter Bals/DeFodi Images/DeFodi via Getty Images

---

Sarai Linder (football)

Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images

While her teammates fought their way into the bronze medal match, Sarai Linder fought a more personal battle in Paris.

In the first match of the group stage, everything seemed to be going well for Germany. Defender Linder provided an assist for midfielder Julie Brand. It was the final goal that sealed Germany’s 3-0 victory over Australia.

However, according to an X-post from the German women’s national football team, Linder will not be in the active squad for the team’s next three games – two group matches against the USA and Zambia teams and a quarter-final match against Canada – due to an “infection”.

Linder recovered enough to return to the active roster and play as a substitute in the semifinal, which was lost 1-0 in overtime to the United States, but she did not come off the bench.

She returned to the field in the bronze medal match against Spain and played the full 90 minutes, helping Germany to a 1-0 victory and another Olympic medal.

---

Kristen Thomas (Rugby)

Photo by Alex Ho/ISI Photos/Getty Images

Kristen Thomas played as a reserve player for the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team and was co-captain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Although she did not play on the court at the tournament in Paris, her team made history with a 14-12 victory against Australia, winning the first ever Olympic medal: a bronze medal.

Team USA achieved an overall record of 4:2 and only lost to host France in the group match and eventual gold medal winner New Zealand in the semifinals.

As a traveling substitute, Thomas will not receive a medal herself, but after nine years on the team, she knows the significance of this moment.

“This truly means so much to us,” Thomas said in an Instagram post. “We have been working towards this goal for so long and there have been so many who have paved the way for this exact moment.”

---

Julie Poulsen (rowing, women’s four)

Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images

Former UCF rower Julie Poulsen and the rest of Team Denmark’s women’s four had to fight their way to the Paris Games by finishing second in the “Regatta of Death,” also known as the final Olympic qualifying regatta.

In Paris itself, they found themselves in a similar situation after finishing last in the first race and thus having to move on to the repechage round of the event, where the top two boats advanced to the race for the gold medal.

Poulsen and the Danes got off to a slow start, again reaching the halfway mark in last place, but recovered in the second half to earn a chance to advance. However, their time of 6:35.65 fell just short of the top two, just 2.05 seconds behind second-placed China.

In the B final, Denmark came second behind Ireland, but defeated defending champions Australia to finish eighth in the competition’s overall standings.

---

Malacchi Esdale (Rugby)

Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images

Malacchi Esdale made his proper Olympic debut in Paris after serving as a reserve for the U.S. sevens rugby team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, providing a fresh pair of legs for the U.S. team’s late game.

Esdale was often substituted midway through the second period. His main highlight of the tournament was a takedown of an Australian player that saved his try. Later in the match, however, the Aussies pulled away and won 18-0.

Team USA finished the tournament with an overall record of 1-4-1 and finished eighth after a 19-0 loss to Argentina.

“The real challenge for me is that I feel like I’ve let myself down,” Esdale said in an Instagram post on Wednesday. “Despite all the years, months, days, hours and minutes I’ve spent perfecting my craft, I’ve ultimately failed. But know this: I’ve never backed down from a challenge and I will never give in in the face of adversity.”

“This experience was incredible and my shortcomings ignited a fire within me that will drive me for years to come.”

---

Still to come: Kyle Coon (Paralympics)

Kyle Coon was a member of the UCF wrestling club team until he graduated in 2013. At the age of seven, he became blind due to eye cancer.

He made his Paralympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games in the PTVI paratriathlon, where he placed fifth. He was coached by Zack Goodman, who met Coon while volunteering at a camp for visually impaired athletes, No Sight No Limits, in 2018.

Coon was officially named to Team USA for the second time on July 2. Goodman will join him again in Paris. The PTVI men’s paratriathlon will take place on September 2, but no date has been announced at the time of this article’s publication.