Alaska at the 2024 Olympics in Paris
Four elite athletes at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, were born or raised in Alaska. A fifth is closely associated with the state. All of them have Alaska in their hearts.They are rugby player Alev Kelter, of Eagle River; cyclist Kristen Faulkner, of Homer; basketball player JT Thor, of Anchorage; and shooters Sagen Maddalena and Rylan Kissell.
Alev Kelter, of Eagle River, is a three-time Olympian. In Rio de Janeiro (2016) she became the first American woman in Olympic history to score a try (essay). At age 22, she became a rugby sevens player, after succeeding in ice hockey and Division I college soccer. Alev obtained the bronze medal, rugby sevens, in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Kelter is the first American and the fifth woman in the world in World Rugby Sevens Series history to score 1,000 career points. Kristen Faulkner, from Homer, rowed at Harvard, but in 2017, in New York, she decided to be a cyclist. In 2024 she won her first national championship on the road, capping a road racing season in which she made a daring breakaway to win Stage 4 of the Gran Vuelta a España, and in the 2024 Paris Olympics, Kristen won a gold medal in road cycling, and a gold medal in team pursuit cycling. Jokhow Panom, “JT”, Thor was born in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents had fled the war in their country, South Sudan. When Thor was five years old, the family moved to Anchorage and “JT” began playing basketball. He was in seventh grade and competed for West Anchorage High School. Today he plays for the South Sudanese basketball team because, although he is an American, he has a South Sudanese passport. He’s not the first Alaskan athlete to make it to the Olympics under another country’s flag. He is the third. Figure skater Keegan Messing, from Girdwood, competed for Canada and cross-country skier Jessica Yeaton competed for Australia, both at the 2022 and 2018 Winter Olympics. Sagen Maddalena and Rylan Kissell were standouts on the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) rifle team. Maddalena came to UAF in 2013 as a non-scholarship player from Groveland, California. After a non-scholarship year, she proved herself worthy of representing one of the top NCAA rifle shooting programs in the country and became an eight-time All-American for the Nanooks. She is a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. Maddalena placed fifth in the Tokyo Olympics. She earned a bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships and took gold in air rifle at the Pan American Games. In the 2024 Paris Olympics, Maddalena won a silver medal in Riflery. Kissell is a 22-year-old from Denver. He won the 2023 NCAA championship in air rifle. He achieved a perfect score that made it possible for UAF to be team champions. After graduating, Kissell returned to Colorado to train at the U.S. Olympic Center in Colorado Springs. He holds gold medals at the 2022 World Championships (3-position smallbore rifle) and the 2021 Junior Pan American Games (air rifle).
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