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.
It’s been a career year for Jorgenson, who turned 25 years old earlier this month. In his first season competing for Visma-Lease a Bike, he became just the third American to ever win at the Paris-Nice race and in March he won the Dwars door Vlaanderen, a victory which played a large role in helping him secure a spot on Team USA.
“The Olympics were always a part of my childhood,” Jorgenson told USA Cycling. “I remember spending entire summers watching sports I had never heard of and admiring the athletes. For sure it had a big effect on me and was one of the reasons I decided to pursue a career as a pro athlete. Being able to race in Paris, especially following the best year of my career, is a dream come true.”
MENDOZA, boxing
The 20-year-old Caldwell native is the youngest member of Team USA Boxing and the first Idaho native to qualify for the Olympics in boxing.
“Being from Idaho challenged me,” Mendoza told USA Boxing. “Not many athletes come out of Idaho, and I always felt growing up it brought almost a disadvantage to have Idaho next to my name instead of like Texas or California.”
But Mendoza accomplished her Olympic dream by punching her ticket to Paris at the Olympic Games World Qualifying Tournament.
Trained by her father, JR Mendoza, Alyssa won gold at the 2022 USA Boxing Elite National Championships and took home three medals at international competitions in 2023. She won silver at the Grand Prix in the Czech Republic and took home bronze at the Strandja Cup in Bulgaria and the Gee Bee Tournament in Helsinki, Finland.
Mendoza will be competing at 57 kilograms, which will begin with preliminary matches on July 30.
“To be representing Team USA at 57 kg is a huge accomplishment,” she told USA Boxing. “I always have been watching whenever USA goes international, and I’ve always thought like, ‘man, I can’t wait until I can do that’, and now I am, and I’m super excited about it.”
HOWARD, track and field
A two-time All-American at Boise State, Howard qualified for the 3,000-meter steeplechase, the same event she was an NCAA runner-up in in 2014, by finishing third at the Olympic Team Trials in June in Eugene, Oregon.
The first round of the steeplechase will be Aug. 4.
Howard, who won three Mountain West titles in the steeplechase, has experience on the international level in the event. In 2019 she was a silver medalist in the Pan-American games and then finished fourth in the same competition in 2023.
She is the seventh Bronco and first female Boise State alum to earn a spot on the U.S. Track and Field team. A former Bronco has made each Summer Olympic games dating back to 1988 in Seoul, South Korea.
Following the Olympics, Howard will be joining the Boise State track and field and cross country team as an assistant coach, the school announced Wednesday.
Boise State will hold an Olympic sendoff for Howard on Saturday at Dona Larsen Park. Gates will open at 6:30 p.m. She will run a 1,200-meter test effort, followed by two cool-down laps with kids. Howard will be available for questions and autographs afterward.
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