Carson Foster and Rose Lavelle are great, but Ohio lags in producing Olympic athletes

Despite all the hoopla over native Ohioans like Carson Foster and Rose Lavelle, the Buckeye State isn’t exactly a hotbed of Olympic talent this summer.

That’s no knock on the 14 athletes Ohio sent to the 2024 Paris games. Lavelle, the Mount Notre Dame High School graduate , is competing for gold in soccer, Foster, the Sycamore High School alum , already has won silver and bronze medals, and Annette Echikunwoke, a former University of Cincinnati star , won silver Tuesday in the hammer throw.

They and other Ohioans are proving they’re among the best in the world in their sports.

But compared to the rest of the United States, Ohio is a bit of a slacker.

An Enquirer analysis of Olympic athletes’ home states found Ohio ranks 30th in the nation in producing Olympians in 2024. That ranking accounts for differences in state populations because it's based on a per person, or per capita, measurement that shows the number of athletes per 1 million people.

Ohio produced 1.2 Olympic athletes per million people this year, which is well off the pace of states such as Colorado, which produced just under 4.6 athletes per million, or California, which produced 3.1 athletes per million.

Tiny Vermont, with a population just under 650,000, led all states. Though it sent just three athletes to the games, that adds up to more than 4.6 athletes per million residents. (Scroll to the bottom of this article to see the full list of Olympians per capita by state.)

Why some states dominate, others struggle

In some respects, this news isn’t shocking. States such as California, Colorado and Florida, which all made the top 20, are big states with big universities known for churning out the kind of athletes who compete in the Olympics.

Sports like track and field, sailing, swimming and cycling are natural fits for places with warm climates, open water or terrain ideal for year-round training. Californians, for example, make up almost the entire men's and women's water polo teams. The state sent 121 athletes to the games, by far the most, and ranks 5th among all states with 3.1 athletes per million.

There are outliers, though, and this is where Ohio suffers by comparison. Indiana ranks 11th in the nation, sending a total of 16 athletes, or 2.3 per million, to the games. That’s almost twice as many, per capita, as Ohio.

Pennsylvania also bested Ohio by a wide margin, sending 27 athletes to the games, or 2.1 per million.

Why such a big difference? In some cases, the answer is obvious. Hawaii, which ranks 4th in the nation with 3.5 athletes per million people, is heavy on surfers and volleyball players, which isn’t surprising for a state surrounded by beaches and ocean.

The dominance of other states is more curious, at least on the surface. Indiana sent more swimmers to the Paris games than any other state, which might seem odd, except that Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame boast two of the nation’s top swimming programs.

Pennsylvanians account for most of the U.S. women’s field hockey team. Turns out, that sport is immensely popular in the state and is home to some powerhouse high school teams.

None of this means Ohio is hopelessly behind its neighbors. The state has a long history of producing great Olympians – Jesse Owens comes to mind – and it still boasts top-notch high school and college athletic programs. Things might be very different when 2028 rolls around.

As anyone who follows sports knows, sometimes it’s just not your year.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Carson Foster and Rose Lavelle are great, but Ohio lags in producing Olympic athletes