Six WPIAL alumni competing in Paris Olympics

The 2024 Summer Olympics officially start Friday in Paris, France and the Southwestern Pennsylvania will be represented well.

The WPIAL ha announced six alumni will be competing in the games and the Paralympic games.

They are:

Central Catholic’s Michael Grady – Rowing (second games)

Franklin Regional’s Spencer Lee – Wrestling

Upper St.
Clair’s Josh Matheny – Swimming

Mapletown’s Kevin Polish – Para archery (third games)

Hempfield’s Bridget (Guy) Williams – Track & Field

North Allegheny’s Ayden Owens-Delerme will be competing for team Puerto Rico.

The WPIAL has more on each of the athletes in the following bios:

Grady, a 2015 graduate of Central Catholic, will be competing for Team USA in rowing as part of the coxless four event. This is his second Olympics, having previously finishing fifth in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the coxless four. Last year, Grady took silver in the coxless four at the World Rowing Championships. He was a three-year letterwinner at Central Catholic, helping the Vikings win gold at the 2013 Scholastic Rowing Association of America (SRAA) National Championship, and bronze the next year. Grady went on to attend Cornell University, graduating in 2019.

Lee, a 2017 graduate of Franklin Regional, will represent Team USA wrestling at the 57 kilogram weight class. He is one of the most decorated wrestlers in state history, winning four WPIAL championships and three Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) gold medals, while posting a final high school record of 144-1. At the University of Iowa, Lee won NCAA championships in 2018, 2019, and 2021 at the 125 weight class, and finished with a final mark of 95-6. He qualified for the Paris Olympics by first claiming the title at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, then winning four straight matches at the 2024 World Wrestling Olympic Qualification Tournament in Istanbul.

Matheny, a 2021 graduate of Upper St. Clair, is set to compete for Team USA swimming in the 200-meter breaststroke. He is a five-time WPIAL gold medalist, winning four titles in the 100-yard breaststroke – setting a meet record in 2021 at 54.40 seconds – and the 2021 title in the 200-yard medley relay. Matheny also boasts seven PIAA gold medals, matching his four-year sweep of the 100-yard breaststroke with new National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) records in 2019 (52.52 seconds) and 2021 (51.84 seconds), while adding two 200-yard medley relay crowns in 2019 and 2021, and a win in the 200-yard individual medley in 2021. He is entering his senior season at the University of Indiana, where he has earned seven All-America honors, three Big Ten championships, and two NCAA silver medals. Matheny qualified for Team USA with a second-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke at the U.S. Olympic Trials in June.

Owens-Delerme, a 2018 graduate of North Allegheny, will be competing for Team Puerto Rico track & field in the decathlon. He earned seven WPIAL gold medals and five PIAA titles with the Tigers, winning both 300-meter hurdles races three times (2016, 2017, 2018) and both 110-meter high hurdles events twice (2017, 2018), while adding a pair of WPIAL championships in the long jump in 2017 and 2018.
Owens-Delerme was named Gatorade Pennsylvania Boys’ Track & Field Athlete of the Year following his senior season, then went on to compete at the University of Michigan, University of Southern California, and University of Arkansas. He was a nine-time All-American with the three schools, and won NCAA titles in the indoor heptathlon and outdoor decathlon in 2022, and the indoor 4x400-meter relay in 2023. Owens-Delerme qualified for the Paris Olympics in the decathlon by scoring 8,732 points at the 2024 Mt. SAC Relays, which at the time served as the world’s top decathlon score this year.

Polish, a graduate of Mapletown, will be competing for Team USA in para archery for the third consecutive Paralympics. A car accident in 1999 left Polish paralyzed from the chest down, but within months he was competing again and made his name known with a second-place finish at the 2000 World Archery Tournament in Las Vegas.
At the Paralympic level, he previously finished ninth in the individual compound open and team compound open at the 2016 Rio Games, and claimed 17th at the 2020 Tokyo Games in the individual compound open. Polish also owns a gold in the compound team event at the 2005 World Archery Championships, and bronze in team compound open at the 2023 World Para Archery Championships.

Williams (née Guy), a 2014 graduate of Hempfield Area, will represent Team USA track & field in the pole vault at her first Olympic Games. She won PIAA gold in the pole vault as a senior, clearing a mark of 3.81 meters (12’6”). Williams earned three All-America honors at the University of Virginia, winning Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) outdoor titles in the event in 2018 and 2019, and followed those performances up with fourth-place finishes at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. She owns the Virginia school records in the pole vault for both indoor (4.38 meters) and outdoor (4.46 meters). Williams won gold at the 2023 Pan American Games with a height of 4.60 meters, and then punched her ticket to Paris at the U.S. Olympic Trials last month with a mark of 4.73 meters, which won the event.