Women help USA top China in Gold including 4 ND women!

Team USA got 3 Golds in the last few hours of the Olympics including individual track cycling (take note NDDoggie78), 1st Gold ever for Women's VBall over Brazil, and 7th straight Gold for WBBall which include two ND players: Skylar Diggins and Jewell Loyd. That gave USA 39 over China's 38. ND contributed to 3 other Gold medals with Lee Kiefer's fencing Gold, Jackie Young's 3x3 Bball team, and one of ND's VBall bests Angie Harris Akers coaching April Ross and Alix Klineman to their 1st Beach Volleyball Gold.

Overall ND had a few non-Team USA participants but none medaled. In addition to the Golds ND also helped Team USA win the overall medal count (113 to China's 88) with ND contibuters to Men's Team foil Bronze (Meinhardt & Itkin) and women's marathon. To me Molly Seidel's Marathon Bronze behind the two Kenyans who perenially dominate these distance events was the biggest ND alumni accomplishment as she was certainly not expected to do that well. Lee Kiefer's Gold was the next, but she has been a world champion before. Still a big accomplishment since her Gold was the first Fencing Foil Gold for Team USA, an event held since 1924. With Mariel Zagunis' two sabre Golds, ND Women have accounted for every Gold that Team USA has ever won in Fencing.

As for the two Women BBall Golds, USA Basketball has dominated the world winning the last 8 Golds (7 Team + the only 3x3 event so far) so the biggest accomplishment there for the ND players was being named to Team USA. The last time that happened for an ND woman was Ruth Riley winning Gold in 2004 in Athens. It hasn't happened for an ND man since Adrian Dantley was on Team USA winning Gold in 1976.

Congrats to all these ND medalists and also to all that represented their country at these games. It was fun to watch them all perform or qualifyin these OLympics in the sports they excel in. Yared Nuguse's accomplishment qualifying for the 1500m still is great despite getting injured last minute so he couldn't compete. Great representation for the University and proud of them all. Hopefully it inspires more ND contributors 3 years from now in Paris.