KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — One year out from the 2024 Paris Olympics, Tennessee swimming and diving hopes to replicate the success it had in Tokyo in 2020.
Tennessee sent nine total athletes in swimming and diving to the 2020 Summer Games and swimmer Erika Brown earned two medals: a bronze in the 400m freestyle relay and a silver in the 400m medley relay.
UT Swimming and Diving Director Matt Kredich says athletes who get to go to the Olympics from Tennessee take as much pride in representing their university as they do their respective countries.
"They have this sense that it's a part of something much bigger than themselves," Kredich said. "I'm so happy for them that they get to represent their country because that's meaningful for all of us, but there's also another team that they're representing and that's us at Tennessee."
The Vols and Lady Vols have sent a total of 40 athletes to the Olympics in program history, and those athletes have represented 15 different countries. Tennessee always has a way of bringing them together on the international stage.
"It's become a bit of a tradition to have everybody with Tennessee ties get together for a photo," Kredich said. "They love seeing each other in the village and seeing each other at the pool."
UT will be a focal point in the lead-up to the Olympics in the diving world when the Allan Jones Aquatic Center hosts the U.S. Olympic Diving qualifiers. Over 100 divers are expected to compete for a spot on the national team, and Tennessee gets to be at the center of the hype.
"Diving and swimming get 90 percent of all the attention they get during an Olympic year," Kredich said. "To have the selection meet for diving be in Knoxville means that a lot of the eyes of Olympic fans everywhere are going to be on the University of Tennessee's diving facility."
Tennessee previously hosted the training camp for the United States swim team in 2012. Thousands of fans waited for hours in the rain to watch the team train, and the turnout surprised even all-time-great swimmer Michael Phelps.
"We haven't had a crowd like this on a day like this in the last three Olympics for me," Phelps said in a 2012 interview with WBIR. "It's definitely pretty cool to come out and hear these guys cheering us on."
Kredich expects fans to have that same enthusiasm for the Olympic diving qualifiers next June, because that's just the way the Knoxville community seems to operate.