While some students spent their summers traveling for vacations or internships, a group of current and former Brunonians took a trip for another purpose this July: to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
With four competitors and one coach representing three sports and three countries, Brown Athletics laid claim to a pair of bronze medals.
The athletes included two recent alumni rowers, Henry Hollingsworth ’22 and Gus Rodriguez ’22, as well as a duo of current collegiate swimmers: Zehra Bilgin ’25 and Amie Barrow ’26.
Bilgin, who competed in women’s 4x200-meter freestyle race, has been representing Turkey in international meets since age 13 and swimming since she was just 9 years old.
“Since my first meet where we got gifted swim caps that had the Olympic rings on it by our coach at the time, it has been a dream of mine to compete at the Olympic level and represent Turkey,” Bilgin wrote in an email to The Herald.
Bilgin spoke to the unique, unforgettable atmosphere at the Olympic Village. “Seeing such elite athletes be there, knowing everyone had to sacrifice so many things to get to that point and getting to know them and exchange pins (made) this experience even better,” she wrote.
“I actually missed the village life pretty bad my first couple days back home. It just felt like even the air was different there,” she added.
Barrow, who competed in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke for The Gambia, also spoke highly of her experience in Paris.
“I spent three weeks in the Olympic Village. I raced on the second day of the Olympics, so after that, I did my best to explore and soak up the experience. All Olympic athletes had access to every sport, so I spectated quite a bit,” Barrow wrote.
Barrow’s presence at the games was one of historical significance, as she became the first woman to represent her nation in swimming.
“It’s a huge honor to be the first woman to represent The Gambia in swimming, though it is disheartening that the term ‘first woman’ still has to be used in 2024,” she wrote.
Both swimmers also spoke to the meaning of getting to experience such an event alongside a fellow Bear.
“It was very nice to watch (Amie) become an Olympian while both of us were also representing the Brown student and athlete family,” Barrow wrote.
A pair of former Brown teammates also represented Brown at the Olympic Games, as Hollingsworth and Rodriguez competed as part of the U.S. rowing contingent to Paris.
Competing in the men’s eight, Hollingsworth — captain of the rowing team during his time at Brown — helped propel the U.S. to a bronze medal from the bow seat, with a time of 5:25.28 that was barely beaten by Great Britain and The Netherlands.
The medal marked the nation’s first in the event since the 2008 Beijing Games.
Rodriguez served as an alternate for the team, receiving his own Olympic moment during the spare’s race, rowing with his German counterpart: “It felt like a very apt experience for the Olympics.” Rodriguez wrote. “Countries came together and raced under two flags in the same shell”.
For Rodriguez, Olympic competition runs in his blood. “My dad was an Olympic rower, and it makes me so happy to follow in his footsteps and make my whole family proud,” Rodriguez said.
He credited Brown Crew’s storied program for his post-grad success, specifically citing 23-year Head Coach Paul Cooke ‘89. “Brown was instrumental to getting me where I am,” Rodriguez wrote, adding that Cooke “made me the rower that I am today.”
One of Brown’s biggest accomplishments at the Paris Olympics came from a former student-athlete making her mark without rippling a wave or scoring a point.
Emilie Bydwell ’08 helped coach the USA Women’s Rugby Sevens team to its first-ever medal, capturing the bronze in dramatic fashion as her team scored a try and conversion kick with time expired to defeat 2016 gold medalists Australia.
Bydwell, who was a three-time All-American at Brown and the 2007 Collegiate Player of the Year, was selected in 2021 to coach the national women’s rugby sevens team, following in the legacy of former Brown University coach Kathy Flores.
Bydwell’s task as Head Coach of USA Women’s Rugby Sevens went beyond on-field success; She also aims to grow the game throughout America.
“It has to be about more than the medals,” Bydwell said. There has to be “a purpose that transcends the outcome and extends to what we wanted audiences to see, hear and feel.”
Bydwell described preparation for the decisive bronze medal match as “one of my most challenging moments as coach,” as the favored Australian team was upset by Canada in the semifinals earlier that day. Having prepared to face the Canadians, the U.S. instead had to pivot to prepare to face Australia, “a team we hadn’t beaten all season,” and “the best offensive team in the world,” according to Bydwell. But the U.S. pulled off the thrilling victory with a final score of 14-12.
Bydwell credited her experiences at Brown and the mentors she had for shaping the coach she has become. She highlighted her relationship with former Head Coach Kerri Heffernan, who taught Bydwell to be herself while coaching, and credited Kathy Flores for showing her an “authentic leadership model.”
Bydwell called her coaching style one “grounded in empathy, care and love,” values which are “reflective of who I am, and I learned that at Brown.”
For Bydwell’s team, her focus will now turn to “figuring out how to maintain our momentum and build from the ground up” with roster turnover.
For Rodriguez, the goal is to “bring home a gold medal” one day in the future.
For Barrow and Bilgin, their attention now turns back to the Bears’ upcoming season, which kicks off on Nov. 1 with a match-up against Harvard.
“Being an Ivy student athlete is hard,” Bilgin said. “So being able to achieve this dream of becoming an Olympian while also studying at an Ivy League institution … helped me realize myself better and how everything really is possible if you want it bad enough.”
Linus is a sports editor from New York City. He is a junior concentrating in English, and when he's out of The Herald office you can find him rooting for the Mets, watching Star Wars or listening to The Beach Boys.
