Former Missouri students participated in track and field and swimming at the 2024 Olympics
Three athletes who graduated from the University of Missouri qualified to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games. Mikel Schreuders, Clement Secchi and Karissa Schweizer all made the trip to Paris to represent their countries in swimming and track and field.
Clement Secchi swam at Paris as a former Tiger. Secchi is the most recent Missouri graduate, swimming for MU in 2023. Secchi earned the only medal for the Tigers, earning the bronze medal for France as a member of the 4×100-meter medley relay. He swam in the preliminary race in the third slot, helping qualify his team for the championship. While Secchi did not swim during the championship race, his efforts qualified him for a bronze medal.
In addition, he qualified for his first Olympics after finishing second in the 100-meter butterfly at the French Championships with a personal best time of 51.17.
In Paris, Secchi competed for France in this event but was unable to advance past the semifinals. He placed No. 6 in his heat with a time of 51.58.
Mikel Schreuders, a former SEC champion swimmer at MU, qualified for the Paris Olympics in the 50 and 100-meter freestyle races, The 2024 Games marked his third Olympics representing Aruba.
Schreuders sought to become his country’s first Olympic medalist, but he fell short of the semifinals in both of his events. He swam a time of 22.14 seconds in the 50-meter freestyle and 48.84 in the 100-meter freestyle. Schreuders finished No. 26 overall in the 100-meter, marking his highest Olympic placement to date.
Karissa Schwezier was the sole track and field athlete, graduating from Missouri in 2018. Since then, she has competed in the Tokyo and Paris Olympics.
Schweizer ran a season best time of 14:45.12 in the 5k at the Olympic Trials in June to qualify for the Olympics. She also ran the 10k at the Trials and finished with a time of 31:41.56. The time failed to meet the Olympic standard of 30:40.0, but Schweizer still qualified to run the 10k in Paris based on her rank of top 27 in the event worldwide.
Schweizer first competed in the 5k, finishing No. 10 in the finals with a time of 14:45.57. This is an improvement from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo where the former Tiger finished No. 11, running 14:55.80
Schweizer also achieved a top-ten finish in the 10k when she ran 30:51.99 to finish No. 9. She finished No. 12 in the 10k in Tokyo, running 31:19.96.
Edited by Dylan Heinrich | dheinrich@themaneater.com
Copyedited by Hannah Taylor | htaylor@themaneater.com
Edited by Emily Skidmore | eskidmore@themaneater.com