Many kids dream of becoming an Olympic gold medalist. For 261 Indiana University athletes, their dream of participating in the Olympics became a reality.
Indiana did not have any athletes compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, but 20 Hoosiers took part in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Out of those 20, three took home medals: Blake Pieroni, Anna Peplowski and Lilly King.
Pieroni secured a silver medal for Team USA in the men’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay. He graduated from Indiana in 2018 after four seasons on the men’s swimming and diving team. Pieroni has won gold medals in the 4x100-meter freestyle at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, plus the 4x100-meter medley relay in 2020.
Peplowski won a silver medal for Team USA in the women’s edition of the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. She qualified for her first Olympics after her junior season at Indiana, carrying the momentum into a decorated senior season.
2024 marked King’s third time participating in the Olympics. King graduated from Indiana in 2019 but competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics with Team USA. She won gold in the 100-meter breaststroke and 4x100-meter medley relay. King also qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics, where she earned silver medals in the 200-meter breaststroke and 4x100-meter medley relay, plus bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke. In 2024, King won gold in the 4x100-meter medley relay.
The 2024 Summer Olympics were historic for Indiana. The Hoosiers sent their second-most athletes to the Olympics ever, tying the 1976 Summer Olympians. The total was three short of the Indiana record set at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
Of the 20 Indiana athletes in the 2024 Summer Olympics, 10 competed for Team USA, while the other half participated with other nations, such as Egypt, Israel, Canada and Germany.
Indiana head diving coach Drew Johansen was also head coach for the U.S. Olympic Team for his fourth consecutive Olympics.
Before 2024, Indiana had a storied history in the games. Out of the 127 total medals Hoosiers have won, 62 have been gold, 27 silver and 38 bronze.
The first Hoosiers to compete in the Olympics came at the 1904 summer games in St. Louis. Leroy Samse took silver for Team USA in pole vault, and Thad Shideler was a silver medalist in the 110-meter hurdles for Team USA men’s track and field.
The first Indiana athlete to win a gold medal was Ivan Fuqua in the 1600-meter relay for Team USA men’s track and field at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were the first games in which Indiana athletes competed for international teams. Kevin Berry and Bob Windle were both members of the Australian Olympic Team. Tom Dinsley competed for Canada, Bob Loh for Hong Kong, Luis Nino de Rivera for Mexico and Ingeborg Pertmayr for Austria.
Along with historically dominant men’s and women’s swimming and diving in the Olympics, six former Indiana men’s basketball players have played at the games.
Those players were Walt Bellamy in 1960; Scott May and Quinn Buckner — one of only eight players to win an NCAA Championship, an NBA Championship and an Olympic gold medal — in 1976; Isiah Thomas in 1980; Steve Alford in 1984; and Uwe Blab for Germany in 1984 and 1992.
Former Indiana men’s basketball head coach Bob Knight coached Team USA at the 1984 Summer Olympics, while former Indiana women’s basketball player Tara VanDerveer coached Team USA in 1996. Linda Cunningham played for Canada at the 1984 games.
With the 2028 Summer Olympics taking place in Los Angeles, many current, past and maybe future Indiana athletes will look to increase the Hoosiers’ medal total in two years.
This story was originally published in the Indiana Daily Student's spring 2026 Source Campus Visitor's Guide.
