At long last the 2020 Summer Olympics* will finally be held, one year too late, and they officially kick off this Friday in Tokyo, Japan (some events have already begun). They are set to be one of the stranger games in Olympics history given COVID-19 restrictions, but it's important to remember that this is the same event that didn't have any problems making the 1936 games a pedestal for Nazi propaganda, so "strange" is par for the course for the Olympics. Regardless, I'm 99% sure this is the first games in recent memory where no fans will be allowed in, due to the punishing state of COVID-19 in Japan. 

(* side note = it really bothers me that this is still being called the 2020 Olympics. It's not 2020 anymore, it's 2021. Call them the 2021 Summer Olympics. Same thing with the EURO which just ended. It's taking place in 2021, stop trying to confuse me by calling it 2020. There is no rule of nature that the Olympics have to be in even years. Stop with this nonsense.)

But, what won't be unusual is the representation of Michigan athletes at the summer games. The University of Michigan regularly places current and former students in the Olympics (you might recall someone named Michael Phelps winning a bunch of medals), and this year is no exception, with 28 athletes competing for 13 different countries, in addition to several coaches participating for various countries. Thus, with the Tokyo Olympics right around the corner, I thought I'd put together this handy watching guide for a Michigan fan who is eager to watch the games and wants to find out when Michigan athletes will be competing, and which ones have a good shot at getting medals. Let's go event by event: 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Lots of sports that don't get talked about much on this site]

 

Men's Gymnastics 

First up is men's gymnastics, where Michigan has placed three players on Olympic teams, two of which are regulars and one is a replacement. Representing Nigeria is Uche Eke, a graduate of Michigan in 2019 who then enrolled in grad school here to compete in the 2020 NCAA season. Eke is a native of Maryland, with an American mother and a Nigerian father who chose to represent his father's country at the international level and in the process, made history: he's the first Nigerian gymnast to ever compete in the Olympics! He will be competing in several events and is somewhat of a longshot, but if he has a chance of medaling in any category, it's probably the pommel horse, as he won the gold medal at the 2019 All-Africa Championships at that event (his only career international gold). Regardless of how he does, it is a terrific achievement for Eke to reach this point representing a country like Nigeria in gymnastics. 

The athlete with the better chance of netting Michigan a medal in men's gymanstics is Sam Mikulak. This is Mikulak's third Olympics, first competing in London in 2012, when Mikulak was still a member of the Wolverines' gymnastics team. While at UMich, Mikulak absolutely dominated at the NCAA level, winning multiple individual national championships, a big part of why Michigan won national titles in that sport in 2013 and 2014. At the international level, he represents the US and has plenty of awards to his name- but still no Olympic medals. He's definitely got a shot at changing that this summer, as he will be competing in a few events. His best shots are probably as a part of the team competition (Team USA took fifth at both London and Rio), as well as the Floor Exercises (he placed first among Americans in the qualifying in this event) and High Bars (he took 2nd in US qualifying). (Cool thing I found researching Mikulak = he has a large Block M tattoo on his mid-section with the words "those who stay will be champions" inscribed under it).

We should also note that Cameron Bock, who just graduated Michigan in the spring, is a replacement athlete for Team USA's gymnastics squad. For those interested in watching any of these events, the qualifiers will all be on July 24, while the finals for the pommel horse will be on August 1, the team competition on July 26, the floor exercises on August 1, and the high bars on August 3. 

 

Water Polo

Michigan puts two players on the Australian women's water polo team, Abby Andrews and Amy Ridge. The two are rather recent graduates, 2019 and 2016, respectively, former members of Michigan's good (and unusual for a Midwestern school) NCAA water polo team. It will be the first Olympics for both Andrews and Ridge and as members of Team Australia, they have a shot at medaling. Though the Aussies aren't highly ranked now in the international women's water polo rankings I can find (I love the rabbit holes writing for MGoBlog takes me down), but they have a good track record at the Olympics. Australia took gold in 2000 and bronze in 2008 and 2012, before finishing sixth in 2016. For those interested, group stage matches are July 24-August 1, while the quarterfinals and beyond run from August 3-7. 

 

A Hutch disciple makes Team USA's Softball roster [JD Scott]

Softball

Given the illustrious success of the Michigan Softball program over the past several decades, you'd expect at least one Wolverine to be on a roster now that Olympic Softball is making its first appearance since Beijing (Olympic Softball joins "the Detroit Pistons' future" as topics that are now worth talking about for the first time since 2008). If that was your expectation, then you expected correctly, because one Wolverines is on a roster. First up is Amanda Chidester, who played for UM from 2008-2011 and is one of the best players in program history, hitting .355 over her NCAA career and twice being named B1G Player of the Year. She has since been playing softball professionally and earned a spot on Team USA's roster. An interesting note on Chidester at the Olympics = she will actually be facing her fiancée Anissa Urtez in the Olympics! Urtez, also a professional softball player, will be suiting up for Team Mexico at the Tokyo games. 

Chidester's chance of taking home a medal with the Americans is quite high: Team USA enters Tokyo the prohibitive favorites in softball. The first game for Team USA was actually last night against Italy, a 2-0 win. Qualifying games continue tonight and will go on through the weekend, followed by the medal games on July 27. This will all be over in a blink of an eye, so if you want to watch Olympic softball, get on it! 

 

Women's Soccer

Continuing our list of team events, Michigan places two players on the Canadian women's soccer team, Jayde Rivière and Shelina Zadorsky. Rivière is a class of 2020 graduate of Michigan, while Zadorsky is a bit older, graduating back in 2013. Pretty much anyone playing for a team that aren't the Americans will be fighting an uphill battle to get medals in this event, but there is a chance Canada could get there. The Canadians took Bronze in both the 2016 and the 2012 Olympics, though observers don't see them as one of the top competitors to the US this year. Group stage matches begin very soon, running from July 21-27, with the quarterfinals on the 30th, the semis on August 2nd, and the medal matches on the 5th and the 6th. 

 

Track and Field

As you may suspect, there's a lot to talk about here. Michigan has five athletes competing in track and field. Steven Bastien will be competing in the decathlon for the US, and he was a terrific athlete for the Wolverines from 2015-17. Bastien transferred to Michigan from Samford and proceeded to become UM's first ever All-American in both heptathlon and decathlon. He does seem to be a bit of a long-shot at these Olympics though, ranked 30th in the world decathlon rankings currently. Mason Ferlic was a teammate of Bastien's on the track and field team, and he will be competing in the Steeplechase, also for Team USA. Ferlic took 2nd in the USA qualifying trials and based on past Olympic results, the 2nd best American was generally around 5th in the Olympic competition, so I think it's fair to say Ferlic has a shot at a medal. 

Nick Willis is a fair bit older (a graduate of '05) and he will be competing for Team New Zealand in the 1500 meter run. Willis is already a well-established international runner, taking Silver in the same competition in Beijing and then Bronze in Rio. With that latter medal, Willis became the oldest man to ever win a medal in the 1500 meter category, yet here he is five years later (now age 38) trying to break his own record. I would have to think there's probably unlikely odds there given how much younger many of his competitors will be, but who the heck knows? As a testament to how crazy good Olympic runners are, I can tell you from researching Willis that he has posted a competitively-timed 4 minute mile for nineteen straight years(!). As someone who was happy about running a sub-6:30 mile once in my life, that's mind-boggling to hear. 

On the women's side, there's a pair of sisters competing for the UK. Tiffany Porter and her sister Cindy Sember (both used their maiden name Ofili while in college) will both be competing in the 100 meter hurdles. Both were born in Ypsilanti and hold joint American and British citizenship, though both represent the Union Jack internationally. Moreover, both appear to have a real shot at winning medals, as Sember took 4th in the event in Rio, while Porter took 7th at that same Olympics. They should be in the mix for a spot on the podium. Also worth noting that Porter's husband, Jeff Porter, was also a Michigan athlete who competed for the Wolverines in the mid-2000s as a hurdler, and is now helping to coach Team Great Britain at these Olympics. 

The men's steeplechase will be happening August 2, the men's decathlon will be going on August 3-4, the men's 1500 meters will be August 3, while the women's 100 meter hurdles will be July 30. 

 

Pictured: Moe Wagner when he learned he was going to the Olympics [Bryan Fuller]

Men's Basketball 

The resurgence of the Michigan basketball program in the past decade under John Beilein and now Juwan Howard has finally reached the Olympics, as a fella by the name of Moritz Wagner will be competing for Team Germany in Tokyo. Moe now plays for the Orlando Magic, following a 2021 season that saw him switch NBA teams three times. He's mostly a bench piece at this point in the pros, but for a country without a glut of talent, he easily makes Germany's roster. As you can probably guess, Germany is not one of the favorites for a medal, but with Team USA looking strangely vulnerable, we can quote Kevin Garnett and say anything is possible. The men's basketball competition will see its group stage run from July 25-31, with the quarters, semis, and finals running from August 3-7. 

 

Wrestling

Michigan wrestling program has put two athletes on Olympic rosters for this year's competition, starting with Myles Amine. Amine competes for San Marino, which is one of those countries where they let you compete for them if you have ever met anyone from that country (he was raised in Brighton, Michigan, but apparently his mother's grandfather was a citizen of San Marino, immigrating to the US in the early 1900s). Amine just graduated from Michigan in the spring and was a terrific NCAA wrestler, winning the B1G championship in the 197 lb weight class and taking third in the national championships in St. Louis. He also took bronze at the European Championships this year in Warsaw competing for San Marino in the 86 kg weight class (the metric equivalent of the 197 lb class), so he could have a shot at a medal in Tokyo, though unlikely. His event will be going on August 4-5. 

Stevan Micic will be competing for Serbia. Micic graduated two years ago and he was also a pretty darn good collegiate wrestler, winning the B1G title in 2018 in the 133 lb weight class and taking the national runner-up spot in that category at the NCAA championships in Cleveland. He chose to represent his father's birth country of Serbia in international competition, winning bronze medals at the 2018 and 2020 European championships in the 57 kg weight class, so like Amine, there is a small chance he could wind up on a podium. The 57 kg event will also be held on August 4-5. 

 

Women's Triathlon & Men's Diving 

Michigan's got one triathlete at the Tokyo games, Val Barthelemy, a 2013 graduate who will be competing for Team Belgium. Barthelemy is an Ann Arbor native who attended Pioneer and then was a member of Michigan's swimming team from 2009-13 before getting into international triathlon competitions. She is ranked 39th on the international triathlon rankings, so she is not considered one of the favorites, but if you want to watch the competition, it's on July 26th. 

I've also tacked men's diving on here, because the triathlon section was pretty short. Michael Hixon is a current graduate assistant on the Michigan's Men's Swim and Dive staff and will be in Tokyo competing in the 3 meter synchronized springboard diving event. Hixon was a terrific NCAA diver while a student at Indiana, who then joined Michigan as a coach prior to this past season, so the Wolverines can claim him all the same. He and his diving partner took Silver at Rio and then won the US Olympic qualifying trials a few weeks back, which make them strong contenders for a medal at Tokyo. Their competition will occur on July 28. 

 

Ellen Tomek is one of two women's rowers with Michigan ties [US Rowing]

Women's Rowing

These two athletes are older former Wolverines, starting with Grace Luczak, who competed at Michigan in '08 and then transferred to Stanford (part of a cosmic trade that ended in Michigan Football hiring Jim Harbaugh), where she won a national championship before hitting the international stage. This is her second Olympics, having competed in Rio, where she took 4th in the Coxless Pair. This Olympics she will be competing in the Women's Coxless 4 for Team USA and she'll probably have a shot at a medal. 

Ellen Tomek (an '06 Michigan grad) will be donning the Stars and Stripes and stepping into a row boat in Tokyo, as well. Tomek is also a veteran of the Olympics, having taken 5th in the Women's Double Sculls in Beijing, and now she returns to the games in 2021 in the Quadruple Sculls. Team USA has medaled in this event before, so it is certainly possible she could wind up on the podium. Tomek's event will take place on July 26 and Luczak's will be on July 27. 

 

Men's Cycling

Michael Woods, a UMich grad of '07, will be competing for Team Canada in the Road Race event. The Road Race is a grueling, 234 KM race (145 miles) that is one of the ultimate tests of athleticism and endurance. Woods had a pretty incredible journey to get to the 2020 Olympics, a story filled with enough setbacks that you might mistake the narrative for an ESPN feature on an NFL Draft prospect. In short order, he was actually a track athlete at Michigan who had recurring leg injuries that required surgery to fix and eventually pushed him to cycling. He didn't take up competitive cycling until 2013 and made the Rio Olympics in 2016, but took just 55th after breaking his hand shortly before the competition. Woods then eventually reached a groove professionally in 2018-19, but unfortunately, he had a crash in early 2020 that broke his leg and was going to force him to miss the Olympics, a crushing blow. Thankfully, the postponement of the Olympics allowed Woods to rehab and prepare for Tokyo (making him the one person on earth happy about COVID), where he enters as a dark horse, not one of the favorites but a racer to watch. The Road Race will be taking place quite soon, on July 24. 

 

Michigan fans are hoping to see a replay of this for Maggie MacNeil in Tokyo [Lee Jin-man/AP News]

Swimming

The final event to talk about is the the biggest, and a bit of a doozy. Michigan will have 8 swimmers competing in the 2020 Olympics, three on the men's side and five on the women's side. The men start off with Jake Mitchell, who will be competing in the 400 meter freestyle on July 24-25 for Team USA. Mitchell is a current swimmer at Michigan and he took 2nd at the US Olympic qualifying, a good sign since the Americans normally have two swimmers close to the podium in that event, given past results. Patrick Callan, also a current swimmer, will be a part of USA's 4x200 meter freestyle relay team on July 27-28, and is thus in a good spot for a medal since the US has won that event at four straight Olympics.

Finally there's Felix Auböck, who graduated in 2020 and will be hitting the pool for Team Austria. He's swimming in the 400, 800, and 1500 meter freestyle events. This is Auböck's second Olympics, competing in Rio, but he wasn't particularly close to medals then. The good news is that he has improved considerably in the mean time, so the hope is he can be in the mix this go around. His events will be throughout the last week of July. I should note that Mokhtar Al-Yamani planned to swim for Team Yemen, but has since pulled out of the Olympics. 

On the women's side, Michigan 2019 grad Catie DeLoof will be swimming for Team USA on the 4x100 meter freestyle relay. The US medals in that event basically every Olympics, and so DeLoof is in good shape to take home some hardware. That race will be happening July 24-25. Fellow classmate Siobhan Haughey will be competing for Hong Kong in the 100 and 200 meter freestyle competitions. This is her second Olympics, having made the semis in the 200 m at Rio, and she'll be looking to improve on that here. Those two events will be from July 26-30. One more class of 2019 swimmer will be in the Olympics for Hong Kong, Jamie Yeung, who will be on their 4x100 meter medley team. Hong Kong doesn't have a great track record in Olympic Swimming, so it's tough to see her medaling at this time. 

Also in the 4x100 meter medley is current swimmer Mariella Venter, competing for South Africa. Like Hong Kong, South African swimming isn't much of a global name, so the chance of Venter snaring a medal isn't high. The 4x100 meter medley relay is July 30-August 1. Finally we have fellow current Wolverine Maggie MacNeil, who will be swimming for Team Canada, and she's competing in a ton of events, the 4x100 meter freestyle, the 4x100 meter medley, and the 100 meter butterfly. The 100 meter butterfly will be from July 24-26 and MacNeil has a great shot of medalling, holding the record for a swimmer in the Americas in that event and winning gold at the 2019 World Championships for it. Canada also is generally competitive in both of those relays, so there's a chance MacNeil could leave Japan with multiple medals, and seems to be one of UMich's most promising athletes at this Olympics.