Ruby Lilley was 14, doing what she usually does, hanging out at the Prince Memorial Skatepark in Oceanside, dropping into the concrete bowl, twisting and flipping and spinning on her board, sandy brown hair flowing from the back of her helmet.
One day, she noticed another girl who was pretty good.
“She was ripping,” Lilley said. “She looked so comfortable, just looked so good on the board. It looked very natural for her. I just always thought she was a teenage girl who skated at my local skatepark. I would always see her with her brother and some local surfer boys.”
They eventually met and got to talking. They both lived in Oceanside. They were a year apart. The girl’s name was Caity Simmers, and she mentioned something about skating only for fun but her true passion was surfing. Lilley looked at her Instagram page and saw a long list of sponsors, then clicked open the videos of her carving up waves in far-flung tropical locales.
“An amazing surfer,” Lilley said. “Really rad.”
So rad that Simmers, 18, is representing Team USA in surfing at the 2024 Olympics.
Lilley, 17, is representing Team USA in skateboarding’s park event.
Two Olympians, one city, one skatepark.
Welcome to San Diego County, population 3.3 million, where five-ring species live among us.
Perhaps no place on the planet, per capita, produces more Olympians in a more varied array of sports. More than 60 athletes in Paris this month (or, in Simmers’ case, in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, for the surf competition) grew up in the county or currently live here, or roughly one in 10 members of the 592-strong U.S. team.
The most impressive part: They represent 21 different sports or disciplines, meaning you’ll find a local athlete competing in roughly half the Olympic program.
San Diego State produced the reigning gold medalist in men’s golf (Xander Schauffele) and a world championship silver medalist in women’s triple jump (Shanieka Ricketts of Jamaica). USD claims a member of the Puerto Rico men’s basketball team (Isaiah Pineiro) and a medal favorite in women’s sport climbing (Brooke Raboutou). A Canadian skateboarder (Cordano Russell) is set to enroll there next year.
Sailor Hans Henken (Coronado High School) and water polo player Alex Bowen (Santana High School) were college roommates at Stanford.
There’s a beach volleyball player from La Costa Canyon High School, and an indoor volleyball player from Francis Parker High School.
A track cyclist from Cathedral Catholic High School, and a 400-meter track runner from just down Highway 56 at Westview High School.
A rower from Bonita Vista High School, a basketball guard from La Jolla Country Day, a basketball center from Otay Ranch High School, a field hockey forward from Canyon Hills High School (formerly Serra), a tennis player from Torrey Pines High School.
There are women’s rugby players from University City High School and Fallbrook High School, two skateboarders from San Dieguito Academy and another skateboarder whose kids go there.
The gold medal favorite in BMX cycling has lived in Chula Vista for more than a decade. The gold medal favorite in C-1 200 meters canoe lives in Clairemont and trains most mornings in a quiet cove on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay.
Six members of the San Diego Wave FC will be representing four different national teams (USA, Australia, Canada and France) in women’s soccer.
There is 17-year-old skateboarder Gavin Bottger, heading to his first Summer Games. There is 59-year-old equestrian dressage rider Steffen Peters, heading to his sixth.
The Paris program has added breaking — you know it as break dancing — as a medal sport. The four-person U.S. team includes 5-foot-2 Logan “Logistx” Edra, whose Wikipedia page describes her as a “professional street dancer (b-girling), industry dancer, choreographer (breaking, hip-hop, urban), dance teacher, actress, activist, entrepreneur, a former gymnast, an amateur musician and a philanthropist.” She’s from Chula Vista.
The U.S. team would have been even stronger had it not been for a fateful week last month, when four previous world champions were eliminated in this country’s merciless system of Olympic trials.
“The Olympics are so popular here, so common here,” Lilley, the 17-year-old skateboarder, said. “They’re everywhere.”
San Diego has always had a golden Olympic sheen, from Greg Louganis to Gail Devers. The interlocking rings became a more permanent fixture in the landscape when the U.S. Olympic Training Center opened in Chula Vista before the 1996 games, with grand plans to add a pool, gymnasium and more dormitories to make it the world’s pre-eminent warm-weather sports facility.
They never broke ground on the dirt pads set aside for the pool and gym, but the center operated by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee still became home to several “orphan sports” without permanent homes such as field hockey, softball, BMX cycling and canoe/kayak as well as a major hub for track and field athletes.
That began to change in 2017, when the USOPC, deeming it too expensive, returned the 155-acre site to the city of Chula Vista. The choice was to revert the center into parkland or hire a private firm to manage it, and the city chose the latter, renaming it the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center with the conspicuous absence of the word “Olympic.”
U.S. Olympic sports federations still pay a la carte for athletes to train there, either on a year-round basis or for periodic camps, but the frequency and finances are diminishing as the USOPC decentralizes its training operations. All three U.S. men’s shot putters in Paris – many are predicting a medals sweep – once were residents of the Chula Vista center; now, all train on their own elsewhere.
Before the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, nearly all of the center’s revenue came from the USOPC. Now about half does with the balance coming from college, professional and international sports entities, and that percentage could grow before the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
At previous Olympics, a dozen or more U.S. track and field athletes would be based at the center. In Paris, just one is.
By the center’s count, 151 members of Team USA came through the center at some time in some capacity. But when it comes to full-time residents, it’s limited to a few archers, a decathlete and both men’s and women’s rugby sevens teams. None is expected to medal.
The center’s influence, though, has extended far past the picturesque bluff above Lower Otay Reservoir, increasing the region’s Olympic literacy and reinforcing the notion that San Diego is a nursery of five-ringed dreams.
You’ve got a temperate climate. You’ve got an international airport nearby. You’ve got a sports culture. You’ve got a community that embraces the diversity of the Olympic program.
You’ve got Olympic pedigree.
“I call it the halo effect,” said Brian Melekian, president and COO of the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center. “You have the Olympians preparing to leave for Paris. You’ve also got 200 junior rowers here and an Australian rowing team at the same time. It all breeds on itself. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. When you put all these things together, it’s pretty magical.
“And that all spills out into the community.”
Take skateboarding, which made its Olympic debut in Tokyo three years ago. The sport’s mecca? North County.
Half of the 12-person U.S. team grew up here or moved here. The top five ranked men in the park event all do, including reigning gold medalist Keegan Palmer from Australia. Numerous other foreign skateboarders populate Encinitas, Carlsbad and Oceanside.
The weather, world-class skateparks, the Southern California skate culture, the aura of Tony Hawk, an Olympic legacy … it’s all there. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Palmer was born in San Diego, moved to Australia and moved back when he got serious about going to an Olympics. Gavin Bottger grew up in South Lake Tahoe and moved here to hone his prodigious talent. Jagger Eaton, one of the sport’s most popular figures, came here from Mesa, Ariz., and won a bronze medal in Tokyo in the street event.
“I’ve said it since I’ve moved here,” said Eaton, who just missed becoming the first person to qualify for the Olympic in both skateboarding disciplines. “I wouldn’t be the athlete I am if it wasn’t for San Diego. I moved here to become the best. I’m obviously surrounded by the best. I’m grateful for it.”
LOCAL ATHLETES AT THE 2024 SUMMER OLYMPICS
All athletes are competing for Team USA, unless otherwise noted. Past Olympians identified with an asterisk. Players from the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center are noted with CVEATC:
ARCHERY: Catalina Gnoriega (CVEATC); Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez (CVEATC)
BASKETBALL: Isaiah Pineiro (USD, Puerto Rico); Kelsey Plum* (La Jolla Country Day); Isalys Quinones* (Otay Ranch High School, Puerto Rico)
BREAKING: Logan Edra(Chula Vista resident)
CANOE/KAYAK: Nevin Harrison* (San Diego resident)
CYCLING/BMX: Alise Willoughby* (Chula Vista resident)
CYCLING/TRACK: Jennifer Valente* (Cathedral Catholic High School)
EQUESTRIAN: Steffen Peters* (San Diego resident): dressage with Suppenkasper (horse)
FIELD HOCKEY: Megan (Rogers) Valzonis (Canyon Hills High School)
GOLF: Xander Schauffele* (Scripps Ranch High School/SDSU)
ROWING: Azja Czajkowski (Bonita Vista High School)
RUGBY SEVENS: Women’s team (CVEATC); Sarah Levy (University City High School); Kayla Canett (Fallbrook High School); Men’s team (CVEATC)
SAILING: Hans Henken (Coronado High School), 49er class with Ian Barrows
SKATEBOARDING: Thomas Augusto (San Marcos resident, Portugal), park; Gavin Bottger (Vista resident), park; Tate Carew (Point Loma High School), park; Jagger Eaton* (Encinitas resident), street; Ruby Lilley (Oceanside resident), park; Andrew Macdonald (Encinitas resident, England), park; Keegan Palmer* (Encinitas resident, Australia), park; Cordano Russell (Horizon Prep, Canada), street; Tom Schaar (San Dieguito Academy), park; Alex Sorgente (Carlsbad resident, Italy), park; Bryce Wettstein* (San Dieguito Academy), park
SOCCER: Delphine Cascarino (France, acquired by team Wednesday); Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave); Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave); Kailen Sheridan* (San Diego Wave, Canada); Kaitlyn Torpey (San Diego Wave, Australia); Emily van Egmond* (San Diego Wave, Australia)
SPORT CLIMBING: Brooke Raboutou (USD*), boulder and lead
SURFING: Caitlin Simmers (Oceanside resident)
TENNIS: Taylor Fritz (Torrey Pines High School), men’s singles
TRACK AND FIELD: Shanieka Ricketts* (SDSU, Jamaica), women’s triple jump; Nia Akins (Rancho Bernardo High School), women’s 800 meters; Chari Hawkins (San Diego resident), heptathlon; Gabby Scott (Westview High School, Puerto Rico), women’s 400 meters, Harrison Williams (CVEATC), decathlon
VOLLEYBALL/BEACH: Chase Budinger (La Costa Canyon High School), with partner Miles Evans
VOLLEYALL/INDOOR: Garrett Muagututia* (Francis Parker High School)
WATER POLO: Alex Bowen* (Santana High School)
Originally Published:
