Meet the viral Olympians winning medals and hearts
By Scottie Andrew, CNN
(CNN) — We met Simone Biles on the mat, Sha’Carri Richardson on the track and Katie Ledecky in the pool. Their achievements are so groundbreaking that they’ve become household names.
But there are thousands of Olympians in Paris for the Summer Games, and most of them entered the Games relatively unknown — until the internet discovered them.
More than a few Olympians from all over the world are becoming viral sensations, either for their funny and frank TikTok presences or their impeccably cool performances during the Olympics. Get to know some of this year’s breakout Olympic stars.
Ilona Maher
Team: USA
Sport: Women’s rugby
Though she’d never medaled at the Olympics until this year, Ilona Maher was already a Team USA favorite coming into the Paris Games for her TikTok presence. She’s reliably candid and silly on the app, and though she’s clearly having the time of her life with her women’s rugby teammates, she also routinely uses TikTok to refute cruel comments about her body.
In one video filmed before the Olympics, another user attempted to insult her body by guessing her BMI, or body mass index, which is often an inaccurate measurement of body fat for people with a ton of muscle like Maher. She didn’t let the comment slide.
“I’m five (feet) 10 (inches), 200 pounds and I have about, and this is an estimate, but about 170 pounds of lean mass on me,” she said in the video. “So yeah, I do have a BMI of 30, I am considered overweight. But alas, I’m going to the Olympics — and you’re not.”
Newfound fame isn’t distracting her from the ultimate prize, though. Earlier this week, Maher helped lead the US women’s rugby team to their first-ever medal, bronze, in rugby sevens.
Frederick ‘Fred’ Richard
Team: USA
Sport: Men’s gymnastics
It’s no wonder that Fred Richard’s TikTok username is “FrederickFlips”: His amazing acrobatic skills are what most of his nearly 800,000 followers come to his page to see. Leading up to the Olympics, the gymnast shared breathtaking clips from training of himself flying through the air on the high bar.
Flipping so quickly and with such discipline inspires nausea in most of us, but not Richard. In one of his more poignant clips, he shows how he’s progressed on the high bar since middle school. Even as a 12-year-old, he could out-flip most everyone on Earth. It’s a blast to watch him at his very first Games, earning a team medal (and thoroughly enjoying the bag of Skims loungewear that every member of Team USA received).
Stephen Nederoscik
Team: USA
Sport: Men’s gymnastics
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s — Stephen Nederoscik!
The US men’s gymnastics team’s “pommel horse hero” earned Clark Kent comparisons for his bespectacled appearance on the sidelines as his teammates competed in multiple events during the team final. Nederoscik, meanwhile, only performs on the pommel horse. And for good reason: He’s the only American gymnast who’s made the Olympic team as a single-event athlete. Team USA’s Clark Kent is just that talented.
While his teammates sweated and swung their bodies, Nederoscik closed his eyes and calmed himself down. When it came time for the pommel horse, Nederoscik, as the last man up, dropped the glasses and unleashed the beast. His near-perfect performance helped earn the US men’s gymnastics team its first medal in 16 years — and cemented Nederoscik as one of the Games’ first accidentally viral superstars.
Tyler Downs
Team: USA
Sport: Diving
Perhaps no one at Olympic Village is having more fun than Tyler Downs. The 21-year-old American diver is documenting his Olympics experience in its entirety, from scoping out attractive athletes at the Olympic dining hall to testing the durability of the infamous Olympic Village beds.
He might also be the biggest “brat” in Paris: He’s performed the viral dance to Charli XCX’s “Apple” all around Paris, including in front of the Eiffel Tower during the Opening Ceremony from Team USA’s boat in the Seine.
He’s never medaled at the Olympics before, but he’ll get his chance on Friday, with partner Greg Duncan at the men’s synchronized 3-meter springboard.
Kim Yeji
Team: South Korea
Sport: Shooting
Few Olympians look cooler than Kim Yeji when she lifted her pistol, leaned back with her hand in her pocket and fired.
Kim, at 31, is a first-time Olympian and unflappable sharp shooter. Her monochromatic black getup and tiny shooting glasses reminiscent of the eyewear in “The Matrix” cemented her as the Games’ premier fashion icon. But she’s got the goods to back up the immaculate style: Ahead of the Olympics, Kim set a record-breaking score at the women’s 25-meter pistol event
And though she won the silver medal earlier this week in the 10-meter air pistol event, she was just thrilled to share the moment with her teammate Oh Ye-Jin.
“When we won these medals, we were so proud we are Koreans,” Kim told the Associated Press after the event. “I thought it did not matter who won the gold.”
A humble champion! Kim competes next in the 25-meter pistol qualifier, as her legions of new fans anxiously await her next show-stopping performance (and accompanying look).
Henrik Christiansen
Team: Norway
Sport: Swimming
There are several couples in contention at the Paris Olympics, but the most surprising love story from the Games this year is between a man and many, many muffins.
Henrik Christiansen’s Olympics-set TikToks have almost entirely revolved around his love affair with a double chocolate-chip muffin.
Their relationship began when Christiansen sampled the muffin at the cafeteria and rated it 11/10, several points above the heartier meals athletes depend upon.
And as the Games have continued, nothing can keep them apart. In nearly every video he’s made at the Games, the muffin is usually half-eaten, leaving a trail of melted chocolate smeared across Christiansen’s face. They’ve taken in the sunset together, shared discrete liaisons in the athletes’ quarters and toured Olympic Village — in one clip, Christiansen proudly struts through Paris with four chocolate muffins in hand.
Christiansen’s relationship with the chocolate muffin turned sinister in a recent video, in which Christiansen cries and flails, his wrists and ankles bound and his mouth covered with duct tape, as the muffin sits in the foreground, unmoving.
Will Christiansen eventually break the muffin’s chocolatey spell? We’re less than one week in to the Games, so there’s still time for their relationship to sour — or soar to even greater, sugarier heights.
Daniella Ramirez
Team: USA
Sport: Artistic swimming
You may know Daniella Ramirez best from the sound of her hair. Yes, the sound.
The artistic swimmer basically glues her hair flat with so much gel that, when it’s dry, it forms an acrylic-like shell on top of her head — a method that’s great for keeping her hair in place in water sports but challenging to remove when the competition is over. It’s transfixing to watch her peel and crack her hair.
And though Ramirez is a top athlete, she’s also a fan of the biggest stars on Team USA. When LeBron James and Coco Gauff, two of the best to ever play basketball and tennis, respectively, served as flag bearers for Team USA during the Opening Ceremony, Ramirez and her teammates were right behind them in the upper deck, holding their tiny American flags, too.
“We’re matching his freak,” they said in a TikTok, subtly geeking out over James and Gauff before staring ahead at the Seine, flags in hand, as though they were flanking George Washington on the Delaware River.
Erik Shoji
Team: USA
Sport: Men’s volleyball
Shoji is the seasoned veteran among the viral Olympians: Paris is his third appearance at the Games, and he’s likely hungry for another medal (he last made it to the podium in Rio, earning bronze).
Shoji is a libero, the team’s defensive specialist who supports from the back row of the volleyball court, but he’s the team’s best-known player on TikTok. Perhaps his most informative videos are his culinary reviews of the dining hall options — he’s discerning but gracious, often taking into consideration how many hungry athletes the Games have to feed.
He even tried Christiansen’s favorite, the gooey chocolate muffin, and confirmed that the pastry really is “the best thing in the dining hall.”
Tara Davis-Woodhall
Team: USA
Sport: Track and field
Like every Olympian at the Games, runner Tara Davis-Woodhall is thrilled to be living her Olympic dreams — but she’s also keeping it very real about the unglamorous side of being an Olympian.
“Olympic Village struggle part 773,000-400 bajillion,” she started in one video in which she compared the dorm clothing racks to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Nothing works!”
Understandable complaints aside, there is an undeniably sweet element of Davis-Woodhall’s Olympic appearance: She’s sharing it with her husband, Hunter Woodhall, who’s a Paralympian and has earned three medals in track and field. The couple who runs together … medals together?
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