The largest-ever American Olympic team will be heading over to take part in the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia in February. The team’s final roster of Olympians was announced on Jan. 27 and there were 230 names on it.
It’s also the largest team in Olympic history for any nation. At the other end of the scale, the Mexican Winter Olympic team will consist of one lone skier.
The American squad consists of 125 men and 105 women and the country will be represented in each one of the 15 sporting events that will take place at the Games. There are 98 separate athletic contests in total and the U.S. will have the opportunity to win a medal in 94 of these events.
At the last Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada back in 2010, the U.S. team was made up of 216 athletes. In 2006 the team had 211 members and four years before that there were 202 American competitors on the squad. Back in 1994 in Lillehammer, the Americans sent just 147 athletes in total.
The opening ceremonies in Sochi take place on Friday, Feb. 7 and these are some other interesting facts regarding the American team.
A total of 38 different states will be represented in Russia. Twenty of the athletes hail from California while Minnesota and Colorado are each sending 19 competitors and there will be 18 of them heading over from New York to compete in the event.
The oldest member of the team is 45-year-old Ann Swishelm, who is on the women’s curling squad. The youngest member of the team is a 15-year-old freestyle skier named Maggie Voisin, who is 30 years younger than Swishelm.
However, the average age of the team is 26 years old. The tallest athlete is NHL player Blake Wheeler, a member of the men’s ice hockey team. Wheeler measures at 6-foot-5. The shortest competitors are Marissa Castelli, a figure skater, and short track speed skater Jessica Smith who both stand at 5-feet.
There is a set of twins on the American Olympic roster as Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux both play on the women’s ice hockey team.
There are other siblings heading over to compete as well as Erik and Sadie Bjornsen are both cross-country skiers, Craig and Erika Brown will be competing in curling, Taylor and Bryan Fletcher are Nordic combined athletes, Taylor and Arielle Gold are snowboarders, Alex and Maia Shibutani are figure skaters and NHL star Phil Kessel of the Toronto Maple Leafs and his sister Amanda Kessel will be playing on the men’s and women’s hockey teams respectively.
Seven of the competitors belong to the U.S. Army’s World Class Athlete Program. These include men’s bobsledders Chris Fogt, Nick Cunningham, Steven Holcomb, Dallas Robinson and Justin Olsen along with Matt Mortensen and Preston Griffall who will both be competing in the luge events.
The U.S. won a record 37 medals for a Winter Olympics in 2010 and there’s a good chance they could better that count this time around in Russia.
