Kentucky Wildcats sports had a fun year in 2024. Here are some of the best pictures of the Wildcats this past year.
It was an interesting year for Kentucky Wildcats sports. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was definitely interesting. Kentucky basketball and Kentucky football were the headliners, both good and bad, but other sports certainly garnered their share of the news.
The Wildcats basketball team went through a coaching change, saying goodbye to John Calipari, and hello to a fan favorite former player. The women’s team also made a change, and both seem to have worked out so far.
It was Kentucky baseball that had the deepest postseason run, playing their way all the way to Omaha. Meanwhile, some former Wildcats had huge success at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Fall brought football, but things did not go as planned on the gridiron, and the new basketball season quickly stole the attention of fans.
Overall, it was a fun year, with both highs and lows. Here are the best photos of Kentucky sports from 2024:
Every so often, sport delivers a storyline that hits so perfectly it feels more Hollywood than raw competition.
A solitary champagne bottle lay chilled in a bucket of ice near the 18th green. To the right, three more bottles lined up in the grass. To the left, a bouquet of red and white roses.
When Lydia Ko’s approach shot on the first playoff hole at the Drive On Championship last January came to rest right next to those flowers beneath the grandstand at Bradenton Country Club, it was a cruel foreshadowing of what was to come.
Ko, who got relief from the flowers, ultimately lost the Drive On title to hometown favorite Nelly Korda, who went on a tear of epic proportions to start 2024. But Ko, the player on the cusp of entering what’s considered the toughest Hall of Fame in any sport, needed one more victory to take her place among golf’s most legendary players.
Alas, she’d have to wait. The flowers and champagne went to someone else.
As commentators began to draw up the perfect scenario for Ko to enter the Hall, the Paris Olympics seemed the most fitting place.
Why? For starters, Ko already owned the silver and bronze medals, and needed only gold to compete the set. No one has gushed more about what the Olympics has meant to golf as much as Ko. She viewed a third appearance in the Summer Games as an important milestone.
ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND – AUGUST 24: Lydia Ko of New Zealand plays a shot during Day Three of the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews Old Course on August 24, 2024 in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Ross Parker/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
Every so often, sport delivers a storyline that hits so perfectly it feels more Hollywood than raw competition. But Ko’s emotional victory at the Paris Olympics proved exceptionally fitting for a career that has rewritten history books and captured fans the world over.
Ko felt like she was living in a fairy tale.
“I woke up, like, was that a dream? Did that just really happen?” said Ko, who pulled an all-nighter after she won and crashed on Sunday.
To win an Olympic gold medal and enter the Hall of Fame on the same day is a feat that, like many records in Ko’s career, might never be matched.
While it looked for a while on Saturday at Le Golf National that it would be a runaway victory, the fight for Ko’s 27th Hall of Fame point went down to the wire on what she called the most difficult Olympic test yet. She won by two over Germany’s Esther Henseleit with a birdie on the 72nd hole.
After the medal ceremony in France, LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan presented Ko with 27 white roses.
“Did I imagine that I was going to do it at the Paris Olympics? Probably not,” said Ko. “But this is definitely the coolest way to do it. You know, not going to lie, I was gutted when I lost in the playoff in Bradenton.”
Gold medalist, Lydia Ko of Team New Zealand reacts on the podium during her national anthem in the Women’s Individual Stroke Play Medal Ceremony on day fifteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Le Golf National on August 10, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Ko became the 35th player to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame and the first since Inbee Park in 2016. Lorena Ochoa got in two years ago after the tour removed the stipulation that required 10 years on tour, but she reached 27 points in 2008. Ko became the 25th player to reach 27 points. Nine women were inducted as honorary members (eight LPGA founders and beloved entertainer Dinah Shore).
How tough is it to get into the LPGA Hall? Consider that legends like Laura Davies, Hollis Stacy, Sandra Palmer and Dottie Pepper aren’t in it.
One of the biggest questions surrounding Ko’s victory in Paris was what comes next for the 27-year-old. Would she retire on the spot or later this year?
That former turned out not to be the case as she went straight from Paris to Scotland and, two weeks later, claimed her third major championship victory and 21st LPGA title at the AIG Women’s British Open. That she accomplished the feat over the Old Course seemed appropriate given Ko’s place in the history of the game.
Would she retire right there on the Swilcan Bridge?
Lydia Ko of New Zealand tees off on the 18th hole during Day Three of the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews Old Course on August 24, 2024, in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Luke Walker/Getty Images)
Nope. After a brief break – that included a celebratory dinner made by renowned chef Thomas Keller – she’s back in action at this week’s Kroger Queen City Championship in Maineville, Ohio.
So much life has transpired for Ko since she earned her first LPGA Hall of Fame point as a 15-year-old wunderkind. Now married and perhaps on the verge of retirement, the Kiwi’s path to the Hall has been anything but straight. While she became the youngest to ever enter the LPGA Hall under its current criteria at age 27, it somehow still felt like a long wait for a player who won twice on tour before she even turned professional.
“Her career is definitely very rare,” said LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Karrie Webb, “and the fact that she’s had not just — she’s had some pretty big dips in her career, and she’s managed to reinvent herself and come back and win again. That’s a testament to her will and strength of mind to do that.”
As Ko enters the final leg of her 11th season on the LPGA, it’s difficult to imagine that she feels much pressure – other than to decide how much longer she wants to compete.
The 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics were a huge success. The 2028 LA Olympics are next up for the Summer Games. Relive the magic of 1984.
The people who follow and cover the Olympic Games are calling the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics a rousing success. After the pandemic Olympics of Tokyo (summer of 2021) and then Beijing (winter of 2022) were played before less-than-capacity crowds at a lot of venues, the Olympics needed to feel big again. The Olympics needed huge crowds and a jolt of enthusiasm to capture the popular imagination once again. Paris, in the eyes of most — including longtime sports commentators Bob Costas and Al Michaels — made the Olympics feel big again. The Paris Summer Games felt like a restorative event for the Olympics as a whole. Costas made the comparison between Paris 2024 and the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics as an event which rejuvenated the Olympics. Costas explained that after the terrorist attack at Munich 1972, the budgetary disaster of Montreal 1976, and the boycott of Moscow 1980, the Olympics needed a boost in 1984. Los Angeles delivered it.
Now that Los Angeles is next up for the Summer Olympics in 2028, there’s no better time to relive the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games. Go back in time with this expansive gallery from our photo archives:
It was a great run, but it has come to an end. Angela Dugalic, UCLA’s forward on the women’s basketball team scored 14 points in 22 minutes, but it was not enough. Team Serbia was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the 2024 Olympic Women’s Basketball tournament.
Dugalic did not start, but played the third-most minutes, and took the most shots on the team. She was 6 for 12 from the field, including a pair of three point shots made. She added 6 rebounds and 2 assists to her 14 points.
The leading scorer for Serbia was Jovana Novic, with 17. Australia mostly led from start to finish, with a 48-32 lead at halftime, and 72-48 after three quarters.
Australia was the first to move to the Semi-Finals of the Olympics. They will play on Friday for a chance to get to the gold medal game.
Dugalic announced in April that she would be returning to UCLA for her fifth season with the Bruins. Head coach Cori Close is excited to have her back on campus soon, and ready for the 2024-2025 season.
The UCLA Bruins Water Polo team is well represented in the 2024 Summer Olympics. They have a trio of players heading to the semi final round.
It has been an exciting ride for the United States Men’s Water Polo squad, especially for a trio of UCLA Bruins athletes. Max Irving, Ryder Dodd and Chase Dodd are heading to the semifinals for the first time since 2008. They came from behind to win their match on Wednesday, 11-10 over Australia.
Irving is a 29-year-old who was part of the 2023 World Cup team. He plays his club water polo for Brescia, Italy. Ryder Dodd is 18 years old and will be a star with the Bruins once the Olympics are complete. Chase, his older brother had an outstanding season in 2022 for the Bruins. He scored 39 goals and had a career-high four in a single game against Stanford.
The 2024 version of the Bruins will start at the Triton Invitational in La Jolla on September 7th.
The UCLA Men’s Water Polo team has been very strong. They have won 12 national titles, while the women’s program at UCLA has 8 titles.
The @USAWP men are headed to the Olympic 𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐒 for the first time since 2008.
Mariajo Uribe originally planned to retire after the Tokyo Olympics thre years ago. But then she got pregnant in the midst of a global pandemic and by the time she got to Japan, six months postpartum, she didn’t feel that her game was ready for the moment.
“We didn’t really want to end my career that way,” said Uribe, who took a share of 50th in Tokyo.
So the family decided to give Paris a shot, and the exuberant player boldly told the world of her plans. Now she’s in contention to win a medal for Colombia, a country that to date has two medals at the 2024 Olympics, both silver.
“I like taking risks,” Uribe told Golfweek earlier this summer. ” I’ve always been that way. I’m happy it paid off.”
Playing with smiley-faced socks she bought on Amazon and mismatched shoes, Uribe sits just two shots outside of a medal position through three rounds. Switzerland’s Morgane Metraux, a player who has never won on the LPGA, holds a share of the lead with the winningest player in the field, Lydia Ko. The Kiwi needs a gold medal to complete her Olympic set, having won silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo. A victory Saturday would put Ko in the LPGA Golf Hall of Fame, though Uribe’s story might be just as compelling.
Uribe, who won the 2011 HSBC Brazil Cup, an unofficial LPGA event, sits alone in a share of sixth at 5 under, four shots back of the leaders. It’s third or nothing this week, she said, which gives her an excuse to play aggressively.
“I think if anything, I’m an underdog this week,” said Uribe. “No one expecting me to win a medal.”
One of four mothers in the field in Paris, Uribe traveled the 2022 season with son Lucca but struggled with her game. Plus, Lucca wasn’t really enjoying the grind of the road, with most activities confined to indoors.
The 2007 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion returned to Q-Series last December and though she finished high enough to earn her card, she wasn’t getting into enough LPGA events early on. So Uribe decided to ask for sponsor exemptions on the LET and, traveling alone, won in her first start at the NSW Women’s Open. She tied for third in Germany and worked her way into the Paris field of 60, just as she’d planned.
At age 34, Uribe once said she’d never play on tour with kids. Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa, who retired at age 28, was a role model for Uribe, who knew her personality would make it hard to both roles. But she’s glad it’s worked out this way. She can share this joy with Lucca and the rest of her family, and though she’s in the field for the AIG Women’s British Open at St. Andrews in two weeks, she won’t be there.
Saturday in Paris is Uribe’s last round. Her husband, Oscar, has been with her for 15 years, and the focus has always been on her career. Now it’s his turn.
As for what’s next after Saturday, Uribe said she’s eager to become a stay-at-home mom. Maybe they’ll try to have another child.
“I’m not in a rush to find another career,” she said.
Lyles wasn’t the only Olympian to compete in Paris after coming down with COVID-19.
Noah Lyles didn’t look like himself on the track Thursday at the finals of the men’s 200 meter race at the 2024 Paris Olympics. He finished in third place in his signature event, then needed a wheelchair to help him leave the track.
Moments after the race had ended, we learned why. Lyles had tested positive for COVID-19, the illness that had spurred a global pandemic four years earlier. It was an announcement that created mixed responses.
Some marveled at the American’s ability to find a place on the podium while fighting a respiratory virus. Others wondered why he’d been unable to compete after participants in the last Games, just three years earlier, had their Olympic hopes dashed after contracting COVID.
Noah Lyles confirmed he tested positive for COVID at 5am Tuesday morning Paris time. He “kept this close to the vest.” Didn’t want competitors to know he was sick. His mom, medical staff knew he had it. He quarantined at a hotel the last few nights. He was going to run regardless pic.twitter.com/ekIGhxmPvp
It turns out, the 2024 Olympics doesn’t have a protocol for COVID-19.
Lyles wasn’t the first athlete to compete with COVID
The first cases of COVID at the 2024 Paris Olympics, per USA Today’s Carrie McDonald, were members of Australia’s women’s water polo team. But since the Games no longer have specific rules and regulations related to the virus, their illness was treated like any other respiratory affliction.
“I need to emphasize that we are treating COVID no differently to other bugs like the flu,” said Australian Olympic team chief Anna Mears. “This is not Tokyo. The athlete is not particularly unwell and they are still training but sleeping in a single room.”
“We have our respiratory illnesses protocol in place and we have reinforced with all of the teams as they arrive into our village. Two basic rules around that really simple hygiene practices are effective. And if you are feeling unwell or have any symptoms, get tested.”
As such, the onus was shifted onto the athletes themselves to determine if they were well enough to compete. There are no temperature checks, mask mandates or mandatory testing. Competitors who feel ill are encouraged to self test, but the decision is theirs. The official Olympics literature for athletes at this year’s Games is scant and offers little in the way of official guidelines.
That makes a place like the Olympic village, where athletes are in close quarters with one another, an easy place for infection to spread. That applied to Lyles, who made the call to run the 200m despite his positive test and an illness that, by the time he’d finished the final, had forced him to be wheeled off the track.
World No. 1 Nelly Korda, the 2020 gold-medal winner, highlights the field along with France’s own Celine Boutier, a major champion and six-time winner on tour.
However, there is plenty of star power within shouting distance that could make the final round interesting.
England’s Tommy Fleetwood is one back, Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama is three back and Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, America’s Scottie Scheffler and Korea’s Tom Kim are four back.
Le Golf National is a par-71 track measuring 7,174 yards.
From tee times to TV and streaming information, here’s everything you need to know for Sunday’s final round of the 2024 Olympic men’s golf competition. All times ET.
