From Cal Poly to Paris: Four Mustangs Represent USA at the Olympics
Header image: Taylor Spivey and her teammates on the podium after winning silver. Photo by Getty Images.
As the eyes of the world turn toward Paris and the Olympics this summer, some Cal Poly alumni are strutting their stuff on the court, the course and behind the scenes.
Taylor Spivey, an architecture alumna who graduated in 2014, made her Olympic debut July 31, when she took part in the women’s triathlon. She placed 10th — the top American — and competed in Team USA’s triathlon mixed-team relay on Aug. 4, where she won a silver medal alongside teammates Seth Rider, Morgan Pearson and Taylor Knibb.
Spivey, ranked fourth in the women’s World Triathlon rankings entering the Olympics, was a member of the Cal Poly swimming team from 2009 to 2014. She said that her time as a Mustang helped shape her into the Olympian she is today.
“Being a Cal Poly Mustang distance swimmer while studying architecture was no easy feat,” she said, “but I will forever cherish those moments and all the people who I got to share the highs and lows with. For without them, I wouldn’t have been able to continue to push myself and pursue my goals and become an Olympian.”
Spivey missed out on automatic qualifying for the Paris Olympics by one spot at the 2024 World Triathlon Championships Series in Yokohama in May, placing fourth overall. However, about a month later all that disappointment was wiped away when she learned that she had been selected by USA Triathlon to compete in her first Olympic Games based on her performance over the last two years. Spivey, widely regarded as the most consistent triathlete in the World Triathlon Championship Series, said she felt validated when she was selected to represent the U.S. in Paris after she was left off the Tokyo Olympics team in 2021 despite being ranked No. 1 in the world rankings and third in the Olympic rankings.
“It was a big relief,” Spivey said about being named to the 2024 Olympic team. “After the controversy and disappointment of being left off the Tokyo team, it made this moment even sweeter. I’ve worked very hard for years and … I’ve been in the top four of the world rankings since 2019, so I felt like I earned this Olympic ticket. I was so incredibly happy, it’s truly a dream come true.”
Christopher Blevins, a 2021 graduate, placed 13th out of 36 in the men’s cross-country mountain biking event. It was his second Olympics, and he told local radio station KCBX that he hopes to compete again in 2028. Following his first Olympics appearance in Tokyo, Blevins told Cal Poly Magazine that his Cal Poly courses helped him become a better cyclist, and vice versa.
“The classes I took at Cal Poly that were getting me ready for the real world and working with groups has absolutely helped me be a better athlete and teammate, and the sport of cycling has taught me so much that parallels my education,” he said at the time. “The two are mutually beneficial to each other and that’s been complementing my whole racing career.”
Blevins’ Olympic dreams reach back to his freshman year of college, when he placed a sticky note with the word “Tokyo” on his wall, a reminder to aim for those Olympic games. Blevins, who majored in business administration with a concentration in entrepreneurship, told Cal Poly News in 2021 that he hopes to connect his career as a cyclist to grassroots, community-oriented efforts to get people on bikes.
“I want to work with nonprofit partners to have initiatives and fundraisers for them and host camps to get kids on bikes and share the stoke that I grew up in,” Blevins said at the time. “It’s really what I am called and love to do.”
And on the indoor volleyball court, a Mustang is helping propel the U.S. Men’s National team to success — not as a player, but as a statistician.
Alumnus Nate Ngo, a mathematics major who graduated in 2010, is the team’s technical coordinator, tracking and analyzing statistics and scouting for the team. It’s a role he’s played in three consecutive Summer Olympics and one he prepared for as a student at Cal Poly.
“The things that I'm doing today are exactly the things that I learned to do at Cal Poly," Ngo explained. “I've been fortunate because I've just been in a place where I can take all those things that I've learned and keep evolving and growing in it.”
Ngo began his road to the Olympics taking stats for the Cal Poly Women’s team. He is now one of the top talents in the country in sports analytics for volleyball.
"Nowadays it's a lot more common, and it's really competitive,” explained Ngo. “NFL teams are starting to have more of these positions where they're looking at analytics, and NBA teams too. I think there's a lot of smart people who are vying for these positions. Who doesn't want to work with a professional sports team?”
Seeing students step into this career path and looking back on his own journey into sports analytics has been rewarding, Ngo said. As for his own career, he hopes to help the team compete for at least another few years.
“Especially with the next Olympics being in Los Angeles, hopefully we get to do this again at least one more time on home soil,” he said. “I've been super fortunate to be in the position that I've been in and a lot of it has just been going with the flow. When opportunity comes, just hop on it.”
“Learn by Doing, that's what I've been doing this this whole time,” he added. “And I certainly wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my experience at Cal Poly.”
Behind the scenes, alumnus Manny Bautista is the USA Track & Field Men’s Head Manager at the Olympics. Bautista made his Olympic debut as an assistant manager for the U.S. Track and Field team at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and performed the same role at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Bautista told Cal Poly Magazine in 2021 that his road to the Olympics began in the third grade, when he ran home from school and told his mom he wanted to be a coach. A physical education major while at Cal Poly, Bautista was an All-American in both track and cross-country before graduating in 1982. He went on to coach track and field at Kansas State University and Mesa College in San Diego.
After Tokyo, he told Cal Poly Magazine that the Olympic Village, and the chance to be around athletes from all different countries and sports, was a real highlight of the experience.
“My goal was the Olympic games, and I made it on staff twice,” Bautista said at the time. “It’s just been a great path.”
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