At long last, the Olympic Games have begun — and Massachusetts will be represented by 21 athletes in Tokyo.
You might just see a neighbor if you tune in to the Olympics over the next few weeks.
Athletes who call Massachusetts home are representing the U.S. at the Tokyo games in nine different sports. The state is especially well represented in crew, with eight rowers competing in five different events.
There will also be three from Massachusetts on the track, two (sisters) on the soccer field, two on the rugby pitch, and two on the piste (that’s where fencing happens). And there’s an archer, swimmer, boxer, and diver.
Massachusetts is also home to athletes who are competing for other countries — like rowers Dara Alizadeh for Bermuda and Jakub Buczek for Canada — as well as many others who went to school or have trained here.
Here’s an introduction to the 21 on Team USA who would call themselves Bay Staters, if anyone actually used the term “Bay Staters.”
Jennifer Muciño-Fernandez
Sport: Archery
Discipline: Recurve Archery (Individual, team and mixed team)
Hometown: Boston
More about Jennifer: Jennifer Muciño-Fernandez will be attending her first Olympics at the age of 18, representing Team USA in archery. Muciño was born in Boston and raised in Mexico City. Since age 7, she dreamed of being an Olympian.
Amidst uncertainty during the pandemic, Muciño moved from Mexico City back to Boston to continue chasing her Olympic dreams.
“In Mexico, it was chaos, so if there was a time to go, it was then, so we moved as soon as we could,” she told USA Archery.
In Boston, however, fields remained closed. To adapt, Muciño bought a target from a summer camp and practiced shooting on her balcony from 3 meters away. Her tenacity, Muciño said, comes from her parents.
“If you start something, you need to end it.”
Lindi Schroeder
Sport: Artistic Swimming
Events: Duet
Hometown: Andover
More about Lindi: Andover synchronized swimming athlete Lindi Schroeder will compete in the duets event at the Tokyo Olympics alongside partner Anita Alvarez.
Schroeder told USA Artistic Swimming that she getting nervous before competitions used to affect her performance. But, over time, she’s learned to use her nerves as adrenaline and fuel.
“I’ve learned to use them to my advantage so I compete better than I would in practice,” Schroeder said, “or things come more naturally to me because I’m able to just recognize what they are, be comfortable with them, and greet them happily.”
She and Alvarez won both the technical duet and free duet events in May at the Artistic Swimming World Series.
This will be 19-year-old Schroeder’s first Olympics.
Rashida Ellis
Sport: Boxing
Classification: 60kg
Hometown: Lynn
More about Rashida: Rashida Ellis is a boxer from Lynn gearing up for her Olympic debut in Tokyo.
Her dad made her pick up boxing as a punishment after she began picking fights with boys at school to defend her classmates. But what started as a punishment became a passion.
The 26-year-old has an amateur record of 41 wins and 15 losses and is a medal hopeful in the 60kg weight class. She won the 2016 Golden Gloves, and finished third at the 2019 Pan-American Games and the Elite Women’s World Championships.
“Gold medals all in this pic right here. This is the best female team USA boxing ever had,” Ellis wrote in an Instagram post with her teammates on the last day of training camp in the United States.
Ellis told Olympics.com that she likes to fight with a smile.
“My opponents must think I’m crazy — always laughing and smiling and carrying on. But that’s when I fight my best. When you get too much in your own head you can get lost.”
Michael Hixon
Sport: Diving
Event: Men’s 3-meter synchro
Hometown: Amherst
More about Michael: Diver Michael Hixon, who grew up in Amherst, will be competing in the men’s 3-meter synchro at the Tokyo Olympics.
“From the time I was born, I was on the pool deck,” Hixon said in an interview with USA Diving. His mom was a diving coach at Amherst College and UMass Amherst, and Hixon said he would always spend time at the pool as a kid. His mom would go on to be his diving coach until he began his college career at Indiana.
The 27-year-old picked up a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro with partner Sam Dorman in the 3-meter synchro event. This year, he will be diving with partner Andrew Capobianco.
“You don’t make an Olympic team without a lot of help,” Hixon said. “And you certainly don’t make a second one without even more help. So I'm really grateful to everyone who has played a huge role in it.”
Eli Dershwitz
Sport: Fencing
Event: Sabre (individual and team)
Hometown: Westwood
More about Eli: Returning for his second Olympics, Eli Dershwitz, 25, is one of three Team USA sabre fencers fighting for a medal in Tokyo. Dershwitz is currently the number 2 ranked sabre fencer in the world, and is only one of two U.S. men who have ranked first in the world in sabre fencing.
The Dover-Sherborn High School alum and Harvard University graduate said his brother got him into the sport, and he enjoys the creative and mental aspects of fencing.
"I love how, no matter what you do, your opponent can do something and then you do something else to try and win a touch. No two touches are the same,” Dershwitz told the International Fencing Federation.
In preparation for the Olympics, Dershwitz has been training in Natick alongside fellow Massachusetts native and teammate Andrew Mackiewicz.
Outside of fencing, Dershwitz’s hobbies include hiking, camping and listening to music. He also enjoys basketball, soccer and tennis, and is a big Patriots and Celtics fan.
Andrew Mackiewicz
Sport: Fencing
Event: Sabre (individual and team)
Hometown: Westwood
More about Andrew: Andrew Mackiewicz began fencing when he was eight years old at Zeta Fencing in Natick.
“I just remember I liked 'Star Wars', and I'm still a huge fan,” Mackiewicz told Team USA. “So instead of running around hitting my brother with lightsabers, my parents signed me up for fencing and I've stuck with it ever since."
Now, Mackiewicz, a two-time NCAA National Champion will compete in the Tokyo Olympics. The Westwood native is currently the Number 3 ranked sabre fencer in the United States.
Mackiewicz and Dershwitz both train with coach Zoran Tulum at Zeta Fencing in Natick.
Gia Doonan
Sport: Rowing
Event: Women’s eight
Hometown: Rochester
More about Gia: Gia Doonan, of Rochester, was recruited to rowing as a student at Tabor Academy in Marion, by coach Michael Bentz.
“One of the things that made her so special is she had athletic talent and coordination and was coachable, but she was also always very humble and was always working toward getting better at the next level,” Bentz told GBH News.
Doonan went on to row at University of Texas at Austin, and is now competing in her first Olympics as a member of the women’s eight team.
“Going to the Olympics has been a dream of mine for a very very long time,” Doonan said in a post on Instagram. “It doesn’t stop now. The fight continues. Now we go to Tokyo and fight for the people who didn’t make it but have helped make this team who we are today.”
Conor Harrity
Sport: Rowing
Event: Men’s eight
Hometown: Weston
More about Conor: Conor Harrity of Weston is rowing in his first Olympics in the eight-man boat. Harrity began rowing at Boston College High School and was team captain at Harvard University his senior year.
Harrity spoke about being on Harvard’s team in a 2018 video from Harvard Athletics.
“It means a great deal for me to be a student athlete here,” Harrity said. “It means having a community of guys who are all looking forward to achieve the same goal and are willing to support everyone else.”
Harrity would go on to train for the U.S. Olympic team, and was one of several members of the men’s crew team who contracted COVID-19 last fall. “We were fortunate that our cases were relatively minor and it certainly does reinforce how contagious coronavirus is,” Harrity told the Associated Press.
Cicely Madden
Sport: Rowing
Event: Women’s quadruple sculls
Hometown: Weston
More about Cicely: Cicely Madden of Weston is making her Olympic debut in Tokyo at age 26, rowing in the women’s quadruple sculls.
Madden attended high school at Buckingham Browne and Nichols in Cambridge, and was part of the 8-woman boat that won gold and finished with a course record in the youth eight at the 2010 Head of the Charles.
She set another Head of the Charles course record four years later, when her Brown University team won the "club eight" event.
Madden and Newton native Gevvie Stone qualified for the U.S. in women’s double sculls at the Tokyo Olympics while at the World Championships in Austria in 2019. Stone will compete in that event with Weston native Kristina Wagner, while Madden competes in the four-person boat.
Andrew Reed
Sport: Rowing
Event: Men’s four
Hometown: Wayland
More about Andrew: Andrew Reed of Wayland is competing in his first Olympics in the men’s 4-person boat. Reed’s father, John, told GBH News that the 29-year-old has been focused on this moment for a long time.
“He’s just been dedicated to the idea of making the Olympics,” he said. “I can’t tell you how dedicated he’s been.”
At Harvard University, Reed was part of the 8-man boat that won the 2011 Head of the Charles. Like fellow Olympian rower Alexander Richards, Reed began rowing as a student at Belmont Hill School.
That dream was delayed by the postponement of the 2020 Games. And in October the dream was put in jeopardy when Reed was among several elite rowers to contract COVID-19 himself. His father says Reed was pretty sick and couldn’t train for a month.
“When you’re in an endurance sport, to miss a month is just a terrible setback,” John Reed said.
But Reed worked his way back, beginning with a bike and moving to a rowing machine before getting back in a boat.
“And I would say by January he was back to his full-speed self,” his father said. “It’s just an honor that he made it, and we’re just thrilled for him.”
Alexander Richards
Sport: Rowing
Event: Men’s eight
Hometown: Watertown
More about Alexander: Alexander Richards was coached in crew at the small, private Belmont Hill School — where the coach happened to be his father. Belmont was where Olympic teammate Andrew Reed also got his start.
“He was always big for his age,” Chris Richards said of his son. “Some people hop in a boat and naturally feel the rhythm and swing of the boat.”
Alexander, he said, was one of those people. Richards went on to row at Harvard University, and then qualified for the elite team that competes for a spot in the Olympics. After COVID-19 put a stop to the qualification process in 2020, the additional year of training was hard, Richards’ father said, but may ultimately help the team.
“When it became clear that Alexander had made the boat, the feeling here in our household was not really one of elation at all, it was just relief that the process was over, and it was successful,” Chris Richards said.
On the side, Alexander Richards runs a small clothing and embroidery business called Third String Clothing and is currently applying to medical schools.
Regina Salmons
Sport: Rowing
Event: Women’s eight
Hometown: Methuen
More about Regina: Regina Salmons played a lot of different sports growing up in Methuen.
“I started rowing because I didn’t want to run so much,” she told GBH News. “I was like, ‘Oh, they can’t make me run if I’m in a boat.’”
Salmons would go on to row for the University of Pennsylvania and then several national teams. She was training hard and hoping to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics when the pandemic brought everything to a halt.
Several of her team members in the women’s eight boat were infected. Salmons spent several months training on a rowing machine in her parents’ Methuen living room. When they were able to come back to the training center in July, they could only row in individual sculls. Salmons says it was “amazing” to finally be back in the eight-person boat last November.
“I love my friends, I love my teammates, I love rowing with other and for other people,” she said. “I love pulling for the girl in front of me and the girl behind me. So getting back in the boat was like the best thing ever. It felt like I could breathe again.”
Gevvie Stone
Sport: Rowing
Event: Women’s double sculls
Hometown: Newton
More about Gevvie: Gevvie Stone of Newton is an Olympic veteran, having rowed single sculls in London in 2012 and won silver in the same event in Rio in 2016. This time, Stone has a partner. She and Weston native Kristi Wagner are rowing in the double sculls event in Tokyo.
Stone was on a plane on her way to the Olympic qualifiers in 2020 when the event was canceled because of the pandemic. That meant another year of training for Tokyo.
“The Olympic year is more intense than any other year of the cycle, and it's hard to do it twice,” Stone told GBH News. “So this year definitely took a little bit more perseverance, a little bit more grit, and it really makes it even more exciting to be on this side of things.”
Stone says what she really wants in Tokyo is for her and Wagner to set a personal best on race day.
“And certainly, we hope that earns us a spot on the podium,” she said. “But the primary goal is to apply everything we've learned in training and all these hours and execute and leave it all out there on the water.”
Stone is currently on a leave of absence from her second year as an emergency medicine intern at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and plans to resume her internship after the Olympics.
Kristi Wagner
Sport: Rowing
Event: Women’s double sculls
Hometown: Weston
More about Kristi: Kristi Wagner of Weston is making her Olympic debut rowing in women’s double sculls alongside Gevvie Stone.
“When the Olympics were postponed I saw that as an opportunity for myself and capitalized on it,” Wagner said in an interview with USRowing after she and Stone qualified the Tokyo Games. “Getting in the double has been an awesome opportunity — and learning from Gevvie,” she said. “And can’t wait to keep doing it.”
The 28-year-old was introduced to the sport in middle school, and then rowed for a combined team that included rowers from her own Wayland High School and nearby Weston High School. She went on to row for Yale University before qualifying for the U.S. national team.
Madison Hughes
Sport: Rugby
Position: Sevens
Hometown: Lancaster
More about Madison: Madison Hughes is the captain of the USA Men’s Rugby Sevens team. The 28-year-old was born in Lancaster, Mass., and began playing rugby as a seven-year-old attending school in England. He continued with the sport through college, returning to New England to attend Dartmouth College.
Hughes’ second trip to the Olympics comes after 18 months of hard work during a global pandemic.
“We've been looking forward to the Olympics for a long time,” Hughes told GBH News. “And so to finally be here and to be settling in, and getting acclimatized to the time and the climate, it's incredibly exciting.”
In Tokyo, Hughes is looking to get on the podium. The team plans to take things step by step.
“We know that we're capable of beating every team we play against,” Hughes said, “so that's our expectation. That's our goal.”
Kristi Kirshe
Sport: Rugby
Event: Sevens
Hometown: Franklin
More about Kristi: Kristi Kirshe will tell you: rugby found her “pretty late in life.” The 26-year-old started playing after graduating from Williams College, where she was on the soccer team and majored in political science.
“I was working at a law firm, was working a 9-to-5 job, and I just missed competing so much,” she told GBH News from Mimasaka, Japan. After hearing Kirshe’s complaints, a friend from high school suggested that she pick up rugby — and kept suggesting it for months while Kirshe kept brushing her off. She went to her first (“terrifying”) practice in February 2018 and stuck with it, learning the new sport from the ground up and, just over three years later, is taking her talents to Tokyo.
To have a chance to compete in the Olympics meant dropping everything and moving out to California. “Playing in the Olympics had been something I'd dreamed about since I was a little kid, especially, like, I really wanted to go for soccer. And it was a dream that I kind of had given up once I was in high school and realized that that path wasn't going to happen for me,” Kirshe said. “So getting a second chance at that, I was like, ‘Absolutely, I'm all in,’ no hesitation. It was a scary decision, but it was the easiest one I've ever made.”
But playing in Tokyo for her — and her teammates — isn’t just about trying to bring home medals for the sake of it. “We're really hoping that having a great performance this summer means that we get to grow rugby in America,” Kirshe said. “And we're really excited to carry that with us.”
Kristie Mewis
Sport: Soccer
Position: Midfield
Hometown: Hanson
More about Kristie: Kristie Mewis came roaring back onto the national women’s soccer scene in 2020.
Mewis worked her way back from an ACL tear in 2018. The 30-year-old rejoins the upper echelons of international competition as the only team member to not play in the 2019 World Cup.
Despite the setbacks, the injury reignited a fire to push the limits of her potential.
“It was just one of those things that I kind of had to realize it for myself, that I still wanted all of these things and I still wanted to be on the national team,” Mewis told the Associated Press. “I still wanted to go to a major tournament. I still wanted to just be the best player I could possibly be. And I think I was just ignoring that for a while.”
Mewis will be competing alongside her younger sister Sam, also a midfielder for Team USA. The elder Mewis has been playing for the Houston Dash since 2017 and helped the club kick its way to victory in NWSL Challenge Cup last year.
Sam Mewis
Sport: Soccer
Position: Midfield
Hometown: Hanson
More about Sam: Sam Mewis keeps racking up wins.
The so-called “Tower of Power,” clocking in at 6 feet tall, played in France in the World Cup two years ago when the U.S. team clinched the victory. In 2020, Mewis was voted the U.S. soccer female player of the year. The 28-year-old is now back with the North Carolina Courage after a year with Manchester City.
The midfielder scored in one of the World Cup matches against Thailand, a dream — she told Jim Braude on Boston Public Radio in 2019 — that she didn’t even realize she had.
“Obviously, you dream about playing in a World Cup — I almost never dreamed so big that I would score,” Mewis said.
Sam and Kristie will be the first sister duo to compete on the women’s Olympic team.
The two idolized Mia Hamm when they were kids, and Mewis recalled watching the U.S. women’s team victory in 1999.
“It was so cool to see that, and to see the representation of women playing soccer at that level, playing on the world stage — winning,” she said. “There was 90,000 people at that game, at the Rose Bowl, so just seeing then — that was 20 years ago — and seeing what it’s become, but that really, kind of, started this whole movement.”
Heather MacLean
Sport: Track & Field
Event: 1500m
Hometown: Peabody
More about Heather: 25-year-old Heather MacLean grew up in Peabody with her seven siblings. After hopping around sports through childhood, the first-time Olympian started running for her high school’s track & field team as a junior.
She hasn’t stopped running yet, despite challenges such as persistent bouts of pneumonia at UMass Amherst.
“I know that without all that stuff I had to go through, I might not be here today,” she told Boston.com. “It’s made me resilient, and hopefully it can inspire somebody one day who might be in a similar position and might be questioning whether or not they should go after that passion.”
MacLean was the first person in her family to go to college, where she went on to gain a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree.
“We knew she could make this team if she ran smart, and she ran the most brilliant race I think I’ve ever seen tonight, so I’m just ecstatic,” her coach Mark Coogan said after she qualified for the Olympics.
Molly Seidel
Sport: Track & Field
Event: Marathon
Hometown: Boston
More about Molly: 27-year-old Molly Seidel is making her Olympic debut in Tokyo, but she's been making a name for herself in the running world for a decade.
She was the first woman to win the national cross country championships in both high school and college, taking home the titles for her Wisconsin high school and Notre Dame. After a litany of injuries through college, Seidel devoted time to getting — and staying — healthy.
“More than anything I’m so grateful the Games are actually happening and that they’re finally here,” she told GBH News. “Even though COVID has been one of the biggest global challenges we’ve seen in our lifetime we can overcome and get back to doing what we love.”
In the leadup to the Olympic trials, she was working in a coffee shop and babysitting in Boston before spending two months training in Flagstaff, Ariz. Seidel told her co-workers at the coffee shop that she had qualified for the Olympic trials, she told the New York Times, “and they were excited, but they’re also like, ‘You’re a nerd who runs.’”
At the trials, in February 2020, she placed second. It was the first marathon she had ever run.
Gabby Thomas
Sport: Track & Field
Events: 100m, 200m, 4x100-meter relay
Hometown: Northampton
More about Gabby: Gabby Thomas hasn’t gotten to her first Olympics yet but she’s already breaking records. She set the fastest 200-meter trials time when she qualified in June, which also made her favored to take home gold in this year’s Games.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m just getting started,” she said in a recent Instagram video.
Thomas graduated from Harvard in 2019 (where she also set several school records) and, off the track, she’s now studying epidemiology at the University of Texas.
“I was raised by a single mom. She made me do track in middle school. I just stuck with it,” she said. “I've always wanted to be an actress and be a singer... and it just goes to show, you never know what’s going to happen in life.”
