Former Nebraska women's volleyball star and current Huskers assistant coach Jordan Larson was named Wednesday to her fourth U.S. Olympic team for the Paris Games. She is one of three former Huskers on the team.
Larson, 37, led the Americans to their first Olympic gold medal in women's indoor volleyball at the 2020 Tokyo Games (played in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). She was named MVP and best outside spiker of the Tokyo Olympics.
As a college player, she won an NCAA title with Nebraska in 2006. With Team USA, she won Olympic silver in 2012 and Olympic bronze in 2016. Larson, who grew up in the small town of Hooper, Nebraska, He is nicknamed “The Governor”. “because of her popularity in her home state.
He is an assistant to longtime head coach John Cook at Nebraska, which played in front of a record crowd of 92,003 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, in August. The Huskers then reached the NCAA finals in December, falling to Texas.
Larson is one of eight Olympic veterans on coach Karch Kiraly's team for the 2024 Paris Games.
“Our core group of 25 women's national team players has done a great job over the past few months, preparing to help bring out the best in each person around them, leading up to the Paris Olympics,” Kiraly said. “We are delighted with this group and our program.”
Another former Nebraska player, outside hitter Kelsey Robinson Cook, will be playing in her third Olympic Games. A third former Husker, libero Justine Wong-Orantes (who won an NCAA title in 2015), is competing in her second Olympics.
Also on the Olympic team for the second time are point guard Jordyn Poulter (Illinois), opposite hitters Annie Drews (Purdue) and Jordan Thompson (Cincinnati) and middle blockers Chiaka Ogbogu (Texas) and Haleigh Washington (Penn State, title of the NCAA 2014).
The four first-time Olympians are attackers Kathryn Plummer (Stanford, won NCAA titles in 2016, 2018, 2019) and Avery Skinner (Kentucky, won the Wildcats' first NCAA and SEC titles in 2020), middle blocker Dana Rettke (led Wisconsin to its first NCAA title in 2021) and former Badger Lauren Carlini, who finished her career at Wisconsin in 2016.
Five substitutes were also named, but only one will be selected to accompany the team to Paris and could replace an injured player.
American women have won one Olympic gold medal (2020), three silvers (1984, 2008 and 2012) and two bronzes (1992 and 2016).
The women's Olympic competition schedule and groups will be announced after the 2024 Volleyball Nations League preliminary rounds, which end on June 16. The U.S. women will play their final VNL preliminary round next week in Japan.
