Meet the star athletes from New York and New Jersey aiming for gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics

metro

summer olympics

by joshua rhett miller and Janet Settembre

Au RevoirNew York – These local athletes are taking their talents to Paris.

From a Queens breakdancing champion to a Montclair rock climber with a heart of gold, New York and New Jersey have a talented home team for the Olympics.

They are excited to showcase their work on the international stage.

34-year-old dancer Sunny Choi said, “I'm so grateful to be able to show the world what we're passionate about as breakers.”

“Breaking was born on the streets of New York's Bronx…We're honored to carry on that tradition.”

With less than 100 days until the 2024 game, let's take a closer look at Choi and four other local heroes.

Sunny Choi, 35 years old, on the rise

The Bayside, Queens, resident quit her demanding job as Estée Lauder's global creative operations director last year to focus on breakdancing, known simply as “breaking,” at this year's first Olympic Games.

It worked.

In November this year, she won gold at the Pan American Games in Chile, securing her spot in Paris.

“My whole journey as a breaker has been about discovering myself and uncovering layer by layer to really get to the core of who I am,” she said.

Raised in Kentucky by a first-generation Korean American, Choi wanted to be an Olympic gymnast as a child, but ultimately chose to pursue a business degree over balance beam. .

It wasn't until she attended the University of Pennsylvania and joined the “Freaks of the Beat” club that she began to break out.

She credits her three brothers for her grit and perseverance.

“When you're young and you're told you can't do something, you try it,” she says. “So when I got interested in breaking, which is a predominantly male-dominated sport, I thought, 'Let's do something that no one else does.' So here I am.”

Jimmer Fredette, 35, 3×3 basketball

3-on-3 basketball was introduced for the first time at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but the U.S. men failed to qualify.

Not so this year. Fredette, a sharpshooting guard from upstate New York, leads a promising team that secured a spot in Paris last November.

His path to the Olympics was a winding one.

Fredette was a star player at Brigham Young University, but his seven years in the NBA were erratic.

In 2016, he joined the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association, where he regained his college ability and won the International MVP award a year later.

From 2022, he began focusing on the 3×3 game, which is played in the half court with one hoop.

He quickly approached success.

“In my opinion, he's the best 3×3 player to ever play,” USA 3×3 men's national team coach Joe Lewandowski said in December. “He's a very nice person.”

Amy Wang, 21 years old, table tennis

When she was only 4 years old, her father, Xiaota Wang, installed three tennis tables in the basement. One for her and one for her two older brothers.

By the age of seven, she competed in her first table tennis tournament in Westfield, New Jersey, and made it to the finals, but lost to her older brother Eddie.

The loss made her practice even more.

“After school, I would take a nap, wake up and practice with my dad for an hour or two, and then do my homework,” Wang told the Post.

At the age of 12, she was selected for the U.S. national team, and along with her father, she became more serious about the sport.

However, the 17-year-old missed out on qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics by just one game.

“We had one game left and we lost. It really killed us,” Wang told the Post. “After that, I thought about quitting table tennis.”

She took a year off to focus on mental health and her studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she is majoring in medical science and minoring in accounting.

She then returned to the sport stronger than ever and won the 2022 and 2023 US Open Women's Singles Championship.

In March she qualified for Paris.

Wang, who wants to become a pediatrician, said, “I'm really happy.'' “Being on the Olympic team is a dream come true.”

Molly Reckford, 31, rowing

The Short Hills, N.J., native has Olympic greatness in her veins.

Her grandfather, Bill Spencer, competed in biathlon in the 1964 and 1968 Winter Olympics and later coached in five Olympics.

“He was a huge inspiration to me,” she said.

Dartmouth graduates practice up to five hours per day while burning as many as 4,000 calories to fuel their bodies during grueling training sessions at Princeton.

At the Tokyo Olympics, she and her partner placed fifth in the women's lightweight double sculls. I'm aiming for a podium this year.

“I often remember my grandfather competing in the Olympics twice, so I felt like coming back to honor him was something I really wanted to do,” she said. “My goal is to go to Paris and have the best race of my life and feel like I left everything behind and found my top speed.”

Jesse Grupper, 27, sport climbing

He has attempted some of the world's most difficult sport climbs (short, intense routes with pre-placed bolts), such as La Rambla in Catalonia.

But Grupper insists he's not a thrill seeker.

“Honestly, roller coasters scare me,” he told the Post. “A lot of people have the perception that climbing is scary, but it's one of the safest sports you can do if you do it right.''

He started playing the sport at the age of 6, when he was very energetic, at the New Jersey Rock Gym in Fairfield, near his family's home in Montclair.

This was followed by regular trips to the Shawangunks Mountains near New Paltz, New York.

“It's been a go-to place for me since I was a kid, and I still enjoy climbing there,” he told the Post.

At the age of 11, he won a gold medal at the USA Climbing Youth Bouldering Nationals and went on to compete on the international rock climbing circuit.

But he has many interests beyond belaying and bouldering. He meditates daily, makes his own granola, learns to play the banjo, loves yoga and listening to music by Mumford & Sons and Abbott His Brothers.

At Tufts University, he majored in mechanical engineering, ran the school's biomechanics club, and found purpose in creating devices to help people with disabilities.

“One of the best things we can do as humans is to push our limits and reach our full potential,” he said. “But I always wanted to do the same for others.”