Reflections on the 2024 Paris Olympics

Guillaume Bodet, PhD, is a Sport Marketing and Management professor at the University of Lyon 1in the UFR STAPS (School of Sport Sciences) Lyon1, where he directs the Master’s program in Sport Management. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa (Canada). He leads the Laboratory on Vulnerability and Innovation in Sport (L-VIS). He is a Société Savante de Management du Sport (S2MS) board member in France and edits the academic journal Management & Organisations du Sport (MOS). His research focuses on sports marketing, branding, and consumer behavior. He published on the London 2012 Olympics legacies and produced many important works, including Sports Brands and The Routledge Handbook of Sport Management. He is an accomplished team handball player.

Aleah Finnegan, OLY, is a national champion with the LSU gymnastics team and represented The Philippines at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She was crowned the 2024 NCAA Floor Champion after posting a score of 9.9625. The title was the first of her career, joining her sister, Sarah, as the only sibling duo to own individual national championships in LSU history. She has recorded perfect 10 scores on the floor, beam, and vault at NCAA events. She holds 22 individual gymnastics titles during her first three years at LSU. She was Pan-American Games Champion on the USA team, which she represented between 2019 and 2021. In 2022, representing The Philippines, she won a bronze medal in the vault at the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championship.

Francis Dish, LSU Reveille

Brandon Gallego, LSU Athletics

Maggie Mac Neil, OLY, is one of Canada's most accomplished swimmers all-time. She is a three-time Olympic medalist, winning the gold medal for the 100-meter butterfly at the Tokyo Olympics and silver and bronze medals as part of the 4x100 free and 4x100 medley teams. She was named the Best Female Athlete of Tokyo 2020 by the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC). She is also an eight-time World (long course) medalist, eleven-time World (short course) medalist, five-time Commonwealth medalist, and Pan-American Games Champion. She currently holds the short-course 50-meter backstroke and 100-meter butterfly world record. At LSU in 2022-23, she was the 50-yard free National Champion and earned silver in the 100-fly and bronze in the 100-free. She was a five-time SEC Champion (100-Fly, 50-Free, 200-Free Relay, 100-Free, 400-Free Relay) and earned SEC Swimmer of the Week four times. She was named SEC Female Swimmer of the Meet at the SEC Championships and earned the Commissioner’s Trophy for being the top points scorer. Her autobiography Perseverance: From Pandemic to Podium will be published in 2025.

Vernon Norwood, OLY, is an Olympic Champion, winning gold medals at the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games and a silver and bronze medal. He has won six titles at World Athletics Championships (outdoors, indoors, and relays), running over his main distance of 400 meters as part of successful USA relay teams (men’s and mixed) and once at the 4x200 meter distance. He also won gold in the individual 400 meters at the 2016 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships and silver at the 2023 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. At LSU, he swept the NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor titles in the 400-meter dash during his senior season in 2015. He also became the 14th sprinter in collegiate history to sweep NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor titles in the 400-meter dash (or 440-yard dash) in the same season. During his career, he anchored the Tigers to a pair of NCAA titles in the 4×400-meter relay, with wins indoors in 2014 and outdoors in 2015. He ended his college career as a four-time NCAA Champion, eight-time All-American, and nine-time All-SEC sprinter in just two seasons at LSU in 2014 and 2015. He is from Morgan City, Louisiana. He is a volunteer assistant coach with the LSU track and field program.

LSU Athletics

Dennis Shaver is one of the most successful track and field coaches of all-time having served as LSU’s head coach since 2004 after being our assistant coach from 1996. In total he has coached 34 Olympians, twelve of whom have won Olympic medals. He has coached 69 NCAA champion athletes who have amassed a total of 80 NCAA titles between them as well as leading 26 relay teams to NCAA championships. He his athletes have an astounding total of 643 All-American honors over his 40 years of coaching. He also has coached105 SEC Champion athletes winning 191 SEC event titles between them while having 508 athletes selected as SEC Academic Honor Roll athletes. He was the 2008 & 2012 NCAA Women’s Outdoor Coach of the Year, the 2020 NCAA Women’s Indoor Coach of the Year, the 2021 NCAA Men’s Outdoor Coach of the Year, 7-time SEC Women’s Coach of the Year, 2019 SEC Men’s Coach of the Year, 5-time USTFCCCA Women’s South Central Region Coach of the Year. Some of the marquee athletes he has coached include Sha’Carri Richardson, Aleia Hobbs, Vernon Norwood, Richard Thompson, Xavier Carter, Kimberlyn Duncan, Mondo Duplantis, Favour Ofili and many more. For a full record of all his many accomplishments, click here.

Roland Mitchell is dean of the College of Human Sciences & Education and the E.B. "Ted" Robert Professor at LSU. He has authored six books and numerous other scholarly works that have appeared in leading educational journals. He is the co-editor of the award-winning The Crisis of Campus Sexual Violence. He serves as the director of the Louisiana Summit on African American Male Educational Success and is an advisory board member of the Louisiana Department of Children & Family Services. For his ongoing service to meet the needs of underrepresented populations in education, he has been awarded the David A. Kahn Award for Exemplary Service, by the Baton Rouge Youth Coalition. Dr. Mitchell received his BA in History from Fisk University and his MEd in Higher Education from Vanderbilt University. He then went on to earn a PhD in Educational Research from The University of Alabama.

John Nauright, PhD is director of the School of Kinesiology and Karen Wax Schmitt and Family Professor at LSU. He has thirty years of experience in academic writing, teaching, and publishing, with a PhD from Queen's University in Canada. He was born in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, is a dual US/Australian citizen, and has lived and worked in eight countries. Recognized internationally and awarded multiple times for research excellence, he has authored and edited 27 books and over 150 articles, book chapters, and other refereed publications. His four-volume work Sports Around the World: History, Cultures and Practice was named a Best of Reference work for 2012. He has published widely on Olympics-related topics, most recently on Beijing as the only dual-Olympic City. His current research focuses on the incredible expansion of interest in women’s elite sports. He is the founder of the LSU Women’s Sports and Health Initiative. He also directs the Global Rugby Leadership Institute and serves as a visiting professor and board member for sports organizations around the world.