Quick Take
At least five athletes with Santa Cruz County ties are competing in the Paris Olympics this summer. Among them, mountain biker Haley Batten took home silver in a historic win for the U.S. on Sunday.
Five athletes with ties to Santa Cruz County are competing against the world’s best at the Olympic Games this summer in Paris, with one already done with her event and bringing home a medal.
Haley Batten earned a silver medal in the cross country mountain biking event Sunday, representing the highest award ever for an American in that race. Batten, who grew up in Utah, lives in Santa Cruz.
“Nothing like this feeling,” Batten wrote on Instagram after the win. “I’m still taking it all in.”
Other Olympic athletes who name Santa Cruz as their hometown include runner Nikki Hiltz and climber Natalia Grossman who now live in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Salt Lake City, Utah, respectively. Wrestler Dominique Parrish is from Scotts Valley but now lives in Corvallis, Oregon.
Volleyball player Kelsey Robinson is originally from Elmhurst, Illinois, but she and her Santa-Cruz born husband bought a home in Santa Cruz, according to the Sentinel.
Robinson and her team lost to China last Sunday and then beat Serbia on Wednesday. The team is scheduled to compete on Sunday at 4 a.m. PT against host France, aiming to clinch a spot in the Olympic tournament quarterfinals.
The schedules for Grossman, Hiltz and Parrish had yet to be released as of publication time.
Batten’s silver medal didn’t come without complications. During the final lap of the race, Batten rode through a lane meant for stopping for food or bike fixes but didn’t use those services when she went through the lane. Judges found that she violated rules and fined her $565 for not respecting the “instructions of the race organization,” according to the Associated Press. They decided her infraction wasn’t serious enough to disqualify her from the competition.
Batten narrowly defeated Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds to finish second after France’s Pauline Ferrand Prevot glided into first place to earn the gold medal.
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