You would be hard pressed to find someone more impressive than an Olympian. Years of dedicated training and mental commitment, displays of unimaginable athletic ability and stories of sacrifice across the board. With the closing ceremony drawing a line under the 2024 Olympic games earlier this month, we’ve been reflecting on just how incredible the teams who went to Paris were.
What if we told you that, on top of all the hard work of which you already know, many of the people you saw compete in the 2024 Olympics have also earned business school degrees? Degrees that were squeezed between championships, studies that were crammed on the side, and business schools that introduced athletes to the sports that would change their lives.
Read on to learn about some of the 2024 Olympians that have studied – or are still studying – at some of the world’s most prestigious business schools.
Oliver Wynne-Griffith, Cambridge University Judge Business School, MBA Class of 2021-2022
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Oliver Wynne-Griffith’s rowing success is in his DNA. His great-grandfather competed as part of the Men’s Eight team in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, nearly 90 years before Wynne-Griffith’s Olympic debut at the delayed 2020 Tokyo games.
Rowing was not, however, always the plan: in childhood he dreamed of fame on the rugby pitch, looking up in awe at his idol Alun Wyn Jones. A series of unfortunate shoulder injuries scuppered his plans and led him to rowing, via which he joined Team GB in 2017 and began his Olympic journey.
For Wynne-Griffith, Tokyo was some debut, resulting in the Men’s Eight securing a Bronze medal and in Wynne-Griffith holding on to his spot on Team GB for Paris 2024 – where, competing this time in the Men’s pair, he secured a Silver medal. Tucked into the three short years between these two medal-worthy successes, Wynne-Griffith managed to enroll in and complete an MBA at the prestigious Cambridge University Judge Business School, competing (unsurprisingly) as part of the Cambridge University Boat Club (CUBC) throughout.
Sunny Choi, University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School, Class of 2011
Originally hailing from Queens, Sunny Choi’s time at The Wharton School laid the foundation for her to demonstrate two very different aspects of her talent. First, her corporate expertise, through which she landed a position as Director of Global Creative Operations at Estee Lauder. Second, her breakdancing.
Choi encountered breakdancing during her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied business at The Wharton School. The sport was an instant hit, the perfect blend of artistic expression and physical challenge; Sunny Choi was hooked. Between the years of 2019 and 2022 she participated in three world championships, bagging a silver medal in her first and making the finals in her most recent.
In the Paris 2024 Olympics, Sunny Choi became the first female breakdancer to represent the United States in the Olympics, as the sport hit the Olympic limelight for the very first time.
Olivia Coffey, Cambridge University Judge Business School, MBA Class of 2017-2018
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Olivia Coffey’s rowing resume is long and filled with success. A two-time Olympian, she competed first for USA W8+ in the 2020 Tokyo games, then made the team again in 2024 for the Paris Olympics. She won several international gold medals even before she made it to the Olympics (including the 2018 World Rowing Championships) and rowed the Cambridge University team to victory against Oxford University at the 2018 Boat Race. For Coffey, rowing is in the family, since her father secured a Silver medal for the US Men’s Pair at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
Coffey’s attitude to Olympic success is admirable. Becoming an Olympian, she says, took ten years of six workouts a week, a long-term vision and a commitment to continuously “chugging along.” She earned her MBA from Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge in 2018, with a concentration in finance.
Maddy Price, Duke University Fuqua School of Business, Masters of Management Studies, Class of 2019
Maddy Price’s path to the Olympics was paved with challenges. Aside from the global pandemic through which the world battled, she faced uncertainty in the form of foot surgery and hardship in her family life. Even against these odds, she managed to secure a spot on the Canadian Olympic Team, making her resultant Olympic debut in the Women’s 4x400m Relay. Price ran the second leg of the race, helping her team secure 4th place and missing a podium finish by just six-tenths of a second. In July this year, she qualified for the Canadian team once more, securing her spot in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In interviews, Maddy Price looks back on her time at Duke University as a foundation for the success that would follow. She completed both an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Political Science at the University as well as a Masters in Management Studies at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2019 – and, throughout her whole time there, she ran, completing her MBA during her first year as a professional athlete and placing 5th in the Canadian Olympic Trials while enrolled at the school.
Price dedicates much of her time to mentoring the next generation of female athletes; she is a volunteer coach for Duke’s Track and Field Team.
Matthew Fallon, University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School and School of Engineering & Applied Science, Class of 2025
Matthew Fallon first gained attention for his swimming performance at age 14, around 2016. By 2023, he had made his first international team, securing the Bronze medal in that year’s world championships; in 2024, he qualified for the Paris Olympics, representing the USA team on the 200m breaststroke.
Fallon’s love of swimming was one of the reasons he joined The Wharton School, pulled in by the dual attraction of prestigious business school and fantastic swimming program. In July 2020, he committed to swimming for the University of Pennsylvania, where he set a record as the second fastest freshman in history. His world championship medal and Olympic presence both occurred whilst still a junior at UPenn, where he’s studying Computer and Information Science.
