LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — 22 current or former University of Kentucky athletes floated down the Seine during the opening Olympic ceremony on Friday.
“It’s hard to imagine a place like Lexington, Kentucky can have such an impact on a world stage, so yes, it’s a great source of pride,” said UK Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart on Friday morning before the ceremony.
UK will be well-represented in sports from men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, track & field, and fencing, as medical student Lee Kiefer is the reigning gold medalist in the latter.
It’s been a long off-season for Barnhart, who had to hire two basketball coaches, so it sounds as if he’s ready to decompress and enjoy the games for the next 2 ½ weeks.
“We’ll be watching. It’s a unique, very special group of athletes and coaches that get the opportunity to do what they’re doing for the next 2 ½ weeks,” he said. “I want them to treasure it because these are the moments you’ll tell your children about,” he added.
Barnhart did not dismiss the impact something like this could have on the university as a whole. Every time a UK athlete performs, an announcer somewhere in Paris is likely to say that he/she is from the University of Kentucky.
“It is good for the University of Kentucky, there’s no question about that. It just talks about the depth of our programs in terms of what we have, what we offer, and the things our coaches have built over time,” he added.
“To be able to watch some of our student-athletes (in the Olympics) and point to our current student-athletes and say, ‘this is what it looks like on the highest level, if you do what you came here to do, this is where you can be, so I think the Olympics is a great, great lead-in to our year here,” Barnhart added.
