Oldest, Youngest, Zodiacs, and Birthday Twins on the 2024 US Olympic Swim Team

Luke Hobson and Chris Guiliano are not twins, but they do share a birthday! Both swimmers were born in June 25, 2003, marking a momentous day in the history of American middle-distance swimming as the two male representatives on the US Olympic Swim Team for the Paris 2024 Games.

Hobson and Guiliano are a demonstration of the birthday paradox, where if you gather just 23 people, there is already a greater than 50% chance of at least two sharing a birthday (though that accounts for only the month and date, not the year). At over twice as many, 48 including open water swimmers, the odds climb even higher – about a 95% chance.

Overall, they are part of a youth trend in American men’s swimming. Perhaps a bit obscured by a few veterans on the team like 30+ year olds Nic Fink and Chase Kalisz, most of the Olympic Swim Team this year is under the age of 23.

All ages based on the date of the opening ceremony, July 26, 2024

Means & Medians

• The average age of the whole team is 23 years, 140 days
• The average age of the men’s team is 23 years, 277 days, which is the youngest men’s team we’ve seen in a long time (thanks in part to the first two high schoolers to qualify since Michael Phelps). In 2021, the average age was 24 years and 87 days; in 2012, the team was 26 years and 96 days old on average, with a group of older swimmers (Held and Murphy are 29, Kalisz and Fink are 30 and 31, respectively) dragging the average up.
• The median of the men’s team is 23 years, 28 days
• The average age of the women’s team is 22 years, 288 days. The women’s team’s average age has stayed remarkably stable; while this is slightly older than all of the teams we’ve seen since 2012, all of the teams have averaged about 22 years.
• The median of the women’s team is similar to the mean at 22 years, 167 days

Zodiac Signs

In a trend that has happened way too often to be a coincidence, the two most common zodiac signs on the US team are Pisces (9 swimmers) and Aquarius (7 swimmers), represented by the fish and the water bearer. Pisces was the most common zodiac sign in 2012 and the second-most common in 2016 (behind Leo).

There is a pretty consistent distribution of birthdays throughout the year (though nobody on the team was born in April)

In another “what is going on here?” scenario, for the second straight Olympics, Wednesday was the most common day of the week for US Olympic Swimmers to be born.

Holiday Babies

Katie Ledecky will again bring the luck of St. Patrick to Team USA – her March 17th birthday is celebrated around the world as St. Patrick’s Day.

Shaine Casas was a Christmas baby, having been born on December 25, 1999.

There are

Oldest to Youngest

At 31 years and 23 days, Nic Fink is 23 days younger than Allison Schmitt was at the start of the 2021 Olympics. Schmitt was the oldest member of that year’s team.

Simone Manuel at 27 years, 358 days is the oldest member of this year’s women’s team – a significant shift from where Schmitt carried that torch in 2021.

Claire Weinstein and Thomas Heilman, both 17 and born about a month apart, are the youngest members of Team USA for the Paris Olympics. They are both almost two years older than Katie Grimes was at the 2021 Olympics where she was the youngest swimmer at 15 years, 190 days.