After Gretchen Walsh was the dominant social media force of Team USA at the US Olympic Swimming Trials, pulling in 20,000 new followers, it was her butterfly cohort Torri Huske who dominated the rising-stardom at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games among American swimmers.
Huske, who led all American swimmers with 5 Olympic medals, won the 100 fly over Walsh in Paris, picked up a silver in the 100 free, and won three relay medals – including as the hero leg of at least two of those. That combined success, and the ample airtime that went with it, resulted in her picking up over 77,000 new followers on Instagram, an increase of 237% versus her pre-Olympic number.
She was one of five American swimmers who at least doubled their followings at the Olympics – including Gretchen Walsh, who again had a huge jump from 50,100 to 104,000. Others who more than doubled their followers included Anna Peplowski, Chris Guiliano, and Luke Hobson.
While Peplowski’s exposure in the pool as a relay-only prelims swimmer was fairly limited, she put out a lot of creative and entertaining content on social media to grow her following. She did especially well on TikTok, where several videos got millions of views.
The biggest gainers by raw numbers were the swimmers who entered the Games with the most followers, and who based on past Olympic results got most of the NBC love. Katie Ledecky grew her following from 633,000 to 909,000, while on the men’s side, Caeleb Dressel went from 647,000 to 734,000.
Swimmers were more active in building their brands on TikTok during the Olympics than they usually have been (most Team USA swimmers are not active on public TikToks). That’s especially true for the women’s team. For example, Regan Smith now has 54,200 followers on the platform, Kate Douglass has 16,200, Abbey Weitzeil has 30,700, Torri Huske has 10,700, Anna Peplowski has 38,200 and Gretchen Walsh has 20,300.
Women’s Team
| Swimmer | Instagram followers Pre-Games | Instagram followers Post-Games | Total Increase | Percentage Increase | Individual Medals Won |
Relay medals Won
|
|
| Torri Huske | @torri_huske | 32,600 | 110,000 | 77,400 | 237.4% | 2 | 3 |
| Anna Peplowski | @anna_peplowski | 3,685 | 8,963 | 5,278 | 143.2% | 0 | 1 |
| Gretchen Walsh | @gretchwalsh2 | 50,100 | 104,000 | 53,900 | 107.6% | 1 | 3 |
| Katharine Berkoff | @katharineberkoff | 6,734 | 13,000 | 6,266 | 93.1% | 1 | 1 |
| Alex Walsh | @alexwalsh7 | 61,700 | 118,000 | 56,300 | 91.2% | 0 | 0 |
| Kate Douglass | @kaatedouglass | 54,800 | 102,000 | 47,200 | 86.1% | 2 | 2 |
| Claire Weinstein | @claire_weinstein | 8,470 | 14,900 | 6,430 | 75.9% | 0 | 1 |
| Alex Shackell | @alexandrathebeast | 8,629 | 15,000 | 6,371 | 73.8% | 0 | 2 |
| Paige Madden | @paigemadden1 | 16,800 | 27,500 | 10,700 | 63.7% | 1 | 1 |
| Erin Gemmell | @eringemmelll | 4,017 | 6,533 | 2,516 | 62.6% | 0 | 1 |
| Emma Weber | @emmalweber_ | 4,448 | 7,072 | 2,624 | 59.0% | 0 | 1 |
| Katie Ledecky | @katieledecky | 633,000 | 909,000 | 276,000 | 43.6% | 3 | 1 |
| Katie Grimes | @_katie.grimes_ | 36,700 | 49,800 | 13,100 | 35.7% | 0 | 1 |
| Regan Smith | @regansmith4 | 106,000 | 140,000 | 34,000 | 32.1% | 3 | 2 |
| Emma Weyant | @emmaweyant | 48,300 | 58,700 | 10,400 | 21.5% | 1 | 0 |
| Phoebe Bacon | @baconswims | 13,200 | 16,000 | 2,800 | 21.2% | 0 | 0 |
| Abbey Weitzeil | @abbeyweitzeil | 30,700 | 35,000 | 4,300 | 14.0% | 0 | 2 |
| Lilly King | @_king_lil | 144,000 | 153,000 | 9,000 | 6.3% | 0 | 1 |
| Erika Connolly | @ericajadebrown | 22,600 | 23,800 | 1,200 | 5.3% | 0 | 1 |
| Simone Manuel | @swimone | 241,000 | 251,000 | 10,000 | 4.1% | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 1,527,483 | 2,163,268 | 635,785 | 41.6% | |||
| Average | 76,374 | 108,163 | 31,789 |
Men’s Team
| Swimmer | Instagram followers |
Instagram followers Pre-Games
|
Total Increase | Percentage Increase | Individual Medals Won |
Relay medals Won
|
|
| Chris Guiliano | @_chrisguiliano | 6,654 | 13,900 | 7,246 | 108.9% | 0 | 2 |
| Luke Hobson | @luke_.hobson | 3,635 | 7,416 | 3,781 | 104.0% | 1 | 1 |
| Jack Alexy | @jackalxy | 11,600 | 21,800 | 10,200 | 87.9% | 0 | 2 |
| Bobby Finke | @robert_finke | 52,600 | 94,600 | 42,000 | 79.8% | 2 | 0 |
| Nic Fink | @finknic | 25,600 | 42,700 | 17,100 | 66.8% | 1 | 2 |
| Keaton Jones | @keatonjones_swim | 2,163 | 3,321 | 1,158 | 53.5% | 0 | 0 |
| Hunter Armstrong | @hunterarmstrong_ | 18,700 | 28,400 | 9,700 | 51.9% | 0 | 2 |
| Charlie Swanson | @cswanson16 | 2,461 | 3,718 | 1,257 | 51.1% | 0 | 2 |
| Matt King | @matt_king445 | 3,298 | 4,968 | 1,670 | 50.6% | 0 | 1 |
| Carson Foster | @carson24foster | 37,100 | 50,600 | 13,500 | 36.4% | 1 | 1 |
| Aaron Shackell | @aaron_shackell | 6,908 | 8,905 | 1,997 | 28.9% | 0 | 0 |
| Luke Whitlock | @luke.whitlock_ | 2,366 | 2,870 | 504 | 21.3% | 0 | 0 |
| Kieran Smith | @kieransmith | 18,700 | 22,400 | 3,700 | 19.8% | 0 | 1 |
| Josh Matheny | @josh_matheny | 3,655 | 4,341 | 686 | 18.8% | 0 | 0 |
| Thomas Heilman | @thomas_heilman_ | 19,500 | 23,100 | 3,600 | 18.5% | 0 | 1 |
| Ryan Murphy | @ryan_f_murphy | 200,000 | 236,000 | 36,000 | 18.0% | 1 | 2 |
| Drew Kibler | @drew_kibler | 25,000 | 29,300 | 4,300 | 17.2% | 0 | 1 |
| Caeleb Dressel | @caelebdressel | 647,000 | 734,000 | 87,000 | 13.4% | 0 | 3 |
| David Johnston | @davidjohnston14 | 5,789 | 6,452 | 663 | 11.5% | 0 | 1 |
| Ryan Held | @heldilox | 22,700 | 25,100 | 2,400 | 10.6% | 0 | 1 |
| Shaine Casas | @shaine_casas | 31,800 | 35,100 | 3,300 | 10.4% | 0 | 1 |
| Luca Urlando | @lucaurlando | 9,125 | 10,000 | 875 | 9.6% | 0 | 0 |
| Matt Fallon | @mattf196 | 6,017 | 6,569 | 552 | 9.2% | 0 | 0 |
| Brooks Curry | @brooks_010 | 7,975 | 8,557 | 582 | 7.3% | 0 | 1 |
| Blake Pieroni | @blakepieroni | 32,200 | 34,100 | 1,900 | 5.9% | 0 | 1 |
| Chase Kalisz | @chasekalisz | 76,600 | 77,300 | 700 | 0.9% | 0 | 0 |
| 1,279,146 | 1,535,517 | 256,371 | 20.0% | 20 | 52 | ||
| 91,885 | 124,380 | 32,494 |
Only Open Water Swimmers
| Swimmer | Instagram followers | Instagram followers Pre-Games | Total Increase | Percentage Increase | Individual Medals Won |
Relay medals Won
|
|
| Ivan Puskovitch | @swimimp | 2,226 | 3011 | 785 | 35.3% | 0 | 0 |
| Mariah Denigan | @mariahdenigan | 4,099 | 5393 | 1,294 | 31.6% | 0 | 0 |
08/16/2024
U.S. Soccer >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> USA Swimming
When you’re winning on social media, you’re winning in life.
USWNT
Triple Expresso
Pugh, Mallory – 696k
Rodman, Trinity – 470k
Smith, Sophia – 435k
Hot off the press:
https://inside.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/women
How about a dedication?
https://youtu.be/YtXq-v9XoMc?si=t1YBZMdDbknrM023
Torri Huske IG number was boosted by followers from China (or oversea Chinese people) for “bad reason”.
what does this mean
She was targeted by the “purple face” idiots, along with many other high profile non-Chinese swimmers. Basically using crappy screenshots and edited pics to accuse them of doping due to looking flushed after a race
Given her Olympic success, how much NIL money could Torri Huske make in the upcoming season?
Curious – is there anyone on the team who doesn’t have an Instagram? If so, respect to them.
They all have Instagrams. They’d be silly not to. That’s where the money is.
Many don’t have TikTok’s or Twitter/X accounts. They should all have TikToks.
I don’t know what content they could put out to cater to the tiktok algo. Ideally, yes, they’d have a tiktok with high numbers to negotiate brand deals.
some have tik tok and post videos to make money, not necesarily for brand deals
It was great seeing all the US team’s social media engagement over the past few months, Anna Peplowski in particular was very funny/creative! Love seeing the well deserved holidays they’re all on now too, Regan Smith and Kate Douglass’ Turks and Caicos trip has inspired me to finally get around to booking a holiday!
I know the post-Olympics swim news is sparse, but this is really squeezing every last drop. Not worth the bytes.
And you have a problem with that because…?
I’m just feeling grumpy, yelling at the clouds.
Whether you like it or not, social media presence matters a lot in today’s world. Bobby Finke gaining so few followers despite setting a world record and getting silver/gold is concerning to me.
Wait what? He was one of the biggest gainers on Team USA. He went from 52K to 94K – He almost DOUBLED his following and had a bigger follower gain than any other male American swimmer except for Dressel.