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Team USA Lives Here: Where America's Rio Olympians Are From

Team USA athletes take part in the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics at Maracana Stadium on Aug. 5.
Cameron Spencer
/
Getty Images
Team USA athletes take part in the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics at Maracana Stadium on Aug. 5.

Are any U.S. Olympic athletes from your town? To find out, you can check our listing of Olympians' hometowns and birth cities below, which draws from data we got from Team USA.

The Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., are represented in Rio — but not every American state is: No U.S. athletes said they were from North Dakota, West Virginia or Wyoming.

Of the American team's 554 athletes, 47 were born in other countries — the most came from China and Kenya, which account for five each.

Five states produced nearly half of the Summer Olympic athletes (257 — or 46 percent of the team):

  • California (124 athletes)
  • Florida (39 athletes)
  • Texas (33 athletes)
  • Pennsylvania (31 athletes)
  • New York (30 athletes)
  • Certain sports tend to be strong in particular states: All but one of America's seven badminton players are from California, for instance, where the sport is played by high school teams.

    As member station KCRW has reported, some of the nation's best badminton players emerge from the Orange County Badminton Club, which was founded by player Phillip Chew's grandfather.

    To see what common qualities the U.S. athletes have — from their age to their height — visit our page What Team USA looks like.

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Corrected: August 11, 2016 at 6:00 PM HST
    In a previous version of this story, equestrian athlete Boyd Martin's age was listed as 937 years. He's actually 36. We've switched all age listings to birthdates. Also, golfer Matt Kuchar's school was listed as Georgia Tech University. The school is the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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    Bill Chappell is a writer and editor on the News Desk in the heart of NPR's newsroom in Washington, D.C.
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