Many Olympics lovers learn that their favorite athletes love Jesus through social media posts or postgame interviews following their success on the field, court, or track or in the pool. But the overwhelming majority of Christians competing in the Games won’t end up on the podium.
For many, simply arriving at the Games will be a testament to overcoming injuries, mental health challenges, or grief due to the loss of loved ones. Below are the stories of Christian athletes from 13 sports and 20 nations, all eager to make their countries—and their Lord—proud.
With reporting by Annie Meldrum, Isabel Ong, Angela Lu Fulton, Franco Iacomini, Mariana Albuquerque, and Morgan Lee.
Badminton
Anthony Sinisuka Ginting (Indonesia)
Known as badminton’s “Giant Killer” for defeating the sport’s greatest stars, Anthony Sinisuka Ginting took home the bronze medal for men’s badminton singles in Tokyo. This year, he’s headed back to the Olympics with fellow Indonesian and Christian badminton player Jonathan Christie.
Ginting was born in Cimahi in West Java and is of Karo ethnicity, a people group from North Sumatra where Christians make up 70 percent of the population. His father introduced him to badminton when he was five, and he started competing at age nine. Since then, he has medaled or won in numerous competitions.
On his Instagram account, Ginting isn’t shy about his faith. In a post from March, he noted finishing second to Christie at the All England Open, writing, “Thank you Jesus for your goodness. It was all beyond my expectation.” In response, Christie commented, “We made history together that we never imagined, God is good all the time.”
Basketball
Kayla Alexander, Canada
Team Canada basketball player Kayla Alexander, 33, frequently writes on Instagram and her blog about how God has directed her career. “Every dream I had as a child, God has surpassed in ways I never thought possible,” she wrote in 2018.
The star center has played in the WNBA and is currently with Spanish pro team Valencia Basket—a place she never thought she would be as a 12-year-old who was “terrible” at her first basketball tryout. In 2020, she suffered knee injuries that put her out of commission and left her “heartbroken.” But her faith in God kept her motivated: “Unfortunately, things happen that don’t make sense, we don’t understand the reasoning or why behind it, but I believe that [God] works it all out for his good and his glory.”
When Japan beat Canada in the Olympic qualifying tournament, Alexander thought their Olympic hopes were dashed. But the team recovered to finish third and secure a qualifying spot. “God said we’re not done yet! When they say He works in mysterious ways, let this be the example!” she declared.
Carlik Jones, South Sudan
Since becoming an independent nation 12 years ago, South Sudan has struggled with conflict and humanitarian disasters. Yet this summer, the country is sending its first-ever basketball team to the Olympics, led by Carlik Jones, 26, whose South Sudanese heritage is from his mother's side.
Jones, who has played for the Chicago Bulls and is currently with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls, was born with a brain condition that took him out of competitive sports for several years, as getting a concussion could have seriously injured him. Eventually, the doctors cleared him in second grade and his basketball career began from there.
Jones frequently shouts out God on his social media. “I’m putting my trust and faith in GOD, and letting him lead the way,” he tweeted in October 2022. The next month, he wrote, “I AM EXTREMELY BLESSED, THANK GOD,” and the following month, “GOD YOU ARE AMAZING.”
Despite his team’s lack of international experience, Jones believes in them. “South Sudan is slept on, its people are slept on, and we as a unit are slept on,” he said last year. “We just trying to put South Sudan on the map.”
Boxing
Saidel Horta, Cuba
Saidel Horta secured a silver medal at the 2023 World Boxing Championships and earned his Olympic qualification in the featherweight division the same year during the Pan American Games. But back in 2021, Horta had contemplated retirement. After missing out on a podium finish in the youth category, he wondered if he was good enough to compete at the elite level. Ultimately, his love for boxing motivated him to keep training, resulting in a 2023 strong performance that culminated in an Olympic spot.
At just 21 years old, Horta is now recognized as one of the proponents of Cuba’s esteemed boxing tradition. In one photo on social media, the athlete stands inside the ring with his hand raised toward the sky. His caption paraphrases Psalm 121: “My help comes from above.” In another post, he wrote, “God, all honor and glory to you.”
Gymnastics
Aleah Finnegan, Philippines
Aleah Finnegan, 21, is the Philippines’s first female gymnast to qualify for the Olympics since 1964. (Several months later, Emma Malabuyo, another Filipino-American gymnast, also qualified.)
“Thank you for the opportunity to represent this beautiful country. … God be Glorified!” she wrote in an Instagram caption below a photo of herself holding the Philippine flag.
Finnegan is Filipino through her mother and represented the US from 2019 to 2021. In 2021, she retired from elite gymnastics to compete at the college level at Louisiana State University. A year later, she switched nationalities to the Philippines.
In the 2024 NCAA National Championship, Finnegan’s high scores helped LSU’s gymnastics team win the championship title for the first time in program history.
“GOD DID!! WE ARE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!” she wrote, celebrating their win. “Thank you, Jesus, for allowing us to compete for something far greater than ourselves.”
Brody Malone, USA
After Brody Malone underwent a third surgery on his right leg only a year ago, his odds for the 2024 Olympics did not look good. He dislocated his knee after landing poorly, leaving him with a fractured tibia and multiple torn ligaments.
Now, just over a year later, he has won the US gymnastics all-around competition and is bound for his second Olympics. After finishing fourth in the high bar competition in Tokyo, he has his sights set on medaling in Paris.
Malone had a brutal recovery process—he essentially had to “relearn how to walk.” His personal life has not been without trial either. His mother passed away from cancer in 2012, and in 2019, his stepmother died from a brain aneurysm.
Yet he still praises God.
“I just have to give all the glory to God,” he said earlier this year. “It’s all him. … So I just want to thank him for this.”
Judo
Geronay Whitebooi, South Africa
Judoka Geronay Whitebooi has seen too much of life to mince words. When she recently finished second at the Marrakech Africa Open 2024, she posted a picture of herself post-tournament with a serious expression on her face. “My heart desired the gold medal, but it was not the plan God had for me today. GOD is my strength and power,” she wrote in a lengthy Instagram post. “GOD is with me and within me.”
Whitebooi, who also qualified for the Olympics in 2021, has won multiple titles at both African and European tournaments. Yet to get to this point in her judo career, she said she had to give up her social life and spend time away from her family, especially as she faced the tragic losses of two family members: her dad when she was 13, and her sister two years ago.
“The medal proudly represents another barrier-breaking effort I have made, but it is a medal I look at with sadness because I made [my sister] proud, but I wasn’t there enough for my family and myself during that time,” she said about her win at the 2022 Senior European Cup.
“Our pain has a purpose,” she recently wrote. “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.”
Rugby
Jerry Tuwai, Fiji
Fijian rugby player Jerry Tuwai, 35, led his teams to clinch the gold at Rio 2016—the first Olympic win for the country—and at Tokyo. Both times, Tuwai and his teammates hugged each other in a circle and sang the traditional hymn “We Shall Overcome,” or, as it’s known in Fiji, “E Da Sa Qaqa.” Its English lyrics read: “We have overcome / By the blood of the Lamb / And the word of the Lord.”
“We always start … and we always end with our prayers and songs. That song says that our God is a loving God,” said Tuwai.
Tuwai grew up in one of the poorest districts outside the Fijian capital, Suva, and lived in a one-room house made of corrugated iron walls. He used plastic bottles or bundles of clothes as a rugby ball. When asked what made him successful in the sport, Tuwai credited discipline and dependence on God.
In January, Tuwai was axed from the Fiji Sevens squad for not being fit enough. Six months later, he was announced as captain of the Paris lineup—just when Tuwai had thought that his rugby career was over. “You have different plans, but God has another plan for us … maybe this one and maybe the next big thing,” he said. “I don’t know. Only God knows.”
Skateboarding
Rayssa Leal, Brazil
At age 7, Rayssa Leal had her first moment of fame when a video showing the elementary-age student dressed as a fairy executing a perfect heelflip was shared by Tony Hawk, one of the biggest names in skateboarding.
By age 11, Leal had begun competing internationally, and at 13, she became Brazil’s youngest Olympic medalist, winning silver in the street skateboarding category in Japan in 2021. “Thank you, God, for providing me the opportunity to do what I love!” she wrote the night before the competition.
Last December, Rayssa achieved the highest score of her career in the final of the SLS Super Crown in São Paulo. “All honor and glory to God,” she wrote. Now, at 16, the girl who attends a Baptist church in Imperatriz, a city in the northeastern state of Maranhão, is aiming for gold.
Soccer
Rasheedat Ajibade, Nigeria
In the final match of the Olympic qualifying tournament, Rasheedat Ajibade scored the winning—and only—goal that sent the Nigeria women’s soccer team to Paris, its first Games since 2008.
Ajibade celebrated her victory in a shirt that read, “Jesus Revealed, Jesus Glorified, Haleluyah,” and in a caption of a postgame photo, she wrote, “TO YOU ALONE LORD BE ALL THE GLORY. THE MANDATE REMAINS CRYSTAL CLEAR.”
Despite these bold professions, Ajibade says she sees herself as a reserved person and that she has often relied on dying her hair blue to express her personality. For Ajibade, her hair is a nod to her struggles with depression as a teenager and a symbol of her encouragement that everyone can survive their mental health struggles.
Ajibade began her professional soccer career at the young age of 13. In 2022, she finished as the top scorer at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. She also plays for Atletico Madrid, which won the Women’s Cup in 2023.
Despite her success, Ajibade remains attuned to the less fortunate in her country. Last year, she visited a Lagos slum, later writing, “Our mission was twofold: to extend acts of kindness and to share the gospel’s light (Mark 16:15).”
Taishi Brandon Nozawa, Japan
In a country where only one percent of the population is Christian, Japan’s 21-year-old goalkeeper, Taishi Brandon Nozawa, is committed to using his platform to share his faith. His Instagram account includes images of him on the soccer field interspersed with Bible verses, thoughts about his devotions, and a worship song.
Under an image of the Charles Spurgeon quote “Be walking Bibles,” Nozawa wrote, “For Christians, the Bible is a lamp and light that illuminates the path we walk. However, for those who do not read the Bible, it is not light. So what do we do? We must become a Bible that is read by our neighbors and become a light for them!”
Nozawa, originally from Okinawa Province, has played for Japan’s national team since he was 14. In 2023, he played for FC Tokyo.
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude for each and every blessing that the Lord has prepared and guided for us this season,” he wrote in an Instagram post at the end of last year. “Even when times are tough, when things don’t go well, and we do things that displease the Lord, his unchanging love is truly wonderful. That is why I return and worship the Lord.”
Swimming
Adam Peaty, Great Britain
Adam Peaty won the men’s 100-meter breaststroke at both the Rio and Tokyo Olympics and has also earned eight world championship golds. And yet the British swimmer has dealt with significant personal struggles, including depression and alcoholism.
He became a Christian in 2022 after a foot injury forced him out of the pool. He began attending church regularly after meeting with chaplain Ashley Null, and this new routine “felt like the missing part of the puzzle,” he said. He now sports a large cross tattoo across his abdomen, accompanied by the words Into the Light.
Caeleb Dressel, USA
Caeleb Dressel says the eagle tattoo on his shoulder nods to Isaiah 40: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (vv. 30-31).
Hailed as a successor to Michael Phelps, Dressel is well on his way to living up to the name. At Tokyo, he took home five gold medals.
However, his journey has not always been smooth. Leading up to the last Olympics, Dressel found himself struggling with depression and panic attacks. The pressure to live up to one of the most well-known names in sports weighed heavily on him.
But his faith helped him to rise out of that place. “I really learned to see the light at the end of the tunnel and trust what God is doing, whether it be a rough point in your life or a top pinnacle in your life,” he said.
Georgia-Leigh Vele, Papua New Guinea
When she received the bronze medal in the women’s 50-meter breaststroke at the 2023 Pacific Games, Georgia-Leigh Vele, 25, said, “I was hoping for this. You never know what could happen, but I tried my best and God did the rest.”
For Vele, being an athlete has led her to feel grateful and content. “Completely surrendering myself to the Lord with thanks and praise,” she wrote last year. “It’s an amazing thing when you find that place, where you know you can and you will because of Him.”
<
