An extremely brief guide to Team USA Olympians with the same last name
No one wants you mixing up married Olympians with those who are related with those are not at all related.
If you are watching the Winter Olympics, there’s a chance that you do not know who anyone is. That’s okay! Few people pay as close attention to winter sports as we like to think, especially when we get caught up in Olympic fever and vow to follow bobsled regularly. That’s what commentators are for. But as you watch the games this February, as you learn the names, you may find yourself puzzling over the non-zero number of athletes who share the same last name.
On no team, perhaps, is this more proportionally prevalent than the U.S. figure skating team. As you watch and listen to spirit guides Tara and Johnny, you may also discover, realize or wonder about the multiple duos of Team USA figure skaters with the same last name.
Specifically, you may ask yourself:
- Are Nathan Chen and Karen Chen related?
- Are Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim married?
- Are Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani siblings?
These are not bad questions, but they’re certainly easy questions that can be addressed quickly. The same last name situation is pretty simple and if context hasn’t clued you in, here ya go: Maia and Alex are brother and sister. (Fans know them as the Shib Sibs.) Alexa and Chris are married. Nathan and Karen are no relation. (And if you hear of the ice dance duo who are a couple, that would be Evan Bates and Madison Chock. Again: Not the Shibutanis, who are siblings, or the Knierims, who are pairs figure skaters which are different from ice dancers.)
Next: The greatest Olympic athlete from every U.S. state
The men’s team is represented by Nathan Chen, Adam Rippon and Vincent Zhou. Team USA is sending Bradie Tennell, Mirai Nagasu and Karen Chen for the women’s competition. The Knierims are America’s sole entry to the pairs competition and the ice dance pairs are Madison Chock and Evan Bates; Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue; and Maia and Alex Shibutani.
More times out of not when you encounter Olympians with the same last name, they’re siblings. Elsewhere, in other sports, specifically curling, Becca Hamilton and Matt Hamilton are a brother-sister duo who will compete in both their respective women’s and men’s tournament, but also as a mixed doubles team. (Simi Hamilton, a cross-country skier, not related to the curlers).
Cross-country skiing, however, appears to be a sport made for siblings. Sadie and Erik Bjornsen are siblings and will both be competing for Team USA. Brothers Reese and Logan Hanneman are both competing. Scott and Caitlin Patterson, brother and sister, are on the cross-country skiing team as well.
Sophie Caldwell (cross-country skiing) and Patrick Caldwell (cross-country skiing) are cousins. Ashley Caldwell, a freestyle skier competing in the aerials competition, does not appear to be any relation to the other Caldwell skiers.
Bryan and Taylor Fletcher are two brothers competing in the Nordic Combined.
Tess Johnson (alpine skiing) and Breezy Johnson (freestyle skiing – moguls) do not appear to be not related. (Admittedly, Johnson is a far more common last name than some of these other recurrences.)
Justin Olsen (bobsled) and Madison Olsen (freestyle skiing – aerials) are not related.
Next: The greatest Olympic athlete from every U.S. state
Jocelyn Lamoureux- Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando, both on the U.S. women’s hockey team, are sisters who, you can probably intuit, have hyphenated forms of their familial last name.
In other sibling/same name news, also in women’s hockey, Hannah Brandt will represent Team USA, while her sister Marissa Brandt will represent her birth country of Korea.