Five years after Barnard College was founded in 1889, the modern revival of the Olympic Games launched in Paris. As the world returns its attention to the City of Light this summer — 130 years after the first event — Barnard has been proud to cheer on more than half a dozen alumnae who have participated in the action in some way over the decades, whether through competition or presentation.
There were Gloria Callen Jones ’45 and Anne Ross ’45, both selected to the 1940 Olympic swimming team in Helsinki, who were unable to compete due to the outbreak of WWll. Crew team member Stacey Borgman ’98 and fencer Erinn Smart ’01 competed in the 2004 Athens Games — with Smart returning four years later to win silver in Beijing. And Lauren Yee ’15 traveled to Tokyo in 2021 to cover the Summer Olympics as part of the NBC Sports production team.
For this year’s grande games, Barnard is proud to congratulate the current alumnae participants who are part of Team USA.
USA Skateboarding Coach
In 2020, professional skateboarder and architect Alexis Sablone ’08 competed in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, placing fourth in the women’s street skateboarding final. This year, the seven-time X Games medalist returned to the Olympic Games in Paris as coach for U.S. women’s street skateboarding.
Even prior to the Games, Sablone had her hand in the planning for the epic event — Nike SB tapped her to design the uniforms for the U.S. and Japan skaters. Sablone, who received her master’s in architecture from MIT, created collections featuring three key pieces: a bowler shirt, a Parisian-inspired chore coat, and a relaxed-fit denim pant.
“It never crossed my mind that I’d get to design federation kits. Then again, there was a point when I didn’t even think skate would be an Olympic sport,” Sablone said in a statement. “When I got the call to design the kits, I had a gut instinct that told me, ‘Of course. I’m a designer and a skater, and I competed in the Olympics. Why not? Who gets a chance to do that?’”
Manufacturing Olympic Fashion
Gabrielle Ferrara ’12, COO and managing partner of NYC’s family-owned Ferrara Manufacturing, leads the company’s operations, technology, and innovation. Most know that the U.S. Team uniforms were designed by Ralph Lauren, but it was Lauren’s longtime manufacturing collaborator who brought the looks to life for this year’s opening and closing ceremonies. In fact, Ferrara’s company has helped Lauren style Olympians since 2014.
“If there’s ever a time to make a product for the United States, it has to be for the Olympic uniform,” said Ferrara, in an interview for InStyle. “New York is a very exciting place to make things; it has the highest density of fashion designers in the United States. This is one of the proudest programs that we work on, and it takes over a year to develop everything to make the best possible quality that we do for every garment.”
Well before being tasked to help to dress some of the world’s most elite athletes, Ferrara was a Barnard Athena Scholar when she was an undergraduate, and she continues to support up-and-coming entrepreneurs as a member of the Athena Leadership Council.
Olympic Torch Relay Performer
On July 14, after 36 hours of practice, movement artist Sarah Silverblatt-Buser ’15 and 10 other dancers performed a short piece in front of the iconic Panthéon as part of the Olympic Torch Relay in Paris. “We were a majority of women performing, which felt significant given that there are only a handful of ‘Great Women’ resting alongside France’s most important figures,” Silverblatt-Buser wrote on LinkedIn.
The performance, choreographed by acclaimed cirque artist Yoann Bourgeois, centered a large, mirrored counterclockwise-spinning disc that reflected the dancers atop it as well as the sun and clouds.
Since moving to France in 2018, Silverblatt-Buser has worked closely with Bourgeois and with Compagnie 47-49. Barnard students have had the opportunity to learn directly from the movement educator since last year, when she became the Movement Lab’s Artist-in-Residence and adjunct professor of the Dance Department.
Tandem Cyclist
A dedicated athlete, Skyler Samuelson Espinoza ’17 skied and ran cross-country and marathons in high schools and competed as a walk-on to Columbia’s Women’s Rowing team beginning in her sophomore year, in 2014. Now, as a first-time Olympic competitor, she will pedal her way to a possible tandem cycle medal at the Paralympic Games this month (August 28 – September 8).
Espinoza and her cycling partner, Hannah Chadwick, who is visually impaired, proved their successful track record over the years. Just last year, they were named Parapan American Games Champions and World Championship bronze medalists. Ironically, it was a sustained back injury from Espinoza’s college rowing days that led her to track cycling the year after she graduated. Since then — in between training and athletic competitions and qualifications — Espinoza has also found time to maintain the blog Em[power], where she writes about issues affecting women in sports.
“I still feel a little bit of shock and disbelief that I get to do this. And that I get to do it with a partner like Hannah, who trusts me to lead her through this experience. I feel really privileged,” said Espinoza. “A lot of my training as a cyclist has been by myself, and it can be very lonely and hard to motivate every day. Something that I really enjoyed about getting to work with Hannah is that I have someone else coming into training with me.”
Whether Espinoza medals this summer or not, she said that being named a Team USA member was gold enough. “Just recognizing the accomplishment of making it is something I hope to be able to celebrate.”
