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 Pre-Games |
Instagram followers Post-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 |
| Total | 1,279,146 | 1,535,517 | 256,371 | 20.0% | 20 | 52 | |
| Average | 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 |
How many were unfollowed after the the men’s performance (except Bobby Finke)
People are so fickle. Remember all the grief she received when she flopped at worlds?
i wonder how many followers the muffin man guy got
Picked up roughly 30k on Instagram and roughly 385k on TikTok.
He already had a big following on TikTok.
Is it a slow swimming news day?
That would do it for her. All those medals.
Anyone else see that Regan did a podcast with Jake Paul? Maybe it’s different in the U.S. but I thought he was pretty unliked
I found her comment about the “Bob tax“ interesting. I always wondered if coaches get a percentage of what a swimmer earns.
This is fairly common. Remember in 2002 when Michelle Kwan went to the olympics without a coach? Part of this was because her coach tried to negotiate a contract with her where he would get a percentage of her earnings for life and her father advised her not to sign this contract. So she didn’t have a coach and we all know where that ended up leading her at those olympics sadly 🙁
I’m in the US and had assumed he was pretty disliked, but you never know if athletes have contractual media requirements
Anthony Ammirati went from 1500 followers to over 300K 🙂
She is so cute, absolutely stunning!!!