UCI well-represented at Olympics in Beijing

Eleven individuals with UC Irvine ties will participate at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China that began Friday.

The Anteater contingent consists of five former student-athletes, two current students, two former students, a current coach and a former coach.

Former All-American water polo players Ryan Bailey, Tim Hutten, Rick Merlo and Jeff Powers will compete for Team USA in water polo.

UC Irvine has had at least one men’s water polo player in each of the seven Olympic Games.

Former sailor Jay Glaser will serve as a coach for the Dutch team as well as an assistant for the U.S. in the Tornado class. Glaser, who won a silver medal in the tornados in 1984, helped Team USA capture a silver medal in that event as a coach last year.

UCI men’s volleyball head coach John Speraw will serve as an assistant coach with the men’s indoor volleyball team.

Speraw guided the Anteaters to a national championship in 2007.

In the badminton competition, Eva Lee, a current student, and May Mangkalakiri, a 2006 graduate, will compete together in women’s doubles.

Lee will also compete in women’s singles.

Amber Neben, who graduated with a master’s degree in biology, will participate in the road event of cycling and Brittany Hayes, who just completed the first year of her two-year master’s program in criminology, law and society, will compete for the women’s water polo team.

Julie Swail Ertel, a former UC Irvine women’s water polo coach, will compete in the women’s triathlon.

Overall, UCI has had 47 Olympians and two Paralympians.

Former UCI All-American sailor Nick Scadone will compete in the Paralympics September 6-17 in Beijing in the SKUD division.

An Olympic web page is now live on the school’s athletics web site (ucirvinesports.cstv.com) with participant biographies, Olympic history, Q&As; with Speraw as well as a blog by Hutten from Beijing, China.

Hutten appears in the Aug. 6 edition of Sports Illustrated in the “Faces in the Crowd” feature. Hutten received the Peter J. Cutino award for being the top player in NCAA men’s water polo last season.

— From staff reports