Fiona Murtagh, FCRH ’16; incoming student Alexander Gadegaard Shah; and alumnus Nick Martinez are competing in rowing, swimming, and baseball, respectively.
Murtagh, a native of Galway, is rowing for Ireland. She arrived at Fordham in 2013 and made her mark on the rowing program immediately, with the Fordham club winning the Head of Charles regatta in Boston two years in a row.
The first win, in 2013, was the first time a Fordham women’s crew had won at the prestigious regatta. Murtagh also earned first-team All-Atlantic 10 honors in 2016 when she helped the Rams to a third-place team finish.
In Tokyo, Murtagh and her Irish teammates placed second in the women’s coxless four on July 23 and qualified for the final, which will take place on July 26.
UPDATE: Murtagh and the Women’s Four won the Bronze–Ireland’s first medal in the Tokyo games.
Shah, who will start at Fordham College at Rose Hill this fall, is one of five athletes representing Nepal at the Olympics this year.
A member of this year’s recruiting class for men’s swimming, he was the team MVP and team captain at the Lincoln School in Kathmandu, Nepal, finishing with multiple school and national records. He then swam for Nepal Swimming, earning their team MVP award in 2019, and earned a wild card qualifier spot for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
He will swim the 100-meter freestyle, which is set to begin on July 27 and finish on July 29.
Martinez, a native of Miami, is on the baseball roster for Team USA. He attended Fordham for three years, where he was a starting second baseman and a relief pitcher. He is Fordham’s first baseball Olympian since Bobby Kingsbury, who played for Team Greece in 2004.
Martinez was drafted by the Texas Rangers in 2011 and played for the team’s farm system and the major league team until 2018 when he signed a contract to pitch for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan. He currently pitches for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in the Japanese League. Team USA will open the Olympic Games baseball tournament on Friday, July 30, against Israel. They join the Dominican Republic, Israel, Japan, Korea, and Mexico in the six-team field.
