SANTANA ATHLETE HELPS U.S. WATER POLO TEAM TO VICTORY IN PARIS OLYMPICS

By Miriam Raftery

Photo via Team USA

July 31, 2024 (Santee) – An East County athlete is making a big splash at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Alex Bowen scored three goals in Team USA’s second match, helping lead the team to a 14-8 victory over Romania.  Team USA will compete against Greece next Thursday.

Bowen was a star athlete at Santana High School, where he served as captain of both the water polo and swim teams. He helped lead the teams to several titles and was named most valuable player for the Grossmont North/Valley League in three consecutive years, 2008 through 2010.

After graduating, Bowen played water polo for Stanford University, scoring over 200 goals in four years. He was named a First Team All-American each year at Stanford.He later turned professional, competing in many countries, most recently for Noisy-le-Sec in France.

This is the third Olympics for Bowen, 30, who also competed in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.  Team USA placed 10^th and 6^th in those matches.

Bowen’s father, Rod Bowen, is a coach at Santana. Parents of Santana athletes raised funds to send Rod and Barb Bowen to Paris to watch their son compete in the Olympics, as ECM reported.

Here is the schedule to watch Bowen compete for Team USA in Paris.