Ahlana Smith to represent Puerto Rico at Paris Olympic Games
Credit Mississippi State Athletics
July 10 – Mississippi State women’s basketball alumna Ahlana Smith will make her Olympic debut after she named to the Puerto Rico National Team roster for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games this summer.
Smith’s selection extends a school-record 10 Olympians, nine athletes and one coach, that will participate in Paris. She will also be Mississippi State’s first basketball Olympian and the first to represent Puerto Rico.
With the addition of Puerto Rico, a current or former Mississippi State student-athlete has represented 10 different nations.
Smith debuted with the Puerto Rico National Team at the 2023 FIBA Women’s Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament and later in the 2024 FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament, where the nation secured its bid. She also competed for Puerto Rico in an exhibition with the WNBA’s Las Vegas in Columbia, S.C. earlier this year.
After stints with UCLA, Gulf Coast State Junior College and Louisville, Smith transferred to Mississippi State for her final season and appeared in all 33 games with 32 starts. Smith helped lead the program back to the 2023 NCAA Tournament, where it became the only team in NCAA women’s basketball history to play in the First Four game and advance to the Second Round.
Smith surpassed career-highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals, minutes, three-point percentage and free-throw percentage at Mississippi State.
Puerto Rico will open Olympic play when it takes on Serbia in Group A action on Sunday, July 28. The event will run from July 27 to August 1 with the preliminary phase hosted at Pierre Mauroy Stadium before the final phase shifts to Accor Arena in Paris.
