UPDATE: A pair of Titan Olympians were overlooked when making this list and have been added below. Please let the Athletic Communications office know if we have missed any other Titan student-athletes who may have competed in either the summer or winter Olympics.

DETROIT (8/5/2016) -- The 2016 Summer Olympics officially opens Friday in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and while there are no Titan ties to this year's Olympics, there have been several Titans and University of Detroit Mercy alumni who have performed and been involved at past Olympics across several different sports.

Titan Hall of Famer Spencer Haywood led the United States men's basketball team to a gold medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Mexico. Haywood, at just 19-years old, scored in double figures in seven out of the nine games leading the U.S. squad to a 9-0 record and a 65-50 victory over Yugoslavia in the gold medal game. Haywood scored a game-high 21 points in the gold medal game and averaged 16.1 points per game in the tournament overall, which led the team. He scored more than 20 points in four out of the final five games of the tournament.

Haywood's 145 points overall during the Olympic run in 1968 is still second all-time for a single Olympics behind Kevin Durant's 156 points during the 2012 Summer Olympics. It was Haywood's lone appearance in the Olympics. Just this past season, Haywood was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and had his No. 45 retired during a ceremony at Calihan Hall in January.

One of the leaders in helping Detroit capture its only national championship in 1972, fencer Tyrone Simmons also competed on the world's biggest stage, competing for the United States in the team foil competition at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Simmons won three of his eight bouts but the Americans finished out of the medal race in the foil.

Simmons, a two-time individual NCAA champion in the foil while at Detroit in 1971-72, was the second African American to compete in fencing at the Olympics, after Uriah Jones. The Titan Hall of Famer, inducted in 1982, went 126-10 during his four-year career as a Titan.

Softball's Kaleigh Rafter joined the Canadian National Team in 2007 and played for her native country during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, helping the team to a fourth place finish. Canada went 3-4 during the preliminary round, earning wins over Chinese Taipei, China and the Netherlands.

Rafter, a catcher, swatted a two-run home run for Canada in its win over the Netherlands, but the team ultimately came up short in a 5-3 defeat to Australia in the semifinals of the medal round. Rafter, now an assistant coach at Buffalo, was the 2007 Horizon League Player of the Year with playing for the Titans and set a single-season home run record with 14 longballs that season.

While not a Titan student-athlete, Jeanne Stunyo went to the University of Detroit and while enrolled won a silver medal in diving for the United States at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. After posting the fourth-best score on the three-meter springboard in the preliminary round, Stunyo captured a total of 125.89 in the finals, which was 4.49 points better than third place.

Stunyo completed a 1-2 sweep of the medals for the United States on the three-meter board. Prior to the Olympics, she was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the Aug. 6, 1956 edition in a swimming trials preview. Coached by four-time Olympian, Clarence Pinkston, Stunyo trained out of the Detroit Athletic Club.

Men's soccer alumnus Stephen Glover had the honor of carrying the Olympic torch for his native England prior to the 2012 Olympic Games in London. A Stafford, England native, Glover carried the torch for England on May 31, 2012. He was one of 8,000 torch bearers leading up to the 2012 Summer Games. 

Glover spent three years on the men's soccer team at Detroit Mercy from 1991-93. In his senior year, he helped the Titans to a 16-4-3 record in the fall of 1993 starting 17 games and serving as a tri-captain.

"When I was in college, I only thought in the immediate future about the next training session, the next game, the next season and what I was going to do soccer-wise and then it turned into soccer coaching. It was all really just because of my love for the sport so I never thought I would get involved with something like this and have such an honor given to me and such a privilege," said Glover in an interview with DetroitTitans.com leading up to carrying the torch.

Dan Cantillon, a two-time All-American fencer and the 1966 College Fencer of the Year while at the University of Detroit, joined Haywood at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. While serving in the U.S. Army in Texas, Cantillon trained in the modern pentathlon for the Olympic trials, finishing third to make the 1968 Olympic team and fence in Mexico. Cantillon fenced in the epee for the United States at the 1968 Summer games. He also was the U.S. national champion in the epee in 1974. Cantillon later coached at the University of Detroit under Athletic Director Dick Vitale. He was inducted into the Titan Hall of Fame in 1980.

Although not officially a Titan student-athlete, Pat Costello was a University of Detroit graduate who was a two-time Olympian, in 1952 and 1956. At age 23, Costello competed in his first Olympics in Helsinki, Finland in the men's double skulls rowing competition. Costello earned a silver medal in 1956 at the Summer games in Melbourne, Australia, rowing with Jim Gardiner and falling in the finals against the Soviet Union to finish runner-up. A native of Detroit, Costello won several national titles as a rower, his first coming in 1948.

The Titans have had many student-athletes compete at the Olympic Trails for their respective countries, including a pair this year in track and field standouts Colin Cashner and Khalil Parris. Cashner competed in the U.S. Trials on Eugene, Ore., while Khalil Parris earned a national championship in the 400-meter hurdles for Canada, but fell short of qualifying due to Canada's strict time restrictions.

If we may have missed or overlooked any Titans who competed at the Summer or Winter Olympics, please let the Athletic Communications office know at 313-993-1755.