Jesseca Cross

Jesseca Cross was a weight thrower who competed in shot put and hammer throw at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She attended the University of Wyoming where she played basketball. She was a three-time academic all-Western Athletic Conference (WAC) selection, a three-time WAC Scholar-Athlete, and was chosen as Wyoming’s NCAA Woman of the Year in 1996-97.

Cross later turned to the weights and earned All-American honors in the shot put in 1998. Through 2023 she is one of only three women to have competed in the shot put and hammer throw at the Olympics, along with Lisa Misipeka (ASA) and Aneliya Yordanova-Kumanova (BUL), but Cross is the only athlete to have done so at the same Olympic Games.

Cross was inducted into the Wyoming Sports Hall of Fame in 2009. She later briefly served as the head women’s volleyball coach at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming.