How sheep from Eagle County played a role for Team USA in the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony

You may not realize it, but the very blazer worn by NBA superstar LeBron James in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games opening ceremony along the Seine River in Paris has ties to Eagle County. The Ralph Lauren-designed and U.S.-made blazers worn by nearly 600 Team USA members contained wool from sheep who graze in our valley.

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games marks the ninth time Ralph Lauren has been the official outfitter of Team USA. All Ralph Lauren apparel worn by U.S. athletes during official Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies is made in the United States. Ralph Lauren partnered with many manufacturers in the United States to produce Team USA’s uniform. 

How does Eagle County fit in? Ranches in the area provide wool to Shaniko Wool Company, located in Maupin, Oregon, and that collective group of ranchers provided the wool for Ralph Lauren’s Opening Ceremony blazer.

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Jeanne Carver is the founder of Shaniko Wool Company. Her family is celebrating 153 years of continuous operation at Imperial Stock Ranch in the high desert of Oregon and Carver is a steward and advocate of modern ranching practices. Her use of sustainable ranching efforts piqued the interest of Ralph Lauren’s designers in 2012, when they were looking for wool to be used in uniforms for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

“They actually sent a design team to our ranch to visit us and six months later, I got the biggest yarn order of my life,” Carver said. “I didn’t know at that time what it was for, just that it was for a special project. They were looking for an American yarn with American wool, and I had it.”

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The special project was the Ralph Lauren-designed Opening Ceremony sweater for Team USA in Sochi. After that, the Patagonia clothing company called Carver.

“Patagonia wanted to build a wool supply with us, but they wanted us to be third-party audited for our land care and our animal welfare. There was a new standard being built globally that would give brands confidence that the wool they sourced was from land that was well cared for and sheep that were well cared for,” Carver said.

The standard is called the Responsible Wool Standard and is the leading sheep and wool production standard in the world today. When the Responsible Wool Standard launched in 2016, Carver’s family ranch in Oregon became the first certified ranch in the world. The demand for Responsible Wool Standard-certified wool grew and Carver and her husband decided to start a new company and scale the amount of wool that was Responsible Wool Standard-certified and produced in the United States.

Carver reached out to see who would join her and the first rancher to become part of Shaniko Wool Company was from Nevada, and he quickly introduced Carver to a group of six Colorado ranchers who were working together to improve the value they got for their wool.

“There is a very strong wool industry in Colorado. You have a wool industry to be proud of. These ranchers have been working on their breeding and genetics as well as being really good practitioners of the land. And they have very good quality merino wool that meets the kind of specifications that Ralph Lauren needed for these uniforms. The Opening Ceremony blazer is made with 18-micron wool, which is a very soft wool,” Carver said.

“We would not be where we are with Ralph Lauren and other partners for this program without these Colorado ranchers. They really have formed the core of the Shaniko Wool Company supply, with more ranches in Colorado than in any other state,” Carver said, adding that Shaniko Wool Company also gets wool from ranches in California and Idaho.

Team USA’s uniforms were noticed in a July 24, 2024, Forbes Magazine article where the top 10 uniforms out of 204 countries competing in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games were highlighted.

“In the write-up, they named Shaniko Wool Company twice, and it is such an honor to be named and recognized for our efforts,” Carver said.

Carver works tirelessly to ensure that Shaniko Wool Company adheres to all the standards required to maintain practices at the highest level. She takes care of all the paperwork and fees for certifications for the ranchers that are part of Shaniko Wool Company. 

“I come to Nevada, Idaho, California and Colorado at a minimum of twice a year to visit all the ranches. Right now, you have sheep grazing near Edwards, Colorado, and I do an internal audit and update. We then update our records and make sure we’re ready for the certification body to come and do the third-party audits,” Carver said.

Carver said they are also in a research initiative that is calculating the net environmental impact of all their ranching operations, including equipment, fossil fuel use, electricity, methane emissions and more and the research is being conducted by third-party research institutions. The U.S. Forest Service just published an article about how Shaniko Wool Company is having a net positive impact on the environment.

“We are still bringing food, fiber and shelter to humankind. It’s been going on long before us. It’ll still be going on long after us. And while we’re here, we will do the very best job possible to ensure the future of our next generations,” Carver said. “We’re unseen, largely forgotten, timeless, but critically important.”

Through all these extra measures, Carver said that the ranchers now know where their wool ends up and what products it is being used for and said the group is deeply grateful because these measures elevate their credibility.

“For us, it’s our life’s work and adds to our purpose every day and it’s really rewarding to know where the wool ends up,” Carver said. “I know that the ranchers are all incredibly proud to be part of clothing Team USA. It connects us to our sport legends, our U.S. athletes in a way we would never be otherwise.”