DAVIS, Calif. — Paths are a point of pride in this college town. There are its bike trails, miles and miles of asphalt ribbon that cover Davis’s 11 square miles like tape on bicycle handlebars. There is its off-the-beaten-path location, a passing blur for San Franciscans and other Bay Area motorists headed to Sacramento or the Lake Tahoe ski resorts.

Then there is the interconnectedness of the town’s 65,000-plus residents. Every other person in Davis, it seems, has a story of losing a wallet while riding a bike and having it promptly returned with all its contents.

And now Davis will be represented at the London Olympics by two athletes on parallel paths.

On June 29 in Omaha, Scott Weltz, a former U.C. Davis athlete-turned-volunteer coach, upset the two favorites in the men’s 200-meter breaststroke to win the event at the United States Olympic swimming trials. The night before in Eugene, Ore., Kim Conley, a distance runner who competed and coached at U.C. Davis, erased a 20-meter deficit in the homestretch to claim a spot on the American track team with a third-place finish in the 5,000 meters.

Weltz, 25, and Conley, 26, have never been formally introduced despite frequently sharing the on-campus weight room. They were on solitary journeys before becoming inextricably linked because of their shared narrative.