U.S. Men Row to Gold at Paris Olympics

The U.S. won Olympic rowing gold, leading from the start and surviving New Zealand’s closing charge in the men’s four. Great Britain won the bronze.

“I don’t think ‘special’ does it justice,” said Drexel grad Justin Best after the win, the first in the four for the U.S. since 1960, “because of the amount of meters, hours, days with each other, away from our loved ones, the funerals you have to miss, the weddings you have to miss, the social events you have to miss, the fiancé’s that are put on hold—it’s all encompassing, what it takes to get to this moment.”

“I want to shout out Casey Galvanek,” said bowman Nick Mead. “We four had the competitiveness and the willpower to do whatever it takes. But we didn’t necessarily know what that is. And he came in and guided us through the steps we needed to do.”

The Netherlands added another gold and silver, in the women’s four and men’s double, to the gold and silver won yesterday, to top the medal table so far, with two days of finals to come.

U.S. single sculler Kara Kohler will race for medals on Saturday, August 3 after advancing in the semi. Kohler was second through the first 500, slipped to third behind Lithuania’s Viktorija Senkute in the second 500, but held an open-water lead over the trailing last three, in the three-to-A final semi. Kohler punched the air after crossing the line, having achieved her goal of making it into the medals race.

“The big thing to overcome for me was to get into the A final,” said Kohler afterwards. “It’s been 12 years since my last Olympic A final in 2012 when I was 21 and rowed in the quad with Adrienne Martelli who’s now here as a coach. So it’s been a while, to claw my way back. I would love to be right in the mix for a medal.”

The Netherland’s Simon Van Dorp, who rowed at the University of Washington and is the only sculler to beat Oliver Zeidler this year, won the first semifinal in 6:42. Kiwi Thomas Mackintosh outsprinted Belgium’s Tim Brys for second and the better lane in final that comes with it.

Zeidler led the other semi, most of it by open water, from start to finish, establishing a new Olympic-best time of 6:35, nearly five seconds faster than the old mark. setting up a grand final side-by-side match-up with Van Dorp

“Today the competition was high and it was for the A final. You could tell that a lot of people really wanted to make it through,” said Van Dorp. “To finally be in the position to race for the real race is very nice, so I’m excited for Saturday.”

“I will of course fight for this title. I’m not the [defending] Olympic champion so I have nothing to lose in the final,” said Zeidler. “We have a race plan. I’m pretty confident that this race plan will bring me a medal. So we’ll not go home without anything and yeah, then I will be very, very happy. We work over all the years and now it’s time to get the result for all of that.”

In the repechage for the women’s eight, Denmark got dropped by a length in the first minute and crossed the finish line last, ending their Olympic Games as only the top six in the seven-boat event race in the final. Canada and Australia were one-two across the 500 in what became a race for remaining lanes outside heat-winners Romania and Great Britain. Canada had almost a full-length lead at the 1,000, which the U.S. closed down in the third 500, before putting their bow ahead in the last 500 to win the repechage.

“We had some goals going out in today’s race, and I think we executed those goals,” said four-seat Regina Salmons. “I am excited for the positive trajectory of the crew.”

The U.S. women’s double finished their Olympic regatta in the B final, crossing the line third, for ninth place overall.

In the men’s double, Ben Davison and Sorin Koszyk were right in the thick of the racing in the A final for medals, going as fast as eventual winners Romania across the 1,000-meter mark, and staying in third through the middle of the race. But they had spent all that they had to stay in it and were passed by the Irish in the final 500 to finish fourth.

“We needed to put ourselves in position to be in it in the sprint,” said Davison after the race. “We lost it in that last minute unfortunately, but I have no regrets.”

“I’m gonna keep training,” was Koszyk’s response to ‘What’s next?’, “I gotta take care of my back this next year and then keep training.”

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