Ignoring the moral of Aesop’s ancient Greek fable about the tortoise and the hare, the U.S. men’s and women’s rowing teams shot out to early leads in the eight-oared finals Sunday.
The American men hung on to their advantage, leading from start to finish as they won the country’s first gold medal in the event in 40 years with a time of 5 minutes 42.48 seconds.
But a Romanian surge in the final 1,000 meters relegated the women to silver.
For U.S. coach Mike Teti, the gold medal was a relief after the American rowing meltdown at the Sydney Games. The men’s eights came into the 2000 Olympics as the three-time defending world champions, only to fall far short and finish fifth.
“We really felt we needed to end these 40 years of drought,” Teti said Sunday.
Teti thanked former Olympic rowers for their advice to his gold-medal team and for donating money that allowed the U.S. to prepare at races in Europe and buy equipment.
But Teti’s story of redemption was just one U.S. team members related after the victory.
There was Dan Beery, a self-described “Hoosier from a small town” that is far from the country’s top-class rowing clubs. Beery, who was cut from the U.S. team six times, dedicated his victory to the children of his native Oaktown, Ind.
“I just really had to stick with it,” he said. “Just because you come from a little town in Indiana doesn’t mean you can’t make the Olympics and win.”
Then there was Jason Read, a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician from New Jersey who spent six days working at ground zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in Manhattan.
“There is no greater privilege than to represent America at this time,” he said.
And there was Chris Ahern, whose father taught him to row on the Milwaukee River when he was 6.
The rowers took leave from their jobs in January to attend a three-month camp in San Diego.
None of the Olympic champions seemed to react as viscerally to the victory as their highly emotional coach. Teti said he was so nervous about the race that he wept when he woke up.
Teti said he blamed himself for the Sydney meltdown. Not even the gold in Athens could fully erase those bad memories.
“This doesn’t ease the pain of that,” he said.
“It allows me to sleep for about six months.”
Both the men and women had plenty of reason to be eager to row in the finals at the seaside Olympic venue in this town 18 miles from Athens. Both squads had set world records in qualifying heats.
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The men held off a late charge from the Dutch, who finished 1.27 seconds off the pace. Australia took the bronze, and the world-champion Canadians faded to fifth.
The women led narrowly at 500 meters and 1,000 meters before the Romanians overtook them in the second half to win by 1.8 seconds with a time of 6:17.70.
Regardless, the U.S. women expressed no regrets.
“It was everything we had,” Laurel Korholz said.
“Success is contagious,” teammate Kate Johnson added, “and we’ll just keep going.”