PARIS — For the first time since 1960, the United States men's four has won gold at the Olympics. The Americans' historic victory early Thursday afternoon at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium was aided by Cornell heavyweight rowing alum Michael Grady '19, who was making his second appearance in the Olympics — both with the U.S. men's four.
Grady's gold medal is the 33rd overall earned by a Cornell alumnus and the 20th won at the Summer Olympics. No Cornellian had received a gold medal at the Summer Olympics since Pablo Morales '94, J.D., won the 100-meter butterfly and 4x100 medley relay events in swimming at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Grady joins the late Cornell Athletics Hall of Fame rower Bill Stowe '62 as the lone Big Red rowing alums to win Olympic gold. Stowe was part of the gold medal-winning United States men's eight crew at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.
Thursday's result marked the first time an alumnus of the three Cornell rowing programs received an Olympic medal since former women's rower Stephanie Maxwell-Pierson '86 won bronze in the women's pair in 1992. No male Cornell rowing alum had medaled at the Olympics since Walter (Chip) Lubsen '77 (men's eight), Michael Bach '82 (men's coxed four), and Dave Clark '82 (men's coxless four) won silver in their respective events at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
"It's such an honor and pleasure to know Mike, his energy, his charisma, and as one of the greatest athletes that I've ever coached," said Todd Kennett, the Spirit of '57 Director of Rowing and head coach of the Cornell men's heavyweight rowing team. "To see him and his progress since he graduated, his continued work and development to be as good as he is, and see him win the Olympic gold medal, what an honor and pleasure. Huge congratulations to him."
Gallery: (8-1-2024) Grady '19 Wins Gold at 2024 Olympics
Registering another wire-to-wire victory, the top-ranked Americans battled with the New Zealand quartet throughout the exhilarating 2000-meter piece. After the opening 500 meters, the U.S. (1:26.43) held a bowball lead of eight-hundredths of a second over the New Zealanders (1:26.51). The largest lead the U.S. would have came after the second 500, leading by 95-hundredths of a second. At the 1500-meter, the Americans' lead dwindled to 56-hundredths of a second after clocking the third-fastest time in the event's third quarter (1:28.36), trailing times by Great Britain (1:27.82) and New Zealand (1:27.97).
A strong push by the United States over the final 500 meters led to a 1:26.19 split, the fastest 500-meter time by any of the six crews in the race. The Americans crossed the finish line at 5:49.03, while New Zealand concluded the race in 5:49.88 to earn silver. Great Britain was the other crew to stand on the podium, earning bronze following its 5:52.42 performance.
"We definitely executed really well," Grady said. "We knew we had a good start. We knew we had a good base middle. We knew we have a good lift. We felt [New Zealand] the entire time. I mean, hats off to them. They're really great competitors, and they raced it really hard. They even walked back into us (at about) 600 (meters). I was pretty confident that we had the last little bit of speed. We had a full set of moves to go through to sprint to the line. Executed really well and really happy with that performance.
The victory was the third time the U.S. quartet medaled since becoming a crew last year before the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, where it finished second behind Great Britain to earn their spot at this year's Olympics. This past May, the crew won gold at the 2024 World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne, Switzerland, when it also finished ahead of New Zealand and Great Britain.
"Grady and I were in the 2014 junior eight that came second to last in Hamburg, Germany," Grady's crewmate Liam Corrigan added. "There's been a lot of strokes since then. Michael and Justin rowed together (at the under-23 level), and all of us, to some degree, rowed against each other in college and with each other in college and then for the last five years since 2019 in different boats – pairs with each other, against each other. There's so much trust that's been developed in that amount of time. You feel like one unit; it doesn't feel like four people. It feels like one boat."
Earlier in the day, Cornell lightweight rowing alum Sorin Koszyk '20 and Ben Davison placed fourth in the men's double sculls to just miss the podium.
Despite not medaling, Koszyk and Davison registered the United States' best finish in the discipline since the Americans won gold in 1984.
Opening the first 500 meters in fourth place, Koszyk and Davison pushed ahead into third between the 500- and 1000-meter marks, where they remained past the 1500-meter checkpoint until a huge final surge by the Irish duo in the final 300 meters proved costly for the Americans.
"It's been a long journey," Davison, Koszyk's crewmate, said. "After coming back from rowing the eight in Tokyo, I set myself a new challenge to try and push forward men's heavyweight sculling in the United States. We haven't had anything to cheer about and anything to look up to for a long time now. The last time the U.S. made a final in a heavyweight sculling boat was 2008. That was the goal of the last three years, and on a broad view, we accomplished that today just to give people back home something to look up to and some hope, so people can look at this and think we can scull in the United States, and it's a path worth pursuing.
"I'm pretty devastated with the result right now," Davison added. "At the same time, we came across the line and Sorin apologized, and I said, 'There is absolutely nothing to apologize for.' That was one of the finest pieces I've ever been a part of. I think we put all of the pieces together. I don't think that there is anything that I regret. Realistically, we lost it in the last minute, but at the same time, we put ourselves in a position to be in it with a minute to go."
Appearing in its first 'A' Final in the men's double sculls, Romania's pair surged past the Dutch duo in the final 500 meters to take home gold with a 1.34-second victory over Melvin Twellaar and Stef Broenink of the Netherlands, who earned their second consecutive silver medal in the event.
MEN'S FOUR 'A' FINAL RESULTS
1. United States (Nick Mead, Justin Best, Michael Grady, Liam Corrigan) — 5:49.03
2. New Zealand (Ollie MacLean, Logan Ullrich, Tom Murray, Matt McDonald) — 5:49.88
3. Great Britain (Oliver Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge, Freddie Davidson) — 5:52.42
4. Italy (Matteo Lodo, Giovanni Abagnale, Giuseppe Vicino, Nicholas Kohl) — 5:55.07
5. Romania (Stefan Constantin Berariu, Sergiu Vasile Bejan, Andrei Mandrila, Ciprian Tudosa) — 5:56.85
6. Australia (Timothy Masters, Jack Robertson, Fergus Hamilton, Alex Hill) — 6:00.35
MEN'S DOUBLE SCULLS 'A' FINAL RESULTS
1. Romania (Andrei Sebastian Cornea and Marian Florian Enache) — 1:32.59
2. Netherlands (Melvin Twellaar and Stef Broenink) — 6:13.92
3. Ireland (Daire Lynch and Philip Doyle) — 6:15.17
4. United States (Sorin Koszyk and Ben Davison) — 6:17.02
5. Spain (Aleix Garcia I Pujolar and Rodrigo Conde Romero) — 6:20.59
6. New Zealand (Robbie Manson and Jordan Parry) — 6:21.44
