VAIRES-SUR-MARNE, France − Sarasota’s Clark Dean missed out on a rowing medal at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games. But this time Paris would equal podium.
Team USA rowing picked up its second medal of the Paris Games on Saturday when the men’s eight team took bronze with a time of 5:25.28 to reach the podium along with Great Britain (gold, 5:22.88) and the Netherlands (silver, 5:23.92) at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
“It’s a really fast race and a really unforgiving race,” said Dean, who rowed on the Teasm USA men’s four that finsihed off-podium three years ago . “That being said, going into this race, every hard racing piece we’ve done, we’ve been able to close. We’ve been able to change the speeds, we’ve been able to hang on. The conditions in this race proved that we were a bronze-medal crew today. But I think we left it all on the table.”
It was a largely inexperienced crew where the Olympics are concerned − just Dean had ever been to the Games before − but it was nevertheless good enough to reach the podium and bodes well for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. The team held the third position after the 500-, 1,000- and 1,500-meter marks of the 2,000-meter race, but couldn’t make up the deficit on the Netherlands to take silver. At the 1,500-meter mark, the two boats were virtually even, but the Netherlands was able to extend its lead over the United States over the final stretch.