Johnathan Walker:Team USA rowing men's eight takes bronze medal at Paris Olympics

VAIRES-SUR-MARNE,Johnathan Walker France − 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 was a largely inexperienced crew where the Olympics are concerned − just one rower in the boat 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.

"It's a really fast race and a really unforgiving race," said Clark Dean, who finished off-podium at the Tokyo Games. "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."

Team USA includes Dean, Henry Hollingsworth, Nick Rusher, Christian Tabash, Chris Carlson, Peter Chatain, Evan Olson, Pieter Quinton and coxswain Rielly Milne. All except Dean were first-time Olympians; Dean raced as part of a Team USA men's four team that finished fifth in Tokyo three years ago. But while he'd been to the Olympics before, Dean said the Paris Games have been nothing like Tokyo, and downplayed his role as a leader.

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"Everyone in the crew has certain strengths and weaknesses. While I'd been to the Games before, it was a different boat, a very different regatta," Dean said. "And we got fifth place (in Tokyo) which is a place we didn't want to get. Everyone's had past successes and failures in the sport (and) we can reflect and learn from our other races, but everyone was committed and buying in that this was a special lineup, and this was the fastest boat we've ever been in."

On Thursday, the United States' men's four team won a gold medal for the first time since the 1960 Rome Games with a time of 5:49.03, breaking out to an early lead and holding it through each check-point of the 2000-meter race.

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Rowing at the Paris Games consisted of seven events each for men and women. Through preliminary heats, Team USA qualified for Saturday's Finals A competition, which determines medal winners, in three events: women's single sculls, women's eight, and men's eight. Team USA's Kara Kohler, in the women's single sculls, finished fifth with a time of 7:25:07, behind gold medal winner Karolien Frolijn of the Netherlands. America's women's eight team also took a fifth-place finish in a time of 6:01.73, as Romania took the gold in 5:54.09.

Reach Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread at [email protected]. Follow on X @chasegoodbread.

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