Pittsburgher Michael Grady, Team USA net Olympic gold in men’s rowing
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A Central Catholic alum won Olympic gold Thursday morning and made history for Team USA.
Michael Grady, a graduate of the Pittsburgh-based private high school, and the U.S. rowing team took first place in the men’s four final event at the Paris Olympics.
It’s the first time Americans have taken the top spot in that competition since the Rome Olympics of 1960.
“Victory belongs to USA!” the Olympics posted on social media shortly before 7 a.m. Eastern time Thursday, which is 1 p.m. in Paris.
Victory belongs to USA! ????????
They take home the #gold in the rowing men's four final event for the first time since Rome 1960! ????@TeamUSA | @WorldRowing | #Rowing | #Paris2024 | #Samsung | #TogetherForTomorrow pic.twitter.com/GN8NnycsPA
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) August 1, 2024
“We definitely executed really well,” Grady told usrowing.org. “I mean, we knew we had a good start. We knew we had a good base middle. We knew we have a good lift. We felt them the entire time. I mean, hats off to them. They’re really great competitors, and they raced it really hard.
“You know, 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. So, yeah, executed really well. Really happy with that performance, obviously.”
Grady, a Bradford Woods native, along with Nick Mead, Justin Best and Liam Corrigan, finished at 5 minutes, 49.03 seconds.
They led at the 500-, 1000-, and 1,500-meter marks.
It was the first rowing gold for the U.S. at the Paris Olympics.
Corrigan, Best, Grady and Mead won the elusive gold by beating New Zealand and defending world champion Britain.
When Corrigan yelled out “red!” entering the final stages of the regatta, the rest of the American crew knew it was time to go hard.
They all gave it an extra push, picking up the pace just in time to fend off an attack from their rivals.
“When you make that call, ‘red!,’ you see ‘red,’ ” Best said. “You put your bowball out in front, some of the bigger strokes that you take in the race. Liam made that call ‘red!’ and I went with him, and I know Nick went and I could see Grady going because he’s right in front of me.
“That was enough to kind of like double that move and take us into our sprint. So it was pretty flawless execution on the call. And we trusted each other to all make that move together. And it was effective.”
The last time the U.S. men’s four had stood on the Olympic podium was in 2012 in London, where it took bronze.
All four Americans who got the gold Thursday were at the Tokyo Games three years ago but left without any medals. Best, Mead and Corrigan finished fourth in the eight class, and Grady finished fifth in the four.
The four rowers have been together since last season, earning silver at the world championships last year and gold at the world cup race in Lucerne, Switzerland, earlier this year.
“It’s literally unbelievable,” Corrigan said. “I crossed the line, I thought I was going to have some kind of celebration, but I was just in disbelief, like my hands were on my head. It was just crazy.”
Great Britain holds the world record for flat-water rowing, with a time of 5:37.96, set in 2012 in Lucerne.
The Olympic record, achieved by Australia in 2021, is 5:42.76.
Grady and his U.S. rowing teammates had earned a first-place finish in their heat Sunday to secure a spot in the finals.
At Central Catholic, Grady won a gold medal with the varsity eight at the 2013 SRAA National Championship and earned bronze at the 2014 SRAA National Championship.
He rowed in all nine regattas in the varsity eight during his senior season at Cornell University (2019), when it finished sixth at the IRA National Championships.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.