Meili Claims First #IviesinRio Medal With Outstanding Performance
- mcmoore27
- Aug 8, 2016
- 3 min read
Katie Meili's medal-winning performance in the 100-meter breaststroke final capped off a day of strong performances for #IviesinRio! 17 #IviesinRio were in action today, as the U.S. Field Hockey team pulled off another upset and several Ivies delivered dominating performances in the rowing events.
Swimming
Katie Meili (Columbia '13) won a bronze medal in the final of the women's 100-meter breaststroke. The 2013 Columbia grad swam a time of 1:05.69 to capture the bronze. Meili picks up the first medal for the #IviesinRio. Teammate Lilly King set an Olympic record in winning the gold medal, with a time of 1:04.93.
Meili becomes the first Columbia student-athlete to medal since 2008 when Erin Smart '01 and James Williams '07 took silver in fencing at the Beijing Olympics. She becomes the second member of the swimming and diving program to earn a spot on the podium since Cristina Teuscher '00.
Field Hockey
Another game against a higher-ranked opponent was no problem Monday for Princeton's Katie Reinprecht '13, Kat Sharkey '13, Julia Reinprecht '14, Harvard's assistant coach Katie O'Donnell-Bam and their U.S. teammates as the Americans, ranked fifth in the world by the FIH, beat third-ranked Australia 2-1. The win came two days after the U.S., with the first goal coming from Katie Reinprecht, beat second-ranked Argentina 2-1.
Now 2-0, the U.S. will have three more group-stage games, and none against higher-ranked teams. A matchup with 10th-ranked Japan is first at 4 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a game against 13th-ranked India at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and finally a matchup with Great Britain (the FIH has England ranked seventh as the top U.K. team) Saturday at 5 p.m.
Rowing
There were plenty of fireworks as the Olympic rowing resumed on Monday after an unscheduled day off due to wind and rough water on the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, with several dominating performances and more than a few surprises.
Brown’s Tessa Gobbo ’13 and the U.S. women’s eight left no doubts about their intentions in Rio, absolutely annihilating their competitors to open their Olympic regatta. In a sport where margins typically come down to fractions of seconds, the U.S. crew won their opening heat by eight seconds over the Netherlands, with Romania and Australia trailing.
Princeton’s Lauren Wilkinson ‘11, who stroked the Canadian W8+ to a silver medal at the 2012 London Games, was back in the Canadian W8+ for Monday's opening heats. Canada spent much of the first 1,000 meters of the race in a battle with New Zealand for the lead before Great Britain took control of the race. The British boat sprinted past both to advance to Saturday's A final. Canada will now join four other boats Wednesday at 8:50 am ET in a repechage.
The U.S. men’s eight, which features Mike DiSanto (Harvard ‘12), Glenn Ochal (Princeton ‘08) and Alex Karowski (Cornell ‘12), performed well in the preliminary heat against Germany, but could not get closer than one boatlength to the defending champs. The U.S. crew will race again in the repechage on Wednesday for a second chance at the final.
The U.S. crew of Andrew Campbell (Harvard ’14) and Josh Konieczny (Dartmouth ’13) took care of business today in the men’s lightweight double sculls, qualifying for the semifinals in second place behind a strong Norway duo.
In the men’s four, the U.S. team of Charlie Cole (Yale ‘07) and Henrik Rummel (Harvard ‘09) qualified for the semifinals with a third-place finish today, behind Italy and Canada.
Kate Bertko, a 2006 Princeton grad, who raced in the women’s lightweight double sculls with teammate Devery Karz Monday morning but fell one spot short of a direct advancement to the semifinals, and will compete in one of Tuesday's two repechage races for a spot in Wednesday's semifinals.
Cornell grad Tracy Eisser ’12, and her quadruple sculls teammates advanced to the women’s final. Eisser’s team took fourth in the repechage, edging Australia by six one-hundredths of a second to take the last spot in the final, which will be held Wednesday morning.
The U.S. men’s pair of Anders Weiss (Brown ’15) and Nareg Guregian and took care of business in their repechage, securing the vital third-place spot to move on to Tuesday’s semifinals.
will compete in the 100m breaststroke finals tonight.
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