U.S. Rowers Win Medals But Miss Gold
PENRITH, Australia (AP) _ Missy Ryan pushed up her sunglasses and sweatband, reached forward and gently patted Karen Kraft on the back. The gold medal they had barely lost in Atlanta had slipped away again.
The American tandem _ which retired four years ago and seemed unlikely to return after Ryan donated a kidney to her brother _ led the women's pair for three-quarters of the 2,000-meter race, only to wind up third Saturday (Friday night EDT).
But unlike four years ago, when they sobbed on the medals stand after losing as favorites by 0.3 seconds to Australia, Ryan and Kraft wore wide smiles on the medals stand. They raised their arms and waved, then clasped their hands high above their heads.
"I feel great about it," Ryan said. "I think this must be a first _ to donate a kidney, then win an Olympic medal."
The U.S. men's pair of Ted Murphy and Sebastian Bea were surprising silver medalists, making a late charge to force the home-crowd favorite Australians to bronze and knocking the British out of the medals. Gold went to France.
Americans barely missed another medal in the women's double sculls as Ruth Davidon and Carol Skricki finished fourth by a few inches.
Ryan and Kraft, who were fifth in their only international race this year, led the favored Romanians by .46 seconds at the 1,500 mark, but were caught with about 250 meters to go. Australia again finished ahead of Ryan and Kraft for the silver.
In the women's double sculls, the world-champion Germany crew of Jana Thieme and Kathrin Boron were first, the Netherlands second and Lithuania third. The fourth was still impressive for the Americans, considering Skricki began rowing only eight years ago at age 30.
Tight finishes were common on the first of two days of rowing finals, as reigning Olympic and world champion Yekaterina Karsten of Belarus won the women's single sculls by .01 after a 10-minute delay to settle a photo finish with Bulgaria's Rumyana Neykova.
Rob Waddell of New Zealand, whose wife was sixth in the single sculls, won the men's race. The two-time world champion dropped '96 gold medalist Xeno Mueller to silver and Marcel Hacker gave Germany its second bronze of the day.
Ryan, an Indiana native now living in Dallas, and Kraft, raised in California and now living in Princeton, N.J., had decided the Atlanta Games would be their last.
Hours after that disappointing loss, Kraft suffered more heartache by learning that her sister Sarah was not a suitable kidney donor for their brother, Mike Schwen.
She volunteered immediately.
During the next few weeks, Ryan mixed medical tests with a whirlwind U.S. tour of medal winners. During a stop at the White House, she got President Clinton to sign a goofy get-well card for her brother.
After the successful transplant _ Schwen is now in graduate school at Indiana _ Ryan was married and moved to San Francisco for her husband's schooling. Kraft was there, too. They lived minutes apart, but rarely spoke _ until the day Ryan called Kraft and asked, "What do you think?"
Two months after finishing fifth in a regatta in Switzerland, the U.S. crew was second to Romania in a first-round heat. They got into the finals by winning a consolation round and were feeling good about their chances.
They started strong on Saturday, but didn't have enough to keep pace at the end.
The finals wrap up with seven more events Sunday. U.S. crews are in five of them, including the much-anticipated men's eight. Americans haven't won the event in 36 years after taking 11 of the first 14 Olympic titles. This crew has won the last three world championships.
The United States won three silvers and a bronze in Atlanta, two silvers and a bronze in both Barcelona and Seoul.
The last gold came in 1984 in Los Angeles, when two U.S. crews beat fields that did not include the Soviet Union and most of its allies.
(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
