Going for Four - Athens Olympic Finals

Pinsent going for four
© FISA

By Melissa Bray

Athletes wait four years for this chance. At the Games of the twenty-eighth Olympiad five rowers will race for the chance of their fourth Olympic gold medal. Spread over two days the 2004 Olympic Regatta finals will crown Olympic Champions in the fourteen events. Some will be brand new, some will become multiple champions when the laurel wreath comes down on their head.

Winning an Olympic gold medal puts you in a small elite group of athletes. Going for four Olympic gold medals elevates you towards the status of a Greek god. Leading the list is Great Britain’s Matthew Pinsent. Pinsent rowed through the heady days of the reign of Sir Steve Redgrave Together they won three gold medals – twice in the pair and once, at Sydney, in the four. Rowing on Saturday in the men’s four, Pinsent will be after his fourth gold medal.

Germany’s Kathrin Boron is also bordering on the ranks of four golds. The German sculler already has two Olympic gold medals from the double and one from the quad. On Sunday she races in the final of the women’s quad and if gold is the result, Boron will move to four Olympic gold status from four Olympic Games.

The Romanian women’s eight is stacked full of potential four-timers. Elisabeta Lipa heads the list. She won gold in the single at Barcelona and followed it up with two golds in the eight from Atlanta and Barcelona.

Thirty-nine year old Lipa will be racing in her country’s eight on Sunday after doing a successful comeback to the sport in 2003.

Also in Lipa’s eight are Viorica Susanu and Gerogeta Andrunache. Susanu and Andrunache doubled up on events, racing in their country’s pair and eight at Sydney and coming away with two gold medals. They are doing the same doubling-up act in Athens and if they are successful, they will leave on Sunday as four-time Olympic gold medalists from two Olympic Games.

Andrunache and Susanu will race the pair on Saturday and then come back to race in the Romanian eight on Sunday with Lipa.