Allez! Yale rowers go for gold at Paris Olympics

During the opening ceremonies for the Paris Olympics, on July 26, athletes from across the world will cross the city’s center, gliding along the Seine in a parade of boats. And among them will be a strong contingent of Yalies — including 16 current or former Yale rowers, the largest showing from the Ivy League in that sport.

These Yale rowers, many of whom are appearing at the Olympics for the second time, will represent nine nations and in eight events; they include two current Yale College students who will compete in the women’s events and four Yale alums who will compete against each other in the men’s pair.

The presence of such a robust Yale crew has special historical resonance this year. One hundred years ago, Yale’s heavyweight varsity eight — which included Benjamin Spock ’25, who later became a renowned pediatrician and author — represented the United States at the 1924 Summer Olympics (also in Paris). “Yale’s eight stalwart sons raised the Stars and Stripes to the masthead on the Seine banks this afternoon,” The New York Times reported after the boat’s four-length victory, which “proved them unquestionably the finest rowing eight at present in the world.”

Since then, current and former Yale rowers have regularly appeared — and placed — at the Olympics.

In collegiate competition, both the men’s and women’s crews consistently compete at the highest levels. This year marked the 50^th anniversary of the Yale women’s crew program, which has sent boats to the NCAA Championship 25 times — with 2024 marking the team’s sixth straight top 10 placement. Since 2017, the men’s heavyweight varsity crew has won three Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s national championships and, in 2022, the Yale men’s program captured the overall national championship.

The enduring strength of the Yale program, Michael Gennaro, the Craig W. Johnson ’68 Head Coach of Heavyweight Crew, said, comes from the passion the athletes bring with them.

“I’m not surprised they are competing at this elite level, simply because of who they intrinsically are,” said Gennaro. “These individuals are incredibly motivated and driven, and many of them arrived at Yale with their eyes already set on competing in the Olympics.”

“Yale student-athletes are dynamic human beings,” said Will Porter, the Friends of YWC Head Coach for Women’s Rowing. “The amount of discipline, focus, and energy it takes to study at the highest level and be an athlete at the highest level is incredibly unique. Understanding them as people and engaging them in the process of their development, meeting them where they are and then pushing them with grace to the next level is key.”

Olympic rowers compete on a 2,000-meter course, either in sculls (each rower handling two oars) or sweeps (each rower using two hands to pull a single oar). Sweep events include teams of two, four, and eight rowers; sculls are single, double, or quadruple. The eight-person crews also have a coxswain to steer and call cadence. Rowing events take place over the first week of competition, ending on Saturday, Aug. 3.

Six women from Yale will race in Paris, including Kristi Wagner ’15, in the U.S. women’s double (the same event in which she competed during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics); Daisy Mazzio-Manson ’20, in the U.S. women’s four; Sophie Oestergaard ’22, coxswain for Denmark’s women’s eight; and Margaret Hedeman ’23, in the U.S. women’s eight. Hedeman, a Massachusetts native who was a first-team All American during her senior year at Yale, recently told The Concord Bridge, in Concord, Mass., that rowing at Yale gave her “structure, friendships, and purpose.”

Training with Wagner and Hedeman on Team USA “brings so much levity and camaraderie,” said Mazzio-Manson. Her mother, Mary Mazzio, rowed in the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, and made a well-received documentary about the famed 1976 Yale women’s crew team long before her daughter decided to attend the university.

At Yale, Mazzio-Manson said, “I learned how to compete, how to be a consistent racer, how to enjoy not just the races but the everyday practices. I learnt how to be a good teammate, how to be a strong and confident woman, and how to balance rowing and the rest of life. Rowing at Yale made me the athlete and person that I am today.”

Two current Yalies are also rowing in the women’s events. Christina Bourmpou, who has rowed for two years on the Yale team, will be part of the women’s pair for Greece; she rowed the same event in Tokyo, just before arriving at Yale. Maya Meschkuleit, heading into her final year at Yale, will row in the Canadian women’s eight. (“Feeling blessed, thankful and pumped,” Meschkuleit reported on Instagram, posing with an oversized Air Canada ticket to Paris.)

Dan Williamson ’23 was still a student at Yale College when he competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (which, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, were held over the summer in 2021). He won gold there, with the New Zealand men’s eight — a result, he said, that grew directly out of his experience training with his Yale teammates. “Those were the guys and girls that had pushed me day to day to be a better athlete.”

“It’s a pretty unique sport in college, I think, in the sense that you do literally have the best in the world for that age in college,” he added. “It really is an all-star team kind of situation.”

This year, rowing in the men’s pair, he’ll take the water with three familiar faces. Competing again for New Zealand, he’ll face off against Ollie Wynne-Griffith ’17, who is rowing for Great Britain; Andrin Gulich ’22, for Switzerland; and Simon Keenan ’15, for Australia.

The major rowing events “always kind of feel like a Yale reunion,” said Gulich, who also competed in Tokyo.

“I have a lot of personal connections with guys who I’m directly racing, which I enjoy a lot,” said Wynne-Griffith, who won bronze in Tokyo with the Great Britain men’s eight. “And then I also find it quite difficult — racing friends is harder than racing strangers.”

Other former Yale rowers in Paris include three on the Great Britain men’s eight: Tom Digby ’20, and two who also raced in the Tokyo Olympics, Sholto Carnegie ’18 and Charlie Elwes ’19. Nick Rusher ’23 will row in the U.S. men’s eight; Daire Lynch ’22 will row for Ireland in the men’s double; and Fergus Hamilton ’23 will be in the men’s four for Australia.

“It’s very special to soak in that whole Olympic experience and realize that this is bigger than just you, and it’s bigger than your sport, and it’s bigger than any other event you’re ever going to be a part of,” said Wynne-Griffith. “So that’s something that I’m very, very excited about.”

For Williamson, the lasting lesson he took from Yale: have fun.

“It sounds kind of silly, because how does fun make you go fast? Honestly, it’s one of those intangible things,” said Williamson. “Yale really just showed me you can row at a high level and enjoy other parts of your life, too.”