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Friday, September 22
Murphy, Bea win men's silver
Associated Press
PENRITH, Australia -- 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.
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