Tigers trade stripes for nations’ colors

Lind, one of six Princeton alumni rowers in Beijing, crossed the finish line in the women’s eight in six minutes, 5.34 seconds, almost two seconds ahead of the second-place Dutch boat. The Romanian team took third, and the Canadian team, which included Lind’s former Princeton teammate, Andreanne Morin ’06, finished fourth.

Though Morin left Beijing without a medal, she remained upbeat about the experience.

“All in all, it was a great race,” Morin said. “We left everything on the water [and] finished off a fabulous season.”

In the men’s eight, Coppola helped stroke the defending champion American squad to a come-from-behind third-place finish. The U.S. squad started off slowly, and a minute into the race, Coppola’s boat was in sixth. Gradually, the Americans inched past Australia and Poland. In the last few hundred meters, the United States picked off the Netherlands, moving into the bronze-medal position, where the Americans would remain for the remainder of the race. The United States crossed the finish line in 5:25.54, just 24 hundredths of a second behind the second-place Brits.

In the same race, Sam Loch ’06, a member of the Tigers’ 2006 men’s varsity heavyweight team that won the Eastern Championships, and his Australian teammates finished sixth.

Lia Pernell ’03, rowed in the bow for the U.S. women’s quadruple sculls team, which finished fifth, 9.4 seconds behind the first-place Chinese squad.

American Paul Teti ’01, a three-time Olympian, finished ninth in the men’s lightweight four.

Diana Matheson ’08, one of the best female soccer players in Princeton history, competed in Beijing as a midfielder for Canada. The Canadians entered the Olympics as medal hopefuls but failed to make it out of the quarterfinals after falling to Sweden and the United States in successive 2-1 losses. The United States went on to win the gold medal.

Matheson, who now plays for the Ottawa Fury women’s soccer club, expressed disappointment at her team’s unexpectedly early exit from the tournament but looks forward to the 2012 London Olympics.

“After the experience I had in Beijing, I would absolutely love to go to another Olympics,” Matheson said. “London will have a tough time topping what China was able to do with the Games.”

Princetonians also left their mark on the men’s basketball competition in Beijing. Former Princeton star forward Konrad Wysocki ’04 started alongside NBA stars Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman for the German national team. The Germans lost four of their five games, including a 49-point thrashing by Team USA.

Meanwhile, David Blatt ’81, the Russian men’s basketball head coach, entered the Olympics with a strong squad fresh off a 2007 European Championship title. But the Russians struggled in group play, posting four losses in five games, and failed to advance out of the preliminaries.

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Senior swimmer Doug Lennox, an All-American at Princeton, represented Puerto Rico in the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly, where he hoped to reach the semifinals. Though he came up short in both events, he said he took a lot away from the Olympic experience and hopes to do it all over again in four years.

“[Training for the Olympics] has helped mold me into the person I am now,” Lennox said. “And I feel like now I am better equipped, mentally, to overcome any type of adversity in life.”

Freshman Bryan Tay swam in the 200-meter freestyle for Singapore. Tay won his preliminary heat with a time of 1:50.41 — a national record for Tay’s small Southeast Asian country — edging out Estonia’s Vladimir Sidorkin on his final lap. Tay’s time, however, did not qualify him for the semifinals.

Freshman Sandra Fong finished 21st in a field of 43 in three-position rifle. The New York City native said she’s happy with her solid performance, though she thinks she could have done better. Fong, who narrowly beat out her older sister — junior Abigail Fong — at the U.S. Olympic Trials for the second and final American slot on the Olympic three-position rifle roster, hopes to compete again at the 2012 Games.

“It’ll take even more work,” Fong said, “but it’s worth it, and I’m ready.”

Indeed, that seems to be something all of Princeton’s Olympians can agree on.