Day 8 at the London Olympics: Bronze for Rummel '09

The eighth and final day at the Eton Dorney rowing complex and Harvard has another Olympic medalist. Henrik Rummel ’09 and his American coxless four finished third, giving Rummel an Olympic bronze medal to go along with fellow alums Malcolm Howard ’05 (silver) and Caryn Davies ’05 and Esther Lofgren ’09 (both gold).

The four, which had never raced together competitively before these Olympics, won its heat and semifinal by a comfortable margin as Rummel delivered on his pre-Olympic declaration that they were “ready to surprise some people.”

But in the final, the home support behind eventual Gold medalist Great Britain proved to be too much to handle and the Australians narrowly edged out the USA for silver. Before these Olympics the men’s four was expected to be one of the most competitive events. But there was distinctive pecking order with the top-three boats separating themselves and the fourth place finisher, Greece, coming in a full four seconds behind Rummel.

Now that rowing is over, all the athletes will make the trek back to London where they will move in to the Olympic village for the rest of these Olympic Games. With the largest medal haul in recent Harvard history to boot, we hope that these alums enjoy their time off and everything else that comes with being an Olympian away from competition.

Still to come, Samyr Laine ’06 competes for Haiti in the Triple Jump, Alex Meyer ’10 swims for the USA in the open water 10k and Temi Fagbenle ’15 finishes up group stage competition for Great Britain in women’s basketball.