Oh yeah… New England’s quiet golds

Posted by Ted McEnroe August 18, 2008 at 8:36 am

They don’t get the flashy headlines, or even the chance to stand on the podium with their mates, but a pair of New Englanders are bringing home gold medals for their Olympic performances. Swimmers Ian Crocker (Portland, Maine) and Erik Vendt (North Easton, Mass.) will leave Beijing with gold medals for doing the grunt work of getting relay teams into finals so that Michael Phelps and Co. could rest up to smash world records in the finals.

For Crocker, the medal is nice, I’m sure, but he would have rather grabbed the gold (or at least a silver behind Phelps) in the 100 fly. It’s his third medley relay gold, but he leaves Beijing without an individual gold medal in his Olympic career, although his world record (50.40) is still intact.

For Vendt, it is the best restult he could expect. He knew going in that barring injury, the 4×200 prelim would be his time in the water, and it gives a gold to a guy who picked up silver in the 400 IM in Sydney and Athens.

Bottom line, these guys have been putting in the miles for the past four years, and they deserve a little applause for their achievements - even if they received just a splash of attention.