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Courtesy of USATF/PHOTORUN
Relay team members (from the left) Sanya Richards, UCLA’s
Monique Henderson, Monique Hennagan and Dee Dee Trotter show
their gold. |
Current Bruins, alumni savor Olympic triumphs
by wendy soderburg
ucla today
“Hot, humid and hilly.”
That’s how UCLA alumnus Meb Keflezighi described the marathon
course in Athens, Greece, where he won the silver medal on the last
day of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games. “That was probably the
toughest marathon you could run.”
Keflezighi found himself running alongside Italy’s Stefano
Baldini and urged him, in Italian, to work with him to catch up
to the leader, Vanderlei de Lima of Brazil. The two passed de Lima
and finished one-two, and Keflezighi became the first American male
marathoner to win a medal in 28 years.
He was one of 19 current or former Bruins to medal in Athens,
a statistic that would have placed UCLA 14th overall in the medal
count over such countries as Hungary, Greece, Brazil and Canada.
The gold medalists included Lisa Fernandez, Tairia Mims Flowers,
Amanda Freed, Stacey Nuveman and Natasha Watley for softball; Joanna
Hayes for the 100m hurdles; Monique Henderson for the 4x400m relay;
and former UCLA women’s soccer coach Joy Fawcett for soccer.
In addition to Keflezighi, Mohini Bhardwaj in women’s gymnastics
and Tanya Harding in softball (Australia) won silver. Taking home
bronze medals were Robin Beauregard, Natalie Golda, Thalia Munro,
Nicolle Payne, Kelly Rulon and Amber Stachowski for women’s
water polo; and Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs for beach volleyball.
On the gold medal relay team with Dee Dee Trotter, Sanya Richards
and Monique Hennagan, Henderson, a UCLA senior, said she wasn’t
sure they had won until Hennagan, the anchor, crossed the finish
line and threw her hands into the air. “It was just so much
fun. I can’t even describe the feeling after we won, it was
just so neat.”
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