Philly-area rowers Nick Mead and Justin Best struck gold and made history at the Paris Olympics

PARIS — When he and his teammates crossed the finish line Thursday morning, having covered 2,000 meters of Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium’s flat water in 5 minutes, 49.03 seconds, to claim the United States’ first gold medal in men’s fours rowing in 64 years, Nick Mead presumed he would celebrate.

Of course he would celebrate. Wouldn’t you celebrate? Instead, he made no sound at all. All he could do was throw his hands over his head in disbelief.

» READ MORE: Follow a list of locals competing for gold and more with the Inquirer's full coverage of the Olympic Games

“It’s literally unbelievable,” Mead, an Episcopal Academy graduate and Chester County native, said. “It was crazy.”

Mead and his boatmates — Justin Best, a Unionville High School and Drexel University alumnus, among them and at the bow — managed to edge New Zealand’s four (5:49.88) by less than nine-tenths of a second, despite a late and hellacious charge by the silver medalists. Great Britain (5:52.42) finished third.

“Words exist, I think,” Best said. “But I can’t put them together right now about how that feels.”

The last time that a United States four-man boat won a gold medal was during the 1960 Summer Games, and all of the event’s races were held on Lake Albano, about 12 miles southeast of Rome. The lake’s “smooth blue-black waters,” author David Maraniss once wrote, “reached depths of nearly 600 feet, filling the five-mile oval of a primordial crater embraced by rich green slopes on the south, sunburned brown hills on the east and north, and a vast landscaped terrace on the west leading up to Castel Gandolfo, summer palace of the Pope.”

Thursday’s race had a thoroughly modern setting. The Munich-based architecture firm Auer Weber Assoziierte built Vaires-sur-Marne, a 4,400-square-meter sports center about 20 miles east of Paris, on the Vaires-Torcy leisure island. Built in 2019, it was the first new facility completed for these Olympics, and Mead, Best, Pittsburgh native Michael Grady, and Liam Corrigan (from Lyme, Conn.) christened it with a historic victory for American rowing.

» READ MORE: Philly rowing duo looks to lead U.S. to a long-sought Olympic medal in the men’s four-boat

“I don’t think ‘special’ does it enough justice,” Best said, “because of the amount of meters, hours, days with each other away from our loved ones, the funerals you have to miss, the weddings you have to miss, the social events you have to miss, the fiancées who are put on hold, the girlfriends who are put on hold. It’s all-encompassing in what it takes to get to this moment, and we have a group of four guys who love each other. Like I said, ‘special’ can’t describe it. It really is that ethereal bond we’ve created over the last two years.

“Now we have a physical reminder of everything we put in, and we’ll have this for the rest of our lives. I can’t wait for our 60th reunion when we row the Charles in the 2070s when we’re old and just paddling along.”