Bay Area Rowers Win Olympic Gold Medals

Two Bay Area university graduates garnered Olympic gold medals on Thursday as part of an eight-woman rowing team.

Erin Cafaro, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Elle Logan, a Stanford University senior, joined six other Americans to pull across the finish line ahead of Canada, with the Netherlands taking the bronze.

Cal is keeping a running total of medals won by athletes who attended the school, and so is Stanford. As of right now, Cal is up 5 to 1.

Cal is keeping a running total of medals won by athletes who attended the school, and so is Stanford. As of right now, Cal is up 6 to 2.

Cafaro and Logan both rowed on the 2008 gold-winning U.S. team, which has won five world championships and hasn’t lost a heat since 2006.

The team won with a time of 6:10.59, just a few seconds slower than the world record time, 5:54.17, which they set in May.

Cafaro, who hails from Modesto, California, began rowing as a novice at UC Berkeley in 2001. At 5-feet-9-inches high, Cafaro is shorter than average for a rower, so she devised a special training routine, which she demonstrates in this video: