Calympic Results and Video Highlights for Day 5 (August 1st) - Rowing, Swimming, Water Polo

Day 5 saw 13 Golden Bears athletes and 1 coach in action. The first set of rowing medals were given out, plus a few more swimming. Quite a few Bears were up for these medals. Find out if they won any hardware (and link to highlights) as well as all the other Cal action after the jump (spoilerphobes should stay away).

GO BEARS!

Rowing:

We'll start our day with the rowing events, since this did happen first. Some of the Cal Olympic Rowing tradition is captured in the follow video:

Avinash has a great recap of all the Pac-12 rowing action today over at Pacific Takes. In short, Cal now has a non-swimming medal with a Bronze by Kohler.

• Women's quadruple sculls finals: After entering the final through the repechage yesterday, Kara Kohler (USA) and co. finished 3rd for a Bronze medal.
• Men's eight finals: Zach Vlahos (USA) and US Team (coached by Mike Teti) had a poor start and was only able to get 4th. The Dutch team with Olivier Siegelaar (Netherlands) finished 5th.
• Men's pair semifinals: Scott Frandsen (Canada) and partner finished 3rd to advance to the A Final on Friday.

Full replay of today's rowing can be found here.

Swimming:

Today was a banner day for Cal swimming as two Gold medals can now be added to the Cal total.

• Men's 100 Free finals: Nathan Adrian (USA) came through and narrowly (by 0.01 seconds) won the Gold over the favorite James "the Missle" Magnussen of Australia. Adrian was a very close 3rd at the turn. This is the first time that an American man has won the 100 Free (one of the marquee event of swimming) since 1988, when fellow Cal Golden Bears Matt Biondi accomplished the feat. Read this ESPN story about Nathan Adrian's win. From that article:
  

The 6-foot-6, 220-pound teddy bear has long been one of the good guys within USA Swimming, the type of person who is seemingly always smiling, always happy, always eager to make a new friend. When one USA Swimming official was asked Wednesday night whether Adrian was one of the nicest guys on the team, he interrupted the question and said, "Forget the team. In the world."

And here is the NBCOlympic article about Nathan Adrian, calling him an instant American hero. Cal fan would be interested to read:

In one of those quirks, the last American man to win the 100 free was -- Matt Biondi, also in 1988. (In Olympic-record time, and by several tenths of a second.)

Like Adrian, Biondi is a Berkeley alum. "Go Bears!" Adrian said at Wednesday night's news conference.

• Women's 4x200 Free relay: Dana Vollmer (USA) was part of both the qualification in the morning and the final in the evening. The prelim race also included Sara Isakovic (Serbia) and Lauren Boyle (New Zealand), neither of their team qualified for the final. Team USA set an Olympic Record (with Vollmer swimming the 2nd leg) in winning the Gold medal. Watch the prelim swim here.
  
• Women's 100 Free: Prelim was in the morning with both Jessica Hardy (USA) and Hannah Wilson (Hong Kong) in the same heat. Hardy advanced to the semifinal by finishing 3rd in that heat. In the semifinal, Hardy finished 3rd in her semifinal, good enough for the 8th and final spot in the final tomorrow. Coming in to the Olympics, Hardy was considered a strong possibility to medal. Watch the prelim swim here.
• Men's 200 IM: Cal is represented by Martin Liivamagi (Estonia) in the 200 IM prelim. A 5th place finish in his heat wasn't enough for Martin to advance. Watch the prelim swim here.

Women's Water Polo

• US Women's Water Polo was also in action today. Two Golden Bears (Elsie Windes and Heather Petri) were in the starting lineup that fought to a 9-9 draw with Spain in group play. Both teams are now tied for first in group play after two matches each. Replay of the match can be found here.

Cal London 2012 Medals Total:

With the 3 medals earned by Calypians today, Cal now has a total of 8 medals (in 7 events) with 3 Golds, 1 Silver, and 4 Bronze.