Wahoo Captures Gold

(Tim Binning/TheSwimPictures.com)

Rising "fourth year" Lauren Perdue (Greenville, N.C.) earned a gold medal with the United States in the women’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay Wednesday (August 1) at the 2012 Olympic Games. Perdue led off the American prelim relay on Wednesday morning to earn the medal and is the second Cavalier to earn a medal in as many days after Matt McLean (’11) won gold with the U.S. men’s 4x200m free relay on Tuesday.

It is the first time that the Cavalier swim program has had two medals in the same Olympiad since 2000, when American Ed Moses won gold with the 4x100m medley relay and silver in the 100m breaststroke.

Perdue led off the prelim relay with a 1:58.07 and teammates Shannon Vreeland, Alyssa Anderson and Dana Vollmer finished the heat in 7:50.75, touching first two seconds faster than Italy (7:52.75).

In the finals, the relay team of Missy Franklin, Vollmer, Vreeland and Allison Schmitt broke the Olympic record in a time of 7:42.92, defeating Australia (7:44.41) and France (7:47.49).

Perdue becomes the first Virginia female swimmer to medal since Melanie Valerio won gold with the U.S. 4x100m free relay in 1996, and is only the third overall. American Wendy Weinberg earned bronze in the 800m free in 1976. Perdue also becomes only the fourth UVa swimmer to win gold, joining McLean, Moses and Valerio.