University of Tennessee Athletics
Goldberg Wins Gold at Pan American Games
September 08, 2003 | Men's Swimming & Diving
Sept. 8, 2003
Tennessee sophomore Bryan Goldberg won a gold medal as part of the United States' 800m freestyle relay at the recently completed Pan Am Games in Santo Domingo, Dom.
"This was a huge accomplishment for me to swim at the games," Goldberg said. "The Pan Am games are the second biggest international event next to the Olympics. With 7000 athletes and scores of coaches and support staff, the atmosphere was amazing. The swimming was a great event and one of the most attended venues in the games, with a maximum capacity crowd every night of around 5000 people."
Goldberg swam the second leg of America's 800m free relay, with splits of 52.90 and 56. 90 for a 1.49:80. The team of Ryan Lochte (Florida), Goldberg, Jeff Lee (Southern California) and Dan Ketchum (Michigan) won in 7:18.93, a Pan Am Games record.
Going into the race, the distance squad knew they could win the gold, but they wanted the Pan Am rely record.
"We knew we had a good shot at winning the gold going into the race, in fact we were really going against the clock because we wanted to break the old Pan Am relay record which had swimmers the likes of Josh Davis and Ryan Burube on it, both Olympians," Goldberg said. "After Dan touched the wall and we saw we had broken the record we were overwhelmed with excitement. The four of us had grown close, as we were roommates in the village and we had been talking about the relay since we meet up in Tampa. It was cool to be able to experience that emotion of winning with those three guys."
Goldberg is now back in Knoxville where he and his teammates prepare for the upcoming swimming and diving season. The Vols travel to Lexington to take on the Wildcats Oct. 24.
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