Central Catholic grad Michael Grady advances to rowing finals with Team USA at Paris Olympics

Central Catholic grad Michael Grady and his U.S. rowing teammates earned a first-place finish in their heat Sunday at the Paris Olympics to secure a spot in the finals in the Men’s Four on Aug. 1.

Grady, who is competing in the Olympics for the second time alongside Justin Best, Liam Corrigan and Nick Mead, finished in a time of 6 minutes, 4.95 seconds in Heat 2, held at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.

“One unique thing about this lineup and this crew is we’ve been together so long relative to other American crews in the past,” Mead told usrowing.org. “We have a ton of confidence in each other. We’ve been rowing together for about a year and training together for five or six years, so it’s a huge advantage when we come to these races knowing I don’t have to worry about what the guys in front of me are going to do.

“I know that they are going to execute the plan like we’ve talked about and that brings a relaxation and freedom to the race that in the past we’ve not had.”

They will face off against Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand in the finals.

“I would say we’re definitely going good,” Grady told row2k.com. “We’re really excited. Obviously, you can’t get too far ahead of yourself, but we go into each race with pretty high level confidence and we know we can execute well. That’s what it’s going to come down to on the day of the big one: we have to go out there, execute and execute well.”