Two of the Six Yale Athletes in the Olympics Return Home With Medals

Six Yale athletes - five alumni and one current student - went to Beijing to compete in the Olympics this August, and two are returning with medals.

Sada Jacobson ‘06 won a silver medal in the women’s fencing individual sabre and a bronze medal in the women’s fencing team sabre competition, competing for Team U.S.A., and Josh West ‘98 was part of the eight-member British crew that earned second-place status in rowing.

The other Yale athletes who took part in this year’s games were Ashley Brzozowicz ‘04, part of the women’s rowing-eight team for Canada; Thomas Barrows ‘10, who represented the U.S. Virgin Islands in sailing (Laser class); Rachel Jeffers ‘07, an alternate on the U.S. women’s rowing team; and Stuart McNay ‘05, who competed in sailing (470) for the United States.

Jacobson, a two-time NCAA sabre champion at Yale, will add this year’s medals to the bronze medal she won in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She already had a long list of accomplishments in fencing before coming to Yale, and was a member of the 2001-2002 Ivy League Championship team. In 2003 she became the first American woman to win the World Cup at the New York City Grand Prix.

West came to Yale having never touched an oar. He started rowing as a freshman at Yale at age 17 under freshman coach Justin Moore and varsity coach Dave Vogel. He participated in the 4-mile Varsity Eights version of the Yale-Harvard Regatta his senior year.

Barrows, who is captain of the 2008 Yale sailing team, placed 21st with 164 points in Laser-class sailing. He will be back in competition for the Bulldogs at the season opening Harry Anderson Intersectional hosted by Yale at the McNay Family Sailing Center in Branford Sept. 13-14.

Of the other Yalies who competed, McNay took the 13th-place finish in the Men’s 470 event with crew Graham Biehl, and Brzozowicz was part of Canadian women’s rowing-eight team that took fourth place.