Nic Fink of Morristown takes silver in swimming
Is Morris County USA Swimming’s new Olympic Titletown?
About 24 hours after Jack Alexy of Mendham helped the U.S. win gold in the 400-meter freestyle relay, Nic Fink tied for silver Sunday in a thrilling 100-meter breaststroke final in Paris.
Fink finished equal to two-time defending champion Adam Peaty from Great Britain at 59.05 seconds, both just two hundredths of a second behind gold medalist Nicolo Martinenghi of Italy. Fink and Peaty received their silver medals from Princess Anne of Great Britain while standing together on the podium, to Martinenghi’s right.
Following the Italian national anthem, the bleached-blonde Martinenghi invited Fink and Peaty onto the top step and posed for a selfie – which Fink showed to the television cameras.
“It was pretty surreal,” Fink said on the TODAY Show on Monday morning. “A lot of times, it’s almost cliche to say, it’s a fingernail touch. But it actually was last night. I was a fingernail out of first, but also a fingernail out of being off the podium. It almost feels like it was meant to be second. Sharing the podium with Nico and Adam was awesome.”
Fink, 31, is the oldest first-time USA Swimming Olympic medalist since Edgar Adams earned silver in 1904.
“It’s just a number in some sense but in another sense, it means more,” Fink, a USA Swimming co-captain, said in a press release. “There were windows to close my career earlier, and I kept going for the love of the sport. To have this much success this late (in life) has been icing on the cake and a lot of fun. More than anything, it’s been fun.”
The reigning world champion in the 100 breast, Fink was fourth after the semis, with Peaty the No. 1 seed going into the final at Paris La Défense Arena.
A long road from Pingry to Paris Olympics
Fink is the veteran among USA Swimming’s “Jersey Boys” − the contingent of top American swimmers that sent three competitors at the Summer Games and so far has two medals to celebrate. Matt Fallon of Warren is also competing in the breaststroke in Paris.
A graduate of The Pingry School in Basking Ridge, Fink has amassed a long list of accolades: He’s a 19-time All-American and four-time Southeastern Conference 100 breaststroke champion at the University of Georgia. A five-time world champion in the breaststroke, he has been part of Team USA since 2013.
“To at least walk away with some hardware and help add more medals on the table for Team USA is an honor,” Fink said. “It’s really great to have a team here who will help you and help make a difference.”
He failed to reach the 2012 or 2016 Games but was fifth in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, which were held a year late because of the COVID pandemic.
More:USA Swimming’s ‘Jersey Boys’ ready to take on the world at 2024 Olympics
At PIngry, Fink was a two-time Swimmer of the Year and the Somerset County Scholar-Athlete of the Year as a senior in 2011, Fink set the state high school record while winning the 100-yard breast at the NJSIAA Meet of Champions. He swam breaststroke on the meet-record medley relay team and anchored the record-setting 200 and 400 freestyle relays.
He earned a master’s in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech after competing in Tokyo, and now works remotely as an assistant project manager for Atlanta-based Quanta Utility Engineering Services. Fink brought his work laptop along to training camp and has been tracking ongoing work and connecting with his colleagues between practices.
Fink and his wife, 2016 Olympic gold medal swimmer Melanie Margalis Fink, live in Dallas and are expecting their first child – a boy – in mid-September. He trains at Southern Methodist University, where she is an assistant women’s coach.
