Former UGA swimmer breaks world record, wins Olympic gold medal

PARIS, France — University of Georgia alum Nic Fink has won his second medal at the Paris Olympics , but this time, it’s gold.

Fink, 31, and his teammates, Ryan Murphy, Gretchen Walsh, and Torri Huske, competed in the mixed 4x100-meter medley relay on Saturday and finished in a world record time.

They finished in 3 minutes, 37.43 seconds, .12 ahead of China. That finish also went under review before becoming official. When it did, Murphy threw both arms into the air to celebrate.

This marks Fink’s first gold medal of his career. Earlier this week, the full-time engineer won silver in the 100-meter breaststroke, just two-hundredths of a second behind winner Nicolo Martinenghi of Italy.

For some, coming that close to the top step on the podium would be gut-wrenching. Not so for Fink. Not after all he’s been through.

In his first two trips to the U.S. trials, he failed to make the Olympic team. In 2021, he finally broke through only to finish fifth in the 200 breaststroke at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games.

Now, finally, he has a long-sought piece of hardware.

“Yeah, age is just a number in some sense,” Fink said. “But in another sense, it means more at this time, especially because there were definitely windows to close my career earlier and I kind of kept going for the love of the sport. To have this much success this late has been icing on the cake and a lot of fun.”

Fink and his wife, former Olympic swimmer Melanie Margalis Fink, currently live in Dallas and are expecting their first child in September.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.