Did the Facebook origin story lead to the USA winning its first foursome gold medal in more than six decades?
Justin Best, who with teammates Liam Corrigan, Michael Grady and Nick Mead was first at the Paris Olympics on August 1, says he found the sport thanks to the 2010 biopic. Social network.
“So I was in between sports and I was going into my freshman year of high school and I got concussed in football and I was like, ‘No more football,'” Best recounted while speaking with PEOPLE at the Team USA house on Aug. 2. “So my parents were watching Social network one summer night. And apparently the Winklevoss twins are shown, and they are rowers by nature. And so my parents said, ‘Hey, Justin has a similar body type to the actor who played them.’ ”
Justin Best.
Kristy Sparow/Getty Images
Social network chronicles the creation of Facebook, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. In the film, Armie Hammer portrays Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Zuckerberg’s twins from Harvard University who later sued him for creating Facebook.
Cameron and Tyler rowed together in the 2008 Olympics, and their rowing career is featured in the film.
“So they Googled rowing clubs and signed me up for Learn to Row in northern Delaware and Wilmington, called Newport Rowing Club,” Best says. “And I got my first week at rowing camp.”
The rest, says Best, is history: “I loved it and never looked back.”
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Best and his teammates beat New Zealand to win gold earlier this week, with Great Britain in third place. It was the result of dedication and sacrifice, the athletes said.
“There were a few days where I personally thought, ‘This is terrible. This is really hard,'” Best says of the lead-up to the Games. “But you know, that motivation, that extrinsic motivation of these three helped me a lot.”
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Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education