Women’s eight gold is precious medal for Esther Lofgren and mother

Lofgren’s belongings, almost all of them, were stored in her 1998 Toyota Camry. She lived with a host family in Princeton. At most, U.S. Rowing afforded her $1,000 a month, and paid for her health insurance. So she took odd jobs. “What haven’t I done?” she asked. She babysat. She tutored. She worked in a sandwich shop. She worked as a barista. She worked as a sommelier. She was pursuing her dream, as almost every athlete here has. But in a way, one which they did not discuss, she was pursuing her mother’s, too.

“There was a time where she would kind of say, ‘I’m trying to be as good as you were,’ ” Christine Lofgren said. “And I thought, ‘How would you know, exactly, how good I was?’ And there came a point at which we kind of said, ‘You know, you’re way better than we ever were.’ ”

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When Esther Lofgren decided to dive back in for another go at the world championships, and eventually the Olympics, her family knew what it meant. Some members of the U.S. team that have trust funds, Christine said, but Christine and Karl Lofgren are paying down the loans that got their daughter through college. Her uncle helped with her car. Esther is 27, Harvard-educated, and living something of a destitute existence. Yet what could her parents say?

“I guess part of it is, having been there, I know,” Christine said. “I’m not going to say to her, ‘Look, you’ve got to pick up another 20 hours of work this week.’”

It all brought her to the starting line Thursday at Dorney Lake, where the Americans would ride between Canada and the Netherlands. After a quarter of the 2,000-meter race, they led by 1.5 seconds. It wasn’t enough.

“That’s our motto,” Francia said. “Be greedy.”

So by the midway point, the lead was 2.34 seconds. The Canadians eventually closed the gap, but it mattered not. The Americans finished in 6 minutes 10.59 seconds, and slapped the water in exultation.

When Lofgren reached shore, she could scarcely stop crying. “This is for her,” she said of her medal and her mother. When Esther, an American flag draped across her back, finally made her way through the phalanx and found Christine, they embraced. Then, together, they examined the medal draped around Esther’s neck, first the front, then the back. It was a prize won Thursday with a dream that dates back a generation, a medal for team and country and mother and daughter alike.

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