The 2008 Olympics in Beijing are over for Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of would-be Facebook rival ConnectU who earned spots on the U.S. rowing team. The identical twins ended up placing sixth overall in the men's pair event; they don't take home any medals, but it's still a more than respectable finish. To get there, the pair had to make it through two rounds of heats, a semifinal, and then the grand final; just making it to the last round is a big accomplishment.
The Winklevosses placed sixth out of the six boats in the final with a time of 7:05.58 on the 2,000-meter course; the gold was snagged by the Australian crew of Drew Ginn and Duncan Free, the team that had beaten the Winklevosses in the event's semifinal on Wednesday. The Aussies won with a time of 6:37.44.
Rounding out the medal stand in second and third place, respectively, were crews from Canada and New Zealand. In fourth was Germany, and South Africa placed fifth.
The brothers Winklevoss had recently settled a lawsuit against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whom they accused of stealing their plan and business code while all three were students at Harvard and Zuckerberg was employed as a ConnectU programmer. ConnectU has nevertheless contested the settlement, claiming Facebook failed to adequately disclose details involving its valuation.
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There's been another victory on the water for ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss--even as their court case against Facebook continues to peter out unfavorably.
The identical twins, representing the United States in the men's pair (M2-) event of the Olympic rowing races in Beijing, placed second in their Wednesday semifinal to advance to the grand final.
At the 500-meter mark, a quarter of the way through the race, the Winklevosses were in fifth place out of the six boats. But they powered through crews from Germany, Serbia, and Italy to cross the finish line just less than 2.5 seconds behind the winning Australian crew of Drew Ginn and Duncan Free. The U.S. pair's final time was 6:36.65.
The Winklevosses are best known in the tech world for having founded ConnectU, a social network for college students that once employed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a programmer. ConnectU's founders--the twins, along with Harvard classmate Divya Narendra--began seeking legal action against Zuckerberg and Facebook in 2004, long before its Silicon Valley deification.
They alleged that Zuckerberg, a Harvard colleague, had swiped ConnectU's business plan and development code in order to kick-start Facebook; courts, however, have been skeptical because of the casual, dorm room nature of the company's early days. No formal contracts were signed, weakening ConnectU argument, and even though the case has been settled, the plaintiffs have continued to fight due to a dispute over Facebook's valuation.
Things have thus far fared much better for the Winklevosses in Beijing, where rowing insiders say the twins were not expected to win a spot in the grand final. In the race on Saturday, they will be up against the German and Australian crews, as well as the top three finishers from the event's other semifinal: Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.
If they place first, second, or third in that race, they'll have some medals to take home.
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ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss pulled through in a repechage (second-chance heat) on Monday on the Olympic rowing course in Beijing, where they're representing the United States in the men's pair event.
The identical twins, best-known in the tech world for being two-thirds of the Harvard-founded start-up that foisted an intellectual-property suit upon Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, had failed to immediately qualify for the semifinals in their Saturday heat. They'd placed fifth and needed a third-place finish to qualify. But the repechage offered another chance for them to earn a shot at the semifinals, which take place on Wednesday.
The Winklevoss twins proceeded to win their repechage, beating the second-place Croatian pair of Niksa and Sinisa Selin--who are also brothers, albeit not twins. The Croatian brothers medaled in both the 2000 Olympics in Sydney (in the men's eight) and in the 2004 Olympics in Athens (in the pair).
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Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have been in the press a lot recently for being "those guys who sued Facebook." As two of the three founders of ConnectU, they had accused Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of intellectual property theft long before he was Silicon Valley's youngest billionaire. Unfortunately, courts didn't tend to side with the brothers Winklevoss, largely because the dorm-room start-up didn't have formal paperwork to prove a breach of contract.
That case has been settled (though ConnectU has contested it), and the Winklevosses--a pair of six-foot, five-inch identical twins with a penchant for wearing matching outfits--are in pursuit of something else. They're on the U.S. Olympic rowing team in Beijing, participating in the men's pair event (referred to in shorthand as M2-). That means they're in a two-person boat, each with one oar; not to be confused with the men's double event (M2x), in which each of the rowers has two oars.
Want to see these guys row? You can watch it online starting very, very early on Saturday morning. The NBC Olympics site will be streaming the first set of rowing heats starting at 1:50 p.m. Saturday, Beijing time, and the Winklevosses will be in the first heat of the men's pair event, which goes off at 4:10 p.m. That's 4:10 a.m. Eastern time, or 1:10 a.m. Pacific time. They'll be up against teams from Italy, France, Canada, and Poland; if they place first, second, or third, the U.S. pair will go straight to the semifinal on Wednesday. If not, they'll have another shot at it during a repechage event on Sunday.
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Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss might not have gotten their way with Mark Zuckerberg, but they've got a different prize in mind now: Olympic glory.
Tyler Winklevoss, one-third of ConnectU's founding and one-half of the U.S. men's straight pair.
(Credit: usrowing.org)The identical twins, who founded one-time Facebook rival ConnectU with their Harvard classmate Divya Narendra, have earned spots on the U.S. Olympic rowing team that will compete later this summer in Beijing. The team's roster was announced Friday and is currently pending approval by the United States Olympic Committee.
Recently, the Winklevoss twins have been in the news because of their long-running lawsuit against Facebook founder Zuckerberg, whom they had once hired as a programmer for ConnectU.
Since 2004, they have alleged that he stole their business plan and source code. The legal fight dragged on until a settlement was reached earlier this year. Then, however, ConnectU's lawyers challenged the agreement and claimed that Facebook had committed fraud. Earlier this week, a judge decided to enforce the settlement, which provided ConnectU with a mixture of cash and stock (effectively, an acquisition by Facebook).
It was no secret that the Winklevoss twins (or "Winklevii," as they are reportedly nicknamed) were in the running for the Beijing squad, but their spots on the roster were not guaranteed until Friday's announcement.
Fittingly, the two will be rowing together. They'll be in the men's straight pair event, which pits heats of two-person boats (each rower has one oar) against one another for the standard distance of 2000 meters.
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