Gopher swimmers gather to cheer their man in Rio

At precisely 8:38 p.m. Monday night, a dozen or so of David Plummer's former swimming teammates from the University of Minnesota jumped from their seats at Sally's Saloon in Minneapolis.

"Push! Push! Push!" they yelled as Plummer flew off the blocks for the 100-meter backstroke finals at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

"Go, baby, go!," they shouted.

"Come on, get up, get up!"

And 52.40 seconds later, as Plummer's hand touched the wall, chants of "David! David! David! David!" filled the bar.

Plummer won the bronze medal in a thrilling finish, coming in just over four-tenths of a second behind his Olympic teammate Ryan Murphy, who took the gold, and less than a tenth of a second after the silver medalist from China.

At age 30, he was competing against swimmers 10 or more years his junior.

The exuberance of his former teammates wasn't dulled in the least by their friend's third-place finish. All swam with Plummer at one time or another during his college years (2005-2008) and considered him a good friend. Many roomed with him for part of that time or at out-of-town competitions.

As Plummer's face filled the giant TV screen in an ad just before the race, they screamed and cheered.

"I know him!" Russ Payne said jokingly to Zach Wood.

Plummer, who now coaches high school swimmers in the Twin Cities suburbs, was a top contender in backstroke at both the Big Ten Championships and the NCAA Championships during college.

In 2012, he missed making the U.S. Olympic team by just 0.12 of a second — and the two American swimmers who beat him wound up finishing 1-2 in London. Plummer's trial time that year — 52.98 seconds — would have placed him fourth in London.

Plummer graduated from the U in 2008 with a degree in English, school records in the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard backstroke, and 14 All-America citations.

Despite missing out on the 2008 and 2012 Summer Games, Plummer's dreams wouldn't die. He continued to train on the U campus with the team's coaching staff, juggling a busy family life with work as a high school coach and his own training.

His wife, Erin Forster, attended medical school while Plummer coached the Wayzata High School boys' swim team and served as assistant coach for the Minnetonka girls' team. They have two sons, Will and Ricky, who was born just weeks before the trials.

At this year's trials in Omaha, Plummer touched the wall just 0.02 seconds behind Ryan Murphy. But it was enough to get him a ticket to Rio.

"We're all living vicariously through him tonight," Wood said before the race. "This is the dream for all of us. But he's the one — he can dig deeper than anyone."

When it was over, his friends toasted with plastic cups of beer: "To David! We love you, David!"

"Just to see him on the podium is a dream come true," said Tim Loeffler, who flew in from Chicago on Monday afternoon to be with his teammates and cheer their friend.

"It was excellent, it was awesome," said former teammate Neil Osten.

"The Olympic trials are the pinnacle," Payne said. "You make it through the Olympic trials and everything else is a bonus. I've talked to other Olympic athletes. David may not think that right now, but he will."

Staff writers Jason Gonzalez and Rochelle Olson contributed to this report. Pat Pheifer • 612-673-7252