John Sayre knows how to succeed, whether he is facing a heavily favored athletic rival or fighting federal bureaucracy to save salmon.

“One thing I’ve learned is nothing beats perseverance,” said the 72-year-old Olympic gold medalist. “Perseverance is the one thing that pays off.”

A Fidalgo Island resident, Sayre was on a University of Washington rowing team that made national news in 1958 when it upset a powerhouse Soviet crew in Moscow. Two years later, he was part of a four-man team that again upset the Soviets to win an Olympic gold medal in Rome.

Later, he worked for Jacques Cousteau and helped found the organization Up With People. Now he applies his efforts to salmon recovery and renewable energy projects as executive director of Northwest Chinook Recovery.

And just when Sayre’s crew experience seemed to be ancient history, Russia invited his University of Washington crew back to Moscow this fall to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the famous 1958 race.

Sayre was an aquatic competitor early, on the swim team of Clover Park High School in Tacoma. As a freshman at the University of Washington he saw the rowing team recruiting in the Quad. They had oars with a string suspended 6 feet off the ground and a sign: “If you have to duck, you should go out for crew.”

“I did,” said the 6-foot 5-inch Sayre.

He rowed four years at the university, adding 10 pounds of muscle per year to a skinny frame and working his way up to the varsity eight-man crew. He worked hard, but said his experience might have been unremarkable without luck.

“My claim to fame here is like with most things: Timing is everything,” he said.

His senior year, the football team got into trouble and the school’s teams, including crew, were disqualified from collegiate competitions. Instead, the eight-man team competed in England at the famous Henley Royal Regatta.

“We were a good crew,” he said.

The team was inexperienced, with only five varsity boat races before Henley, but it was the crew’s poor performance at the regatta that opened doors.

“We went to England and we rowed against the Soviet crew and we lost,” Sayre said. “Almost instantly we were invited to compete in the Soviet Union. We were the first American athletes invited to compete there.”

Sayre and team did not understand the political implications of the Cold War-era invitation.

“That was a bunch of us naive kids from the Northwest,” he said.

The Soviets expected to defeat the Americans in front of a home crowd.

“Because of the time and the place and the political climate, this thing got elevated,” he said. “They saw this as a major propaganda advantage.”

Keith Jackson of KOMO television got a broadcast crew to the event and the hype grew.

“We weren’t just the University of Washington. We were the United States of America,” Sayre said.

Sayre and his teammates were only focused on the competition.

“Of course none of this went through our minds. We lost (in England) and we wanted to win,” he said.

Only two weeks after the initial defeat, the eight-man crew faced the Russians again.

“We surprised them,” he said. “We came back and we won in Moscow.”

After graduation, Sayre rowed two years for the Lake Washington Rowing Club. Sayre, Ted Nash, Rusty Wailes and Jay Hall won a gold medal at the 1959 Pan-American Games in Chicago in the four without coxswain race. The crew went on to the 1960 Olympics, with Dan Ayrault in place of Hall.

In Rome, they lost their first race.

“We hit a buoy and broke an oar,” Sayre said.

But rowing has a second chance race, called repechage, where perseverance becomes a factor.

“You can still get into the finals,” he said.

Sayre’s crew won the repechage and kept winning, beating the heavily favored Germans along the way. The 2,000 meter race — about a mile and a quarter — worked in their favor.

“The Europeans ran a quicker start,” Sayre said. “We caught them in the last couple hundred yards and won it.”

In the final race, the U.S. crew beat an Italian crew by almost three seconds, winning gold and setting a record.

Sayre said competitors come to the Olympics with different goals. Some have already met their goals by getting there, and others want any medal. His team believed “winning a silver is like taking an aspirin.”

“Our goal from the very beginning was to win an Olympic gold medal and nothing less,” he said.

Because of the expectations, Sayre’s immediate reaction to winning was complex. Emotionally he was almost let down.

“You had to sacrifice everything for two years to be there,” he said. “It was an enormous relief.”

Perspective came later.

“As time goes by you realize this is a pretty exclusive club. It was by the grace of God that you got there,” he said.

Whatever his initial response, the pride and gratitude he felt while standing on the top podium with “The Star-Spangled Banner” playing was powerful.

“We were all in tears. It’s a very, very moving thing,” he said.

Sayre’s was the second American team to win gold in coxless fours, and no American team has matched the accomplishment since. A list of medalists in this race is posted at About.com.

After his competitive days, he worked for the U.S. Olympic Committee for a short term, then he helped found the leadership program Up With People. He did some writing for Jacques and Philippe Cousteau and worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For the last 20 years he has been in private salmon recovery efforts. Working with the Tulalip Tribe and private farms, Northwest Chinook Recovery formed the nonprofit Qualco Energy, which is creating a renewable energy demonstration site on an old Department of Corrections dairy farm near Monroe. A $3.5 million anaerobic digester processes cow manure from other farms, producing methane that generates electricity. The remaining solids are returned to the fields as compost that doesn’t stink and contains nitrogen in a more accessible form than manure, he said.

Qualco’s revenues will fund other restoration and renewable energy projects.

“We’re trying to create a site that’s a demonstration of renewable energy technology, recycling and a platform for farmers and tribes and environmental groups working together,” he said.

Eventually there will be a visitors center explaining the state of the art environmental farming. He said the work must be done with farmers, because so much salmon habitat is on farm land.

“If you don’t save farming you’re not going to save salmon,” he said.

Sayre is irritated by those who are fatalistic about the environment.

“So many friends of our age group don’t want to talk about it or think about it,” he said. “If you really give a damn about your kids and grandkids you make yourself aware and see what you can do.”

He said it is not too late and quotes another environmentalist: “You have just enough time if you start right now.” He recommends the book “Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How it Can Renew America” by Thomas L. Friedman, which offers solutions.

“It’s scary but it’s exciting. We have to look at totally changing the way we do things,” he said.

Sayre took a break from his environmental work for the University of Washington crew reunion in Moscow. The trip was documented by Lenville O’Donnell, who also did “On Native Soil,” a documentary about the 9/11 Commission Report.

He said the changes in Russia are remarkable.

“Moscow in ‘58 was the gray grim Soviet capital, with almost no cars to be seen except a few limousines zipping around,” he said. “They were excellent hosts, but it was a different world.”

Now Moscow is packed with cars. Stores are filled with young women dressed to the teeth in the latest Paris styles.

“Going back to Russia is like day and night,” he said.

On thing that hadn’t changed was Russian hospitality.

He remembers that an interesting historical event took place while they were visiting in 1958: U.S. Marines landed in Lebanon. The Soviets loudly expressed their disapproval.

“There were huge demonstrations in front of the U.S. Embassy. The government let people off work so they could demonstrate. You had people throwing stuff at the American embassy,” Sayre said.

His team’s manager went to look at the action and demonstrators quickly figured out he was American. Their response? Delight.

“Everyone patted him on the back. They offered him ink bottles to throw at the embassy,” Sayre said.

In the 1960s Soviet teams were escorted by “square guys in suits” who were always in the background.

“This was the political oversight,” he said.

Fifty years later, there was little control on the American rowers’ movement, although they briefly slipped past patrols to row up the Moscow River near the Kremlin.

He said it seemed odd to throw a regatta celebrating a race they lost 50 years ago, but Russia was showing off its hospitality.

“They are trying to get the World University Games and this is part of their pitch,” he said.

Sayre said the rowers were treated royally.

“They gave us a commemorative medal. We all had a ball. Once again I was in the right place at the right time,” he said.

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