Dan Wolken

USA TODAY Sports

RIO DE JANEIRO – The emotion would hit Adam Krikorian in odd places the last two weeks; maybe a song that would trigger a memory or during his morning walk down to a serene pond in the Olympic athletes’ village.

“It would come and go at awkward times,” said Krikorian, whose brother Blake died of a heart attack the day before the opening ceremony. “Mostly when I was alone more than anything.”

He had already been home to California to be with his family, then back into the alternate universe of Rio where everybody suspends real life to focus on sporting events they’ve worked their entire careers just to make. The push-and-pull between grief and opportunity was real for Krikorian, the U.S. women’s national team coach for water polo, but his approach never wavered.

No matter what he was experiencing, and no matter how difficult it was at times to keep it together or how lonely he might have felt at times, he owed the players nothing less than his full focus and inspiration.

Adam Krikorian leads way for U.S. water polo team after tragedy

“It would be very selfish of me to let what happened to me personally and my family, to let the grieving and mourning affect this group and what we’ve set out to do over the last four years,” Krikorian said. “These girls have worked so hard for four years, some their entire lives for this moment. So no matter what happened to my family, who am I to ruin that for them as the leader of the group? That’s actually helped me and made it fairly easy and that doesn’t take away from the love I have for my family or my brother, it’s more of a sign of respect and love we all have for each other.”

That love was returned many times over in this tournament, which the U.S. team dominated from start to finish, capped off by a 12-5 victory over Italy on Friday in the gold medal match. After it was over, the players dragged coaches into the pool and celebrated in one group hug. And then, as they did in London four years ago, they each took their gold medals and placed them around Krikorian’s neck.

This time, though, it undoubtedly had a different meaning.

“For him to pull his team together after hearing that news hours before (the Olympics began) and be able to sit down and talk to his team in that situation is so telling of his character,” team captain Maggie Steffens said. “He was telling us to enjoy the moment, enjoy opening ceremonies, don’t worry about me, you be you, this is our dream, live it. This is a coach who just went through something so traumatic. We wanted to be strong for him, but he was strong for us and that’s why he’s the best coach in the world.”

It would be easy to say that Krikorian’s family tragedy inspired the U.S. team to roll through this tournament, in which it outscored its six opponents by a combined 73-32. But the truth is, this was more a testament to their unparalleled talent and a team that might be considered the best ever assembled.

Ever since breaking through for its first-ever gold in 2012, the Americans have dominated this sport, winning the 2014 World Cup, the 2015 World Championships and three consecutive World League titles in China.

The concern, if anything, was that this team might actually be too good and not know how to respond in a close game. As it turned out, they never actually faced one in the Olympics and played as close to perfect in the finals as they could.

Though the U.S. led just 5-3 at halftime, it dominated defensively in the third period and built the lead to 9-4. The Americans just kept pouring it on from there.

“The 2012 team, I love them to death and they were a gritty, hard-nosed, tough group,” Krikorian said. “But this team has done some special things.”

If Krikorian needed anything else to lift his spirits, he got in on Thursday when his wife Anicia Mendez made a surprise trip to Rio and showed up at practice.

Under the circumstances, it was as good a week as he could have hoped for.

But with about 2 minutes left in the final game, when it was obvious the U.S. team couldn’t lose, the emotions that had built started pouring out of him.

Suddenly, there was no need to focus any longer and his thoughts turned to his brother, also a former water polo player at UCLA a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose company invented the Slingbox.

“Today we played so well and to play as well as we have and we did today in that moment, in the gold medal game, when you’ve been thinking about this for the last four years, it’s a dream come true,” Krikorian said. “It’s going to hit me pretty hard later today probably. It was hitting me at the end of the game just thinking about my brother and thinking about how hard this journey’s been. It hasn’t been easy.”

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