Blake Pieroni, Jacob Pebley, Pace Clark and Zane Grothe haven’t been on a team together since 2016 but they came together Friday at the 2023 Phillips 66 National Championships in Indianapolis as they received a gold medal for their 4x200m freestyle relay performance at the 2016 FINA World Championships (25m) in Windsor, Canada.

“I’m excited to get the hardware,” Grothe said, who is also competing in this National Championships.

“And it’s a different color,” Peroni laughed.

The team was promoted to gold from its silver-medal performance after a redistribution of medals following the suspension and disqualification of Russian swimmer Artem Lobuzov. Japan was promoted to silver and Australia was promoted to bronze. The American foursome learned its’ medal would be promoted just prior to the 2022 FINA World Championships in Budapest.

“It’s been a couple years,” Pebley said of the last time he saw his teammates. “Zane and I were on an International Swimming League team together in 2021, and Pace at Worlds in 2017 in Rome.”

The athletes were presented their medals by the coaches of the 2016 U.S. team, Arthur Albiero and Yuri Suguiyama, at a ceremony during Friday’s finals.