They were college rivals and old friends. Now, a former Boston University sailor and a former Boston College sailor will represent the United States at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece this summer.

1997 College of Engineering graduate Tim Wadlow and 1998 BC graduate Pete Spaulding finished first in the 49er class of the Olympic trials, which concluded a week and a half ago.

Wadlow and Spaulding, both 29, grew up in New Jersey, where their families became friends and they began to take an interest in sailing. Wadlow soon moved to San Diego and the two were reacquainted in college, Wadlow said.

“Tim and I were friends through sailing and discussed, basically, our dreams and our ambitions with Olympic sailing and started to put together some ideas on how we could satisfy our ambitions to take our sailing to the next level,” Spaulding said. “After collegiate sailing, Olympic sailing is the next step and the next level of competition that you compete in other than club racing and that sort of thing.”

Brad Churchill, who has been BU’s sailing coach since 1985, said Wadlow was an extremely talented sailor during his time at BU. Churchill said he knew Wadlow was going to be something special when the former student arrived on the New England sailing scene.

“I knew coming in – I said, ‘That’s going to be an All-American sailor,'” Churchill said. “That was obvious. The question was how quickly he could do that.”

In fact, Wadlow was a three-time All American, and was named College Sailor of the Year in 1997.

Churchill said he also paid close attention to Spaulding’s remarkable attitude and abilities, even though he sailed for BC. The head coach was so impressed by Spaulding’s work at BC that he hired him to be a part-time coach at BU after he graduated.

“What Pete Spaulding did at BC was amazing,” Churchill said. “BU kicked the crap out of BC forever. On the sailboat, BC was never going to be a BU. [Spaulding] came along, he organized a team, he helped get them a coach. Pete Spaulding controlled that BC … He ran that team. He was like their coach. That’s what got BC on the map.”

Both Spaulding and Wadlow are more than familiar with the intensity of BU’s rivalry with BC. Wadlow married former BU sailor Liz Willis, who graduated in 1999, and Wadlow’s sister attended BC.

“There’s always an underlying rivalry,” Spaulding said. “I always say the ‘Eagles rule’ and are better and win more often … We didn’t compete against each other until we were at school, but we certainly competed against each other quite a bit and definitely pushed each other. That kind of competition definitely existed between the two of us.”

Wadlow, however, believes any rivalries in the New England sailing community are much friendlier than in other sports.

“It’s sort of a friendly rivalry,” Wadlow said. “The sailing community in Boston ends up definitely partying together a lot … Even [though] we were from rival schools, we still hung out. Most of the rivalry was through hockey as much as anything – going to a hockey game and chanting ‘BC Sucks’ every time the fight song goes.”

Wadlow, who took a year off from school to try out for the 1996 Olympics, said he knew it would take a lot of hard work to make the team. In preparation for the Olympics, both Wadlow and Spaulding said they slowly had to cut back their hours at their full-time jobs, eventually leaving to pursue their dream on an everyday basis, which involved physical training as well as raising the money needed to compete.

“In the last year we’ve probably spent 150 to 200 days actually on the water training,” Wadlow said. “It’s been like a full-time job for us.”

When it was time for the trials, Spaulding said he was confident the work from the past three years would lead them to a first-place finish.

“I thought our chances were really good going in, to win,” Spaulding said. “We had outperformed every other American for the last year … Over a nine-day period, a lot of things can go right and a lot of things can go wrong. We just stayed focused on performing well over the whole period and just kind of hoping that was going to be good enough.”

The team stayed in contact with Churchill and his sailing team through emails and newsletters, according to the BU coach. As time went on, Churchill said he believed Wadlow and Spaulding’s hard work would take the duo’s Olympic dream and turn it into a reality.

“These guys, they didn’t mess around,” he said. “They went from one regatta to the next regatta all over the world and you could see them improving and you could see the attitude in the way the emails were written. They were working on this, they were working on that, they were working on little pieces of their game.”

Spaulding and Wadlow are preparing to travel to Greece in two weeks to train in Athens, Wadlow said. They will also compete in the sailing world championships in April and will attend various events throughout Europe in the months leading up to the games.

The two said they are excited at the opportunity to compete in the Olympics, though they know that they have not reached their goal yet.

“We’re not done yet,” Wadlow said. “Now we’ve got to win a medal.”