The swimmer, Eric Moussambani, completed the slowest 100 metres in Competitive swimming. 1 minute and 52 seconds. He was in a heat of 3 people. the other 2 got disqualified for false starts.
He swam the distance by himself, to huge applause from the crowd. He had never swam 100 metres competitively before. He had never seen a 50m pool before in his life, and had practiced in a 20m pool. As a matter of fact, he had never swam 100 metres before without stopping for a break.
He started swimming in January.
For all the product placement, advertisment breaks that last longer than the event itself, and Corporate shlock that has infested the games, here’s one man that may not be world class, but showed true Olympic Spirit.
Baron de Cubertain would be proud.
I saw that guy swimming last night! It was great, he was so happy to get there! Reminded me of that one guy in the Lillehammer Winter Olympics: from Africa somewhere, I think. He skied de slalom in a time that was 6 times as much as Tomba’s winning time. He was in tears. Then, Tomba and the 2nd place guy (Norwegian guy, I think) took him on their shoulders and paraded him around!
It was great - and yes, that IS the Olympic Spirit.
Yojimbo, was that a heat or a final that Van den Hoogenband just won? Don’t tell me he scored his second gold medal!
BTW, the Dutch Baseball team last night beat reigning World and Olympic Champions Cuba. Hell has officially frozen over
Coldfire, sorry to say that Kenyan skier’s story wasn’t the True Olympic Parable it sounded like at first. He was a cross-country skier, not Alpine, and he finished dead last in the men’s 10km race. (In men’s xc-skiing, the 10km race is the sprint distance.) He was congratulated by the winner of that race, Norwegian skier Bjørn Dæhlie, and widely touted as an example of Real Olympic Spirit. Which was exactly what Nike wanted. You see, Nike had come up with the whole idea of having a Kenyan skiing team in the first place, as a publicity stunt. The intention, of course, was to make money. Well, I suppose that is the modern Olympic spirit…
There was a touching moment at the Atlanta olympics. A runner was injured but through tears and help from his father he managed to limp across the finish line. The crowd was cheering like mad. Anybody remember this?
Yeah, I remember that. Incidents like these only serve to underscore the horrid treacle that is NBC’s coverage. There is no reason to manufacture “Olympic moments”. Send your cameras and crew out to some of the lesser-known events. Talk to athletes - not just big-name favorites. Acutally cover the Olympics. You’ll find plenty of “Olympic moments”, I’m sure. And they’ll be actual, authentic Olympic moments, the kind which manufactured moments can’t hold a candle to.
We’re talking about two different things here, I guess. I do remember the incident with Daehlie and the Kenian skier as well, but that was in Nagano, I think.
The incident I’m referring to happened in (I think) Lillehammer. Could be Albertville, too. In any case, Tomba had won it, so it must have been a slalom or giant slalom.
I couldn’t find a link, so you’re gonna have to trust me on this
