9781422273678

Sydney 2000: Swimming When Eric Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea arrived in Sydney after three days of travel to compete in the 100-meter freestyle at the 2000 Summer Olympics, there was a lot for the 22-year-old to take in. For starters, he had never been outside his small country in central Africa before. Then there was this—he had never been in an Olympic-size pool. To help cultivate the Olympic spirit in developing nations, in the 1990s the IOC began allowing a handful of wild card entries to skip qualifying rounds and go directly to competing in the Olympics. So, on a Tuesday morning at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, Moussambani found himself on the starting blocks for the opening heat of the men’s 100-meter freestyle with two other swimmers. As it happened, those two were soon disqualified for false starts, leaving him to swim the race alone. Moussambani’s training leading up to the Olympics had been limited to swimming in a 20-meter pool at a hotel in his hometown. When the starter’s pistol fired, he dove into an Olympic-size pool to

start a race for the first time in his life. The 17,000 spectators watched Moussambani struggling to complete the race, and began to cheer himon. They got

louder and louder until he touched the wall in

The Summer Olympics: Greatest Moments

12