Olympic Countdown: Spirit
Posted: July 24th, 2008 | Filed under: Other Sports | 57 Comments »
In about 10 days, I head to Beijing. Well, no that’s not quite right. In 10 days, I head to Dallas. From there, I will head to Tokyo. From there I head to the longest layover in the history of mankind; I’m hoping to pass the time by either writing the great American novel or watching the movie Tess,* whichever takes longer. And from there I head to Beijing. According to my itinerary, I leave on a Monday morning. I arrive Christmas Day, 2027.
*It has been a couple of years since I finished watching the movie Tess. I remember that clearly because I began watching it I was 13. Wow, that movie’s long. The cheese dripping scene alone lasted longer than the Korean War.
Still, my heart is beginning to pump a little bit faster. There’s nothing quite like covering the Olympics. I realize that there are probably many brilliant readers here who don’t like the Olympics at all, and I understand. Odd sports. Politics. Hype. I understand. But I can tell you that as a writer and someone who likes chasing a good story, it’s like the Costco of sports. There are good stories everywhere at the Olympics — all in gigantic, wholesale-sized and reasonably priced tubs. Seriously, everywhere you turn, you see a swimmer who beat some deadly disease, a marathoner who is running to save a village, a water polo star who escaped from a maximum security prison, crawled through a river of foulness and came out on the other side.
So, as we count down to Beijing, I thought it might be fun to write up a few Olympic memories. Or maybe not. I wouldn’t blame you for skipping. I thought I’d start with probably the strangest Olympic story I was ever around.
* * *
One of the beautiful things about being a sportswriter at the Olympic Games is how quickly you lose your sense of wonder. In any other setting, if we watched someone jump off a diving board and do two flips with two and a half twists, we would probably be pretty impressed by that. If we saw men throwing 16-pound metal balls 25 yards in the air, if we saw women hitting ping-pong balls hard enough to embed them in our foreheads, if we saw gymnasts doing entire Bob Fosse routines on beams roughly the width of Snickers bars, yeah, that might at least raise our eyebrows a little bit.
At the Olympics, though, your eyes quickly adjust to the bright lights. You can’t help it, really. You see people doing so many amazing athletic things that, at some point, you just grow accustomed, jaded even, you find yourself yawning at four-minute miles and talking about nothing with friends while weightlifters push sleeper sofas high over their heads and shrugging after seeing some archer hit bulls-eye after bulls-eye. Well, heck, so what? They’re all bulls-eyes. That’s the feeling. They’re all bulls-eyes. When you see nothing but brilliance in all directions, it’s easy to lose you bearings. I remember once watching a major golf tournament on television with a girl from Sweden, and she could not understand why the men could not just make those 40-foot putts rather than curling them up close. “I thought these people are supposed to be good,” she said.
Maybe that’s why the guy was a story. I must admit, I’ve thought quite a lot about him over the years — not the guy, so much, but the amazing effect he had on people. It just didn’t make a lot of sense to me then. The guy’s name was Eric Moussambani … Eric the Eel, they would call him later. He came from Equatorial Guinea, and he was an Olympic swimmer, and he could barely swim. It’s hard to make much sense of those three descriptions, but that’s the beauty of the Olympics. Moussambani had learned to swim about six months before the Olympics began — all so he could go to the Olympics. He had been invited to compete as part of a special program that was designed to promote swimming in developing nations. There was not a single Olympic-sized pool in Equatorial Guinea,
It was this last detail that no doubt inspired Moussambani’s coach (or as we like to call them in the U.S., his “swim instructor”) to tell us that Eric had learned how to swim in crocodile-infested waters. In retrospect, that probably was an exaggeration. The crocs, surely, would have gotten him. A much more believable part of the story is that he trained — if you want to call it training — in a small hotel pool. Moussambani was, no doubt, surrounded by tourists sipping on pina coladas and floating on rafts the shape of swans.
Still, he apparently trained every day. Or almost every day. He was honored to be his country’s first Olympic swimmer. He planned to swim the 50-meter freestyle for logistical reasons — it was the shortest race possible. That would have been a nice story in Equatorial Guinea and probably would not have received even a mention anywhere else.
Then, Mousambani’s coach made what turned out to be a momentous decision. He signed up Moussambani for the 100 meters instead.
“I didn’t know if I could make it,” Moussambani would tell us reporters, and he meant those words literally … he honestly did not know if he could swim 100 meters. He had never done it before. Not straight. Not in a row. Heck, 100 meters would have meant swimming the length of the hotel pool five times, dodging any number of splashing kids.
But these were the Olympics. He would certainly try. He stood on the blocks at the beginning of the race and, as fate would have it, he stood alone. Both of his competitors in the heat false started their way out of the race. The stage was his.
He jumped in the water — it was a jump more than a dive — and for the first 25 meters or so, he thrashed his arms as fast and violently as he possibly could; he looked one of those old silent movies played at double-speed. Unfortunately, while his arms and legs moved in fast-forward, his body was strictly on pause. After watching swimmers slice through water, it was jarring and funny to see Moussambani splash and paddle in place. He swam with his head up too, like a child worried about water getting in his eyes. He actually did all right. He got to the wall in 40.97 seconds — about 18 seconds slower than World Record time. Then, everyone understood Moussambani wasn’t there for World Records. He made something resembling a racing turn, kicked off the wall, and headed back for his second 50. It was all going to plan.
And then something happened in the second 50, something that changed the whole complexion of the story. Moussambani wore out. It was inevitable, of course, he had drained all his energy (and much of the energy of people watching) flapping and flailing those first few meters. Plus he had only trained for 50 meters. His mother, Lucia Malonga, had said that Eric had quit every sport he had ever tried in his life. And that’s how he looked out there, like someone who had not studied for the exam. And it seemed that everyone had the same thought at the same time: “Oh man, he’s not going to make it.”
For a moment, it really looked that way. Even now, if you watch the race on one of the countless YouTubes, it looks that way. He was about halfway home, and he was sort of making vague swimming movements, but his body was not actually moving forward. And that’s the moment when it all became legend, with the crowd cheering madly, with reporters watching closely to memorize the scene for later, with a young man from Equatorial Guinea trying to simply finish a race that millions of 12 year olds across the world could swim faster.
He pounded the water and jerked his head back and forth and sucked in deep breaths through his mouth and more or less stopped kicking — his legs just flapped behind him, like a fishing line he had left in the water. As he approached the wall, the shrieks mounted, the laughter peaked, and I will never forget the last meter — he was at the wall, all he had to do was reach out, touch it, only the wall seemed to be pulling away from him, like an older brother taunting him in a game of tag, and Moussambani reached, reached again, reached a third time, a fourth, and finally slammed his hand against the wall, finished, 1 minute and 52 seconds, more than twice the world record, a time that would not have won him a gold medal at the SENIOR Olympics, featuring men 75 to 79 years old.
Time didn’t matter. Something else did … something not easy to figure. He was a hero. And it wasn’t just in that crazy moment, with everyone caught up in the spirit. No, for a few days, a couple of weeks, longer, Eric Moussambani became an icon. He was what people were talking about. Crazy stuff. Here we were at the Olympic Games, surrounded by athletes who pushed the very limits of human endurance and strength and speed, and yet people never seemed to tire of this guy’s story. Why? Sure, there was the comedic value of watching an Olympic swimmer need a lifeguard. Yes, there was the touching story of a man finishing what he started, swimming those last 10 meters when he hardly had the strength to go on. Absolutely, there was the quirkiness of it all; one of the most charming parts of the Olympics, the possibility that someone — someone you did not know, from a country you could not find on a map, competing in a sport you did not think about — someone could grab your heart.
But I think there was something else too. I think that it was watching Eric Moussambani barely make it to the wall that helped snap us back for a moment, reminded us all just what we were watching, what inevitably the Olympics are about. It is not easy to swim 100 meters. It takes courage to even do a simple dive off a 33-foot platform. It is almost beyond imagination that men and women can run 1,500 meters — almost a mile — in a near-sprint. And maybe Eric Moussambani was our compass — Imagine a 30-handicap golfer being allowed to play the U.S. Open and showing the Swedish girls just how hard those long putts really are. Maybe Moussambani gave us back a little bit of our wonder. After watching him flail, who could take Ian Thorpe’s brilliance for granted, or Maurice Greene’s blazing speed, or Catchy Freeman’s grace and power?
Moussambani wanted to swim again at the Olympics in 2004 — he would tell people that he cut almost a minute off his 100-meter time. He wanted to prove he was more than a joke of a swimmer. It was not to be: Apparently Olympic officials could not find the passport photo that was supposed to be included with his application form. It was probably just as well. The moment was gone. The wall, finally, had been touched.
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I bet he could could throw a perfect ninth inning against the Tigers, though.
I have to be honest. I was somewhat annoyed by that moment. Maybe it’s a jealousy thing. As a former competitive swimmer, my times were decent for high school and would obviously have been WAY better than Moussambani’s. Why should he get to swim at the Olympics even though he’s awful at swimming? Aren’t the Olympics supposed to celebrate the peak of athletic success? Faster, higher, stronger…and all that?
I realize that those feelings are a little cold-hearted, and they don’t entirely represent how I feel about what happened, but part of me did and does feel that Moussambani didn’t belong at the Olympics.
/dodge lightning bolt
PC,
I felt the same way about the 2006 All-Star Game. I’m a WAY better pitcher than Mark Redman. Why should he get to play in the game even though he’s awful at pitching?
I usually read all your stuff, Joe, but I am indeed skipping this. I tried to read it, but I really just hate the Olympics. I especially hate them in their current NBC incarnation. Partially this is because I can’t stand Costas, with his sanctimony and his attempts at gravitas. More so I hate that they only show sports American athletes are participating in at right that moment (I realize that the market probably dictates this. Still bothers me).
Mostly, I hate the fake sports. These are athletic competitions between the best athletes in the world. I grant that. That doesn’t mean I want to watch a bunch of people run in circles and crap like that. At least the winter Olympics features crashing metal sleds for a little excitement.
I might actually like to watch some of the team sports, but I generally boycott watching it just because I find the whole thing so distasteful.
This is why it’s good to watch pitchers hitting: not all the time, but just a couple of times a game, to remind us of how good major league pitching is.
If Moussambani were a major leaguer, he would hit like Sandy Koufax facing Sandy Koufax. And he would play first base, just like a little Frank Thomas.
Hey Grant – talk about sanctimonious! “Oh, we Americans are sooo parochial” – Please. Get a grip.
I love the Olympics. I hate the US coverage of the Olympics, with all the boosterism and the non-competetive BS taking time that could be used to show us more sports. When I’m in Vermont, I can watch the CBC coverage from Canada. They focus on Canadian athletes, but not to the extent that we focus on US athletes. And it looks like a sporting event. Boy do I miss that.
And don’t forget Eddie the Eagle, and the Jamacian bobsled team. Too bad the Lords of the Rings deceided to stamp out the last tiny bit of amaturism and inflict today’s qualifying standards on the Games to “protect” us from having the least bit of fun.
I can’t get around NBC’s presentation of the Olympics anymore. They’ve wrecked the broadcast of the Olympics as thoroughly as Fox has wrecked baseball broadcasts. Quick tip to the networks – when I’m thinking more about your annoying graphics, announcers, music, and commercial breaks, instead of actually enjoying the sports, that’s a bad thing.
I do have a fun Olympic story though. My father was in the Army Security Agency in the early 60’s, stationed in Japan at the same time the ‘64 Olympics were held in Tokyo. He and some friends got leave and went to the games in civilian clothes. Apparently, the passes they had led them to an entrance that was close to where the athletes entered the stadium, so when this group of young, fit Americans approached the entrance, they were swarmed by Japanese autograph seekers who thought they were athletes. My dad, being of a somewhat whimsical nature, obliged by scribbling his name on as many objects as he was passed. When asked what his event was, he instantly replied, “race walking”. The next day, he found a pair of track shoes on the base before they went, and he tied them at the laces and slung them over his shoulder for a more convincing repeat performance.
If anyone is reading this in Japan, I’d pay about a half million yen for an autograph of world-renowned American race walker J.P. White, circa 1964.
It’s “came out clean on the other side.” although I suppose coming out on the other side would be a good story too.
Joe–as an aside–if your layover is 8+ hours in Tokyo (as mine was a couple of years ago), I highly recommend storing your bags at the airport and taking the train into the city, then just wandering around. You do need a hefty layover to do it because the train one-way is about an hour–but it’s an excellent way to kill the day. No language ability is necessary to navigate the train and the city (incredibly humbling) and people are very helpful. Have fun!
MAC made me laugh. Nicely done.
Agreed on NBC’s Olympic coverage. There is unfortunately going to be a disconnect between what Joe and others report (niche sports, little-known athletes, real inspirational stories, etc.) and what we get to see (“Plausibly live” events, hyperbole, contrived stories and overemphasis on the USA).
Now there is a good description for Tony Pena Jr. at the plate: “plausibly live.”
The Olympics have their handful of stories like Eric the Eel. The Jamaican Bobsled team, Eddie the Eagle, etc..
I’ll watch some of the Summer Olympics. I enjoy a good underdog story as the next guy, but I’ll be watching for excellence when I actually do turn them on.
So are we comparing TPJ/K’s performance at the plate to that of Eric the Eel??
The olympic moment I try to hold on to is this one: Derek Redomd, 1992.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=O-MRoIDXeuY
Vinko Bogataj is another name. I’m not even sure if it was in an Olympic event, but it’s this kind of performance that can create an Olympic legend. He is the “Agony of Defeat” guy from the ABC Wide World of Sports intro narrated by the late Jim McKay. His treacherous crash with arms, legs, skis, and ski poles flailing has become an icon of sports footage in the late 70s, early 80s. Yet I doubt he planned that fall or the fame that came from it.
The Olympics coverage always sneaks up on me and then boom, it’s here. . . . again. There’s Bob Costas, with more make-up than Dee Snyder, accentuating every other word to boost an American athlete story. Sometimes I feel as if the athletes had to speak to a panel, similar to American Idol w/ Simon Cowell, to see whose story could be made larger than life, before the selection of those who represent our country. Enjoy the trip Joe!!
Joe, I hope you have the time of your life in Beijing. Personally I’m in the “couldn’t care less” camp.
The whole thing is a complete snooze. Two weeks of people I’ve never heard of before and will never hear of again competing in sports nobody pays attention to.
But I’m sure that going in person is an awesome experience and that you will have a great time. It just makes for thuddingly dull viewing and reading, unless you love “heart-tugging” Rick Reilly/Mitch Albom stuff. And a lot of people do.
So wait, Eric the Eel actually won his heat in the Olympics? So there are two Olympic swimmers out there who lost a hugely important race to Eric the Eel? That must be so humiliating, false starts or not. The baseball equivalent would be one team pulling an 80-year-old grandmother out of the crowd and having her pinch-hit in a big game, but then the pitcher walks her. There are pitchers in the majors who I wouldn’t bet against walking an 80-year-old grandma, so I guess you never know.
I would’ve thought that the winner of a heat would get to move on to the next round, but apparently they just go by the times instead. So Eric the Eel retires from the Olympics undefeated! His time wasn’t good, but no one ever beat him head-to-head.
I think an interesting poll would be to ask your readers if we would do what Eric did– would we be willing to become a worldwide joke by swimming in the Olympics if we had the chance? If you say yes, you have to agree to stand there in your bathing suit next to these incredibly fit swimmers, on worldwide TV, and then lose comically, with the entire planet laughing at you. The video would be on youtube forever, and you’d be the butt of jokes on all the TV shows for months. For the rest of your life, you’d be known as that loser from the Olympics.
I actually don’t think I’d do it. I like to think I don’t take myself too seriously, but maybe I do. I can swim 100 meters easily, and it’d be a great experience to go to the Olympics and march in the ceremony and all that, but I wouldn’t want to be known throughout the world forever as the butt of a joke like that.
Some people surely would enjoy the incredible experience so much that they’d put up with the laughingstock aspect of it and do it. And others want to be famous for any reason, so they’d do it too. Not for me though. Maybe if I looked better in a swimsuit.
If I had to do it, I’d wear long surfer shorts. Maybe sell ads on my back. And try to fake the other swimmers into false-starting. Maybe wear a life-jacket too.
The best in the world, that’s what gets me. I appreciate people who excel at their passion. If it were televised, I’d watch the best UNO card players in the world, just to see what that’s like.
So yes, I’m all over the Olympics. I understand those of you who aren’t, but in a way, I feel for you.
You know, the other story that absolutely brought me to tears – still does, just thinking about it – was the sprinter who blew out his hamstring(?) during his event. Unable to finish alone, his father came out of the stands and they crossed the line together, arm-in-arm.
I’ll never forget that story, or that image. Absolutely, positively what the Olympics are about.
I love the olympics, but the only problem with them when they are in Asia/Europe and especially the way NBC is doing them this year. The Results will be known for 24 hours before the event is televised. Nothing will be live.
That is just bad TV if you ask me…
John Stephen Ahkwari, 1968 marathon
When asked: “Why did you keep going?â€
his reply:
“You don’t understand. My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start a race, they sent me to finish it.â€
James has it right, I feel bad for “Bucholz Surfer”…Derek Redmond brought tears. Have fun, Joe.
I love Joe’s Olympic articles. My favorite from Athens was about the U.S. men’s beach volleyball team and their failures. Truly a classic! I couldn’t find it anywhere on the interwebs, but if someone can, a link would be awesome.
“If it were televised, I’d watch the best UNO card players in the world, just to see what that’s like.”
Even if Al Trautwig were the play-by-play man?
I love the Olympics. and I love them because it is the best atheltes at their sport competing on the biggest stage. This is the only time I’m going to pay attention to track and field or swimming, and those are the major events. Bascially, Micheal Phelps’ entire athletic career hinges on an event every four years. He’s a great athlete, and this is essentially his entire career. no one cares about World Championships. We care about Olympic gold.
I also just love the quirky sports that we never get to see here. It’s not like I’m going to become a diehard badminton fan, but Olympic badminton is pretty exciting. Same goes for any number of sports: water polo, team handball, gymanstics… Watching the best in the world once every four years is a nice treat.
Then I’ll go back to ignoring those sports. I already watch enough obscure sporting events (Tour de France, college baseball, college lacrosse, the NHL…)
Despite your horrible travel itinerary, I don’t feel sorry for you, because you get to go to the Olympics, and breathe in Beijing’s wonderful air!
*pouts*
I remember Eric the Eel. While it’s a great story the way you tell it, I really fervently wish that the Olympics would stop ridiculing themselves and their sports by allowing things like this to occur.
Sure it’s hard to swim 100 meters, but I can do it in a minute 40 and I’m 36 and overweight. But because this guy is from some country somewhere where swimming needs to be “promoted” (and watching your countryman nearly drown while doing 100 meters is sure a great way to promote something, right?) he gets to go to the Olympics?
The winter olympics are especially bad in this. Remember Eddy the Eagle? The ski jumper from Great Britain, who really couldn’t ski jump very well? Got to go to the olympics. In the Downhill, they actually had people that couldn’t even really ski, and so when the winter olympics were in France, and the downhill featured one of the steepest inclines from the Trois Vallees, these people (from Antigua or wherever) were actually slowly inching their way SIDEWAYS down the slope. (Called Roetsching (sic?) in common ski terminology)
The top contenders were ofcourse going 70+ mph down that stretch. And these guys were going about 2 yards a minute. One guy took 34 minutes to get down to the finish line. The special needs Olympic competitors could have done it in about 5 minutes.
Is that really what we need to see in the Olympics? Countries just making a mockery of the sport?
They keep talking about doing something about this, but I’m pretty sure it was still going on in 2004 and 2006. As long as there is no world-wide qualifying standard for competing in the Olympics, this will go on. Sadly.
“More so I hate that they only show sports American athletes are participating in at right that moment”
I gotta admit that I really hate that as well. As a former Dutchman, I ofcourse watched most of the Olympics in Holland, and the Dutch TV would show the Dutch team when they were doing something, but would always switch to something else if it was a big thing, or just figured to be more exciting than watching some poor Dutch guy finish 8th in his heat, 4 seconds behind the winner.
So I’d get to see Americans winning Medals, Germans winning medals, Russians winning medals, Chinese winning Medals, etc. On NBC, all you ever see is Americans winning medals. Patriotism is fine and all, but sometimes we might just want to watch 8 of the world’s finest athletes compete in a sport, even if there’s no american competing in it.
I believe this year DirectTV is going to provide a 24 hour Olympic channel though, and some cable companies as well. I think it’s still NBC’s feed from the Olympics, but I doubt they can fill every single minute of the 24 hours with nothing but Americans.
HA! I fell asleep FIVE times during Tess, IN A THEATER! I thought it would never end.
“Bascially, Micheal Phelps’ entire athletic career hinges on an event every four years. He’s a great athlete, and this is essentially his entire career. no one cares about World Championships. We care about Olympic gold.”
Doesn’t he already have six gold medals? Most people I know and read already say he’s the best swimmer ever? And unless someone puts a great white shark in that pool, I don’t think there’s much stopping him from getting another 3-6 gold pretty easily, which could make him the top gold medal “getter” in the history of the Olympics, if I’m not mistaken. (I think Bjorndahl, cross country skier, has eleven.)
“I already watch enough obscure sporting events (Tour de France, college baseball, college lacrosse, the NHL…)”
Dude, you watch the NHL?? :O
To those who think this takes away from the integrity of the games I ask this: If the IOC cares about integrity why is it holding the games in China? The Olympics is about $$$, and any resemblance to athletic purity is coincidental. The only thing that makes it watchable in my opinion is stuff like this. I can only quoter Sgt. Hulka in Stripes who said: “Lighten up, Francis.” It’s not a big deal. The “integrity” of the competition is overrated and subjective anyway. Years from now everyone but the athletes will have forgotten who who swam well that day but we’ll remember The Eel.
Okay, I have to correct myself before someone else does. Bjoerndalen only has 5 gold medals, he has 11 total.
The most gold medals ever is Raymond Ewry with 10. Mark Spitz has 9. Phelps has 6, so if he gets 5 this olympics, he’ll be the all time leader.
“The Olympics is about $$$, and any resemblance to athletic purity is coincidental.”
Will, absolutely agreed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t WATCH it for the sports and enjoy it for that, right?
I’m trying to find details on that 24 hour broadcast channel.
Creston —
You’re right, Phelps already has 6 golds. And he’s going for 8 more this year, so 14 is the goal. But his entire career boils down to two Olympics. That’s a lot of pressure, and I think that’s really compelling. Swimming is just the first week, so his whole career boils down to two weeks. Look at a guy like Dan Jansen who just kept crashing at the Olympics in speed skating. He kept racing just for that shot at gold.
And, yeah, thanks for catching the NHL joke. Yes, I still watch.
“Look at a guy like Dan Jansen who just kept crashing at the Olympics in speed skating. He kept racing just for that shot at gold.”
Dan Jansen was an amazing story. THAT is what the Olympics is about, in my opinion. A guy whose sister dies the morning when he has to skate in the Olympics, then still goes out and competes, then falls. And then comes back three times, and keeps falling, because it’s in his head. And then FINALLY overcomes it to win that gold medal. My parents and I were watching together when he finally won it, and it was awesome. The dutch commentator was screaming himself hoarse cheering for Jansen.
Eric could give Joe Frazier some swimming lessons.
Creston,
The IOC does not recognize the 1906 games, so Ewry officially only has 8 gold medals. Carl Lewis and Mark Spitz are tied for 9 gold medals.
While looking for the 24 hour coverage channel, I stumbled across the olympic gymnastics team, and in particular this girl, whose last name sounded familiar.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=621/bio/index.html
I remember her dad winning those two gold medals as if it was yesterday. Now his 20 year old daughter is competing. God I’m old…
Thanks for the correction Deathsinger, I wasn’t aware of that.
Of course Creston, you can watch for the athletics I do hope you enjoy them. I just hope you don’t let those who don’t perform to you expectations take away from your good time.
Side note: I was just discussing the games with a co-worker and I used the phrase “dog and pony show” and I wondered, do shows like this exist? Is there an event that involves dogs riding ponies? I sure hope so.
I couldn’t disagree more with the “sports nobody cares about” sentiments.
I’d argue that more kids run on the track team in high school than play on the basketball team, for example. Certainly more people run than play tennis or golf, too.
There is also something about competing not only against the individuals entered in your event, but against the greatest ever whilst trying to set records that will stand the test of time. It’s inspiring to see people push the limits of human capabilities.
For those interested, the 24 hour coverage is on UniversalHD, which is DirecTV channel 74.
“Of course Creston, you can watch for the athletics I do hope you enjoy them. I just hope you don’t let those who don’t perform to you expectations take away from your good time.”
You have to agree there is a difference between someone not performing up to expectations, and someone having absolutely no business being in the Olympic games, right? I realize not everyone feels this way, but to me a guy who can’t actually swim has no business being an olympic swimmer.
I wonder how people would have felt if the Yankees had let Billy Crystal play a game during the regular season? It seems much the same thing.
Speedskating used to have a similar guy, called Gomez, who was from Spain. Where they ofcourse have no ice. And he’d compete in european speed skating events. And he was actually a pretty decent skater, I doubt any of us here could have kept up with him. But he was still 6, 7 minutes slower than everyone else. And while that was fun during the 5K, as everyone kept slowly chanting “Goooomezzzzz, Goooommeezzzz, Goooommeeezzz!” during his laps, it soon became rather boring during the 10K.
Wow!
I think the networks go way overboard with the human interest stuff in the Olympics, but when you said you were going to tell a story, I immediately thought of the Eric the Eel.
I only caught it by accident and don’t remember any other human interest story from Olympics past really, but I can still remember the NBC guy (Jeremy Schaap?) saying. “There was a moment” , powerful stuff.
Creston – I know what you mean, but it doesn’t bother me in the least.
As a mediocre former miler, I agree completely with Drew about running. And I simply don’t understand the comments that it is all about the $. Maybe it is for NBC. But the overwhelming majority of the athletes — those competing in kayak, judo, table tennis, team handball, archery, water polo, badminton, rowing and most of the other sports — will probably not make much of anything. They will be rewarded for all of their incredibly hard work, however, by getting to test themselves against the best in the world. And it certainly can’t be about the money for Lebron and Jason Kidd and company — they don’t need anymore. Same for Roger Federer and the Williams sisters. Yet they choose to compete.
(By the way, to understand the sacrifices the Olympic athletes make in these obscure sports, read David Halberstam’s The Amateurs).
Bam – Well, Americans are parochial, first of all, and second of all it looks like a lot of people here agree with me. A lot of my friends feel the same way about the Olympics that I do. We don’t care about the sports, and we hate the uber-patriotism.
Drew – That’s an interesting perspective, and you might very well be right. All I know is as a non-high-school athlete (like many more people than popular culture usually lets you think) I care about team sports. Real team sports, not like swimming relays or something. I doubt anything will change my mind.
And really, Costas. God he just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because I’m too young to remember “good Costas” or something, but he’s always struck me as smug. Just like most sportscasters of national prominence, actually.
Without asking questions that lead to ever larger questions (i.e., to turn this into a graduate seminar), I think there is a difference between “sport” and ” sports entertainment.”
I am a consume American sports entertainment in epic proportions, dedicating my Saturday and Sunday nights in the Fall to football even when overseas, and catching as many MLB games as possible (MLB.tv is great for watching games whilst in Europe). I like the “Big Three” sports–I love them, played them, and enjoy watching them. I have my favorite teams, go to games when I can, etc. They entertain me, but they rarely force me to think about the connection between sport and the human spirit (with rare exceptions, which are now enshrined in our collective conscience–MJ crying with the trophy is a good example).
However, when I watch track and field (yes, I’m a former runner, Andy) or swimming or cycling, I am inspired by the indomitable human spirit on display and awed at the apparent ease with which the limits of human ability are extended*.
*Is it just me, or do the athletes making World Record (WR) performances look like they are hardly trying? They tend to flow along, as smooth as can be. It truly is incredible.
“Americans ARE parochial”
Blah blah blah blah
I’m a track coach in western Maine, and I have personally met two Olympians you will never see on the NBC coverage: Kevin Eastler is the U.S. representative in the race walk, and Anna Willard is the women’s U.S. record holder in the steeple chase. I’m excited for them and their dreams, but it bothers me that nobody cares about their events.
I have no problem with the story you have told: there is more to sport than simply breaking records. There is ambassadorship, and one man’s attempt to bring his sport to prominence at home. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Drew, I fully agree with you that there’s a difference between sports and sports entertainment.
When I said the Olympics is full of sports that nobody cares about, I do mean that nobody cares about them as entertainment. I think the evidence is overwhelming on that point.
Check the ratings for the Ironman Triathlon. They’re awful every year, yet most sports fans would tell you that what those athletes do is astonishing. For many fans the correlation between finding an athletic feat admirable and wanting to watch it or read about it isn’t always there.
I’m a straggler to comment here; nobody will read this.
But in the rush to satisfy the corporate sponsors that own the Olympics, will anyone bother to write about the real stories in Beijing? The culture clash between east and west is a huge deal, especially in an election year. There are so many stories that will never be written for fear of persecution – and I’m not just talking about China.
Supposedly the spirit of the Olympics is to promote international amity through sports. That means that any country that wants to spend the bucks to send a guy with no chance to even be competitive can choose to do so. And whiners who complain about it are welcome to move to Podunkia and then be the best swimmer or bobsledder or whatever and represent Podunkia in the 2012 Olympics.
The reason the Eel won his heat is because he followed the rules. The guys who false started did so presumably in an effort to get an extra split second advantage in order to win. Eric probably had no notion of a quick start, heck, he probably was starting to get tired from the two double false start jumps, but he was there to compete fairly and show the world that Equatorial Guinea exists and wants to be on the same stage as everybody else. I’d much rather they show their national pride by sending a near drowner to the Olympics than by starting a war. And every Olympics there are competitors who show great courage and skill or face incredible diversity just trying to finish, who unite us in rooting for them, and that shared experience shows that we are all people, whether we are from America or Equatorial Guinea.
There are two victories in every Olympic competition. One goes to the people who wind up on the medal stand. The other goes to everybody who shows up, who tries, risking ridicule and in some cases injury but coming together to show the world that we are all people. Maybe we’re not as fast or as strong or as buoyant or hydrodynamic but we’re willing to be alongside you, risks and all, because it means something. That’s why I’m so utterly opposed to nations who boycott the Olympics, because they’re saying, “We don’t want to be with you, we want to be against you.” Those are the people who put hate above humanity. Those are the people behind terrorism. And the Olympics, in a very small way, Bob Costas and all, are part of the rest of the world saying, “We reject your hatred. We are going to be together, winners and medalists, and as long as we retain our ability to compete in friendship we make your message of hatred that much harder to accept.”
Joe, you are right to highlight Eric as a good example of the Olympics spirit. I attended those 100m heats at Sydney, and witnessed the majesty of Eric’s effort.
It was the 1st race in the morning, and there were 17,000 people there to cheer on the Aussie swimmers (Swimming, like all sport, is very big in Oz – the trials are shown on free to air prime time TV)
It was the first heat, only 3 involved, and then the guys from Kazakhstan and Iran false started and got disqualified. (I like to think that Eric was so petrified he forgot to jump) I always think that that was such a great missed story – imagine coming all the way from Kazakhstan and never getting to race at all after all that training, flying, free stuff at the Olympic Village etc etc etc. How do you explain that to the future grandchildren?
So it was just Eric left, and the mood changed to stifled giggles as the scoreboard focused in on him – He looked like he’d never worn goggles before and I remember he hadn’t tied the cord on his Speedos and it was hanging down at his knees. In hindsight, he must have been soiling himself.
And then he jumped in, and there was this horrendously awkward pause as he took FOREVER to surface. And then he started thrashing his way down the pool and his ineptitude was so great that the crowd was mesmerised. We throw our kids in the pool very young here in Oz and its fair to say that the average 5 year old here would have whipped this bloke… he was going that slow.
The tumble turn had a real frog-in-a-blender quality to it. I think that that was the point at which sentiment turned. The crowd really started to cheer for the guy and nearly lifted the roof off when he got 20m out from the finish and basically swam in the same spot for 10 seconds. Joe was right to say that there was a genuine risk that the guy might drown. When he finished, it was one of the loudest cheers I have ever heard.
The beauty of the Olympics at their best is that optimistic spirit that it generates. Everyone should have laughed at Eric really but the crowd recognised his struggle and responded to him, roaring on him on. Just because he was rubbish didn’t mean that you couldn’t admire his courage to jump in in the first place. I don’t think that many of us would have the guts to attempt something you were a complete novice at in front of a huge crowd and billions on TV.
If I remember rightly, a couple of days later Eric went down to Bondi for a photo op and nearly drowned again.
What a legend.
It was the first heat, only 3 involved, and then the guys from Kazakhstan and Iran false started and got disqualified. (I like to think that Eric was so petrified he forgot to jump) I always think that that was such a great missed story – imagine coming all the way from Kazakhstan and never getting to race at all after all that training, flying, free stuff at the Olympic Village etc etc etc.
wow. just…wow.
2008 Olympics Results…
The summer games are finally underway and I am soo excited. I am an olympics junkie…