Many of my stories focus on the loser (I am
an Atletico Madrid fan after all). And I
have a story about a swimming “legend”: Eric Moussambani. He’s a legend because
his race was the only swimming race that I have seen in my life that apart from
not being painfully boring to watch, got me all excited with three remarkable
facts:
- There was only one swimmer in the pool. (There were meant to be three, but two were disqualified for false starts, such a shame)
- It was the first time Eric had seen a 50m pool (so they say, this was Equatorial Guinea, pre-oil boom)
- On the home stretch, he swam in my most beloved style – duckling style
Let’s get some perspective: it was during
the 2000 Olympics in Sydney- the era of Ian Thorpe and the full body swimsuits.
If Ian had raced against Eric, he would have won by an entire length (of the
two lengths that there were to race).
You would have seen the race, but you can
see it again here.
Marvel at the way his goggle straps sit and
the difference between his start and his finish, and the applause at the end.
The other day it was cloudy and windy and
so I decided to go swimming and to visit the “Olympic swimming pool”. I was
going to swim in lane 5 just as Eric had done. But in Sydney (like in Sevilla)
they name something has nothing to do with the actual Olympics, “Olympic”. And
instead of seeing a post –Olympics state of the art pool, what I instead found
was this pretty thing that you can see in the photos that I took, looking from
one end to another from the stands.
As I didn’t have goggles and the chlorine was killing me, I switched to swimming backstroke. Swimming that way, with the roof uncovered and my red eyes open, I was really happy to have found the wrong Olympic pool. Between THAT bridge and the fun park- well I think it’s the best situated pool I have ever seen.
And I never thought of Eric, truthfully.
But check out this pool that I saw this
Sunday.
