the only spanish-speaking african country
the only spanish-speaking african country
It has 296 km of coastline and its longest river is the Benito.
And one of the worst human rights records in the world.
And worse, they have the slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72
yeah but I heard the other swimmers false started
Did you know he went on to be the head coach of the swim team though?
I did know that. Of Equatorial Guinea as I understand it.
And word has it he became a national hero, of sorts.
It's the only Spanish-speaking African country, from what I understand.
It has 296 km of coastline and its longest river is the Benito.
And one of the worst human rights records in the world I've heard
I've heard it has one of the worst human rights records in the world.
Can’t believe I had to come to the 6th sub-post in this post to find this. Wake up people!
A victory is a victory, there's no "but".
Technically a winner. The best kind of winner.
Just like being technically correct.
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it didn’t fail it was just incredibly inefficient
Louisville* has entered the chat
If your swimmers keep prematurely starting the race, talk to your doctor
they're just really eager
It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or by a mile, winning's winning.
He did eventually get much better at it. He got his time to just below a minute by 2004, which is still slow for Olympic level, but an incredible improvement all the same.
And that time was marked by none other than their head swimming coach.
Their head swimming coach? Eric "the eel" Moussambani?
I can swim slower
Credit where credit is due, that probably beats my 100m freestyle time by about 20 minutes.
TIL
we should make a post about it in /r/nextfuckinglevel
Damn, that’s horrible. L
This is some Hermione granger level of poor priorities
And worse, they have the slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72
But he won that heat!
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been the ruler of Equatorial Guinea since 1979, after seizing power from his tyrannical uncle who killed roughly a third of the nation's population in the 1970s. Obiang isn't quite as murderous as his predecessor, but his government is nevertheless among the most corrupt in human history—despite having either the highest or second-highest GDP per capita in Africa (depending on how Libya is ranked), the vast majority of people in Equatorial Guinea live in dire poverty. Nearly all of the country's extensive oil wealth is concentrated in the hands of Obiang and his associates, who don't even bother pretending to care about the well-being of their people. He could lift his entire country out of poverty in an instant if he wanted to, and he would still be one of the richest heads of state in the world—he just chooses not to. He would rather invest in parties and fancy houses for himself than in healthcare and infrastructure for the Equato-Guinean people.
Their dictator killed his uncle and ate his heart on live TV to take power.
He has since killed dozens of others, many of whom were his male relatives, who he felt threatened his position.
But their oil and gass jobs pay well!
Didn't know about this guy. Tried looking up more about the heart-eating but all I can find is that he killed his Uncle. Where can I read more about the heart-eating?
I too would like to know more about this
I can't find anything about his uncles heart in particular, but this seems to confirm the cannibalism.
He also seems determined to have a U.N. science award named after him. Which is...something.
Its downright laughable when I consider what I hear about their 'engineers' and 'skilled technicians'.
Where can I read more about the heart eating....
That's the equivalent of asking for a friend.
We all know you want the video link. So here you go.
https://youtu.be/KjdjDz8jhN4
Just don’t be a relative and you’re probably fine
I have no desire to go, but someone I know works there.
they should probably get an ancestry test
Why?
in case they're a relative
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And an absolutely insane failed coup story involving white South African mercenaries, Margaret Thatcher's son and a former SAS officer named Simon Mann.
They prefer to say their human rights record is 'muy mal, lo siento' and that sounds beautifully exotic.
Wasn't its capital on an island or am I confused with Sao Tome and Principe?
You’re correct. Malabo, the current capital, is on the island. Equatorial Guinea basically consists of a small part of mainland Africa and an even smaller island. Malabo is on that island. They are building a new capital, Ciudad de la Paz (City of Peace), on the mainland though
You’re also right about São Tomé and Principe as they’re an island country, but I’m pretty sure you were thinking of Equatorial Guinea originally.
They have a big island north of São Tomé and Principe and they have a small island south of it.
Also, despite being called Equatorial Guinea, they don't have any land on the equator. Their island with the capital is north of the equator, while the mainland is south of it.
Settle down, C.J.
Is that a West Wing reference?
I think what's important here is that the President's agenda is continuing apace, not whatever politically-minded TV shows I may or may not have been referencing. That's what we're all here to discuss, right? Mark, then Katie.
Spanish is widely spoken in Western Sahara as well
Not technically a country, but still a good point
Spanish is officially a secondary language in SADR, the unrecognized political entity in Western Sahara. But if we're talking about "widely spoken," Morocco proper has its share of Spanish speakers, too, given that Morocco took over a fair bit of formerly Spanish territory.
Btw, Northern and Southern Morocco were also occupied by the Spaniards during the colonial era (Rif, Cape Juby, Sidi Ifni, etc.).
Let's say we have a very complicated history between us...
Never mind the fact that a LOT of Spanish words are derived from Moroccan language
...from back in the day when Morocco (*) took over a fair bit of current Spanish territory.
(* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almoravid_dynasty )
Oh wow I wonder why
Spanish Broadcast Television stations can also be picked up in some of the Rif region as well which has somewhat contributed to Spanish remaining somewhat prevalent there.
Uh oh, now we're getting political
Pedantic, more like.
Shallow and pedantic
Mmm yes, shallow and pedantic
Hmm, shallow and pedantic.
Depends who you ask. That’s the thing about countries, it’s not that black and white.
No one suspects the Spanish Africancountry.
Wow, no one did. BRING OUT THE COMFY CHAIR!
Like most African countries the actual people use local languages to speak with their own and only use English, French, Portuguese, Spanish etc at school, government and business.
true, but the official national language is spanish.
Not quite true. Spain is also in Africa.
do you mean some small exclave, or are you absolutely garbage at geography?
He's referring to two autonomous cities in northwestern Africa that are part of Spain, they are called Ceuta and Melilla.
Multiple exclaves, Ceuta and Melilla. While they may be small physically they have a rather sizable population, with 170,000 people between the two of them.
Western Sahara would like a word
Also technically Dominican republic - it's a Spanish speaking country in America full of Africans.
For perspective, the world record for this event is 0:46.91.
Soy 26.8 for the 50 wasn't bad in highschool?
They put me on varsity as a freshman after tryouts. They didn't know I couldn't do kickflips. I'm a tapper. Cut off about 2 seconds.
The world record for 50m freestyle is 20.91 seconds.
Even faster for the short course pools that a high school athlete would be competing in. The world record for short course is 20.16!
For those who don’t know, there’s 2 sizes of pools used in competition swimming. Short Course is the more common one for most people entering the sport, which involves swimming in a 25m pool. This means you get to do 1 flip turn in a 50m freestyle. In long course, you don’t get to do a flip turn, so the time is a little slower. The olympics use long-course pools (also known as Olympic sized pools lol).
There’s at least 3 sizes of pools used in competitive swimming. LCM, SCM, and SCY. The majority if Redditors are US and will likely have SCY experience. The SCY record is sub 18!
I have also swam in one LCY pool which was weird.
Oh yes, SCY… they’re in yards rather than meters, correct? So 50y obv =/= 50m
Yup! Short course yards is very standard in the US since we refuse to adopt metric. So US based swimmers who aren't considering this are probably over stating how bad the times in question are. Sub 57 for someone swimming 4 years is pretty unreal!
Where have you found a LCY pool lol I've never heard of that
Here you go: https://recsports.ufl.edu/locations/pools/florida-pool/
Not unheard of for morning swims to find an alligator in the water!
And most long course pools are also short course if you put the lane lines in the other way
Even faster for the short course pools that a high school athlete would be competing in. The world record for short course is 20.16!
For those who don’t know, there’s 2 sizes of pools used in competition swimming. Short Course is the more common one for most people entering the sport, which involves swimming in a 25m pool. This means you get to do 1 flip turn in a 50m freestyle. In long course, you don’t get to do a flip turn, so the time is a little slower. The olympics use long-course pools (also known as Olympic sized pools lol).
I hope I have the numbers right. It was pretty fast. But I couldn't do much else fast, just long distance. I made state?
It was 25 years ago. Maybe it was 25 m. Probably. But I was offered a scholarship.
All I know is I beat every girl on the tricounty area by 2 seconds. And...I was a smoker.
That’s a really good time for high school man
Eric is an absolute legend in Australia. I think most of us liked him more than some of our own athletes.
Who didn’t love Eric the Eel.
Also Eddie the Eagle the British ski jump Olympian who competed at a time when Britain didn’t have any ski jumps. You’ve got to love someone who has their first proper crack at a sport at the olympics.
Steven Bradbury is another legend. He was the first Australian athlete to win gold at the Winter Olympics. After all the other opponents in his skating race fell over and because he was so far behind, he missed the pile up, skated past and won.
Theres more to it than that. He was behind by his own plan. His competitors were much younger than he was, and more aggressive. In his prior race, the same thing pretty much happened, so he expected it to happen again. Hung back, waited for the aggressive mistake,capitalized
That... actually makes a lot of sense. Everyone always implies it was dumb luck, but I'd like to think it was planned.
It can be both. Luck is chance combined with initiative.
What a succinct definition. I'll remember that. Thanks.
He was a top level pro and gold hopeful in previous olympics
Yeah, like... he was at the Olympics, he was obviously good. It kinda sucks to see people reducing his achievements down to "just luck"
And, IIRC from all the times his story has appeared on here, he was a gold medal favorite in a previous Olympics but was taken out in a crash.
Also broke his neck in a training accident 2 years leading up to the Olympics he won at and was told he might not skate again after. And 6 years before that his thigh was cut by a blade accidentally, losing 4 litres of blood, having over a hundred stitches. He easily could've died twice from competing but had the perseverance to keep going and even win medals again.
It wasn't just that they were younger and more aggressive but that he knew he wasn't fast enough to be able to beat them traditionally so hoping for a wipeout was his best bet.
He also finished the race with a PB. And if he had done his PB at the Winter Olympics 4 years earlier he would have been a contender for a gold medal at that time. He only missed out on those Olympics because of a severe spine injury. He had been to two other Olympic games before the injury. The ~~2000~~ 2002 games were to be, and was, his last chance at an Olympic medal. It's amazing he recovered and then beat his PB, the gold was well earned. This is a great example of age and experience beating youth and speed.
Even better is that he got through his heat only through a disqualification, and that the exact same thing that happened in the final also happened in the semi-final
Bradbury doesn't count here. He was a world class skater for years leading up to those races
The ozzy man reviews on steven Bradbury is pretty funny.
ozzy man famous speed boat incident and insane bar fight for your enjoyment
The bar fight is my favourite one yet!
Not to mention he had been told to give up skating due to two serious injuries prior, one of which almost killed him. Dude persevered like no other.
It really kinda diminishes his Olympic achievement though. He will always be known as the guy who won gold cause everyone else fell before reaching the finish line.
Eddie the Eagle inspired his own biographical movie starring Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman. I can't think of any other Olympic ski jumpers that have done that.
The absolute coolest scene Hugh Jackman has ever done was that ski jumping scene with a lit cigarette and Thin Lizzy playing in the background
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB6fR7089OE
My mother went to a couple of rock and roll dancing evenings with him not all that long ago. Decent dancer, little bit sweaty. Eddie the Eagle. Not Taron Egerton or Hugh Jackman.
There is also a movie about Matti Nykänen.
”Widely considered to be the greatest male ski jumper of all time, he won five Winter Olympic medals (four gold), nine World Championship medals (five gold), and 22 Finnish Championship medals (14 gold).”
But did it star Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman?
No, but here’s a fun fact: In the movie Matti Nykänen is played by Jasper Pääkkönen, who has more recently acted in some pretty big international productions, like the TV-show ”Vikings” and the movie ”BlacKkKlansman” (he was the main white supremacist dude).
In the 1988 Olympics, Eddie the Eagle participated. Matti Nykänen won gold. In all three ski jumping events in that Olympics.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Swaney#
That is also a good story of someone qualifying by gaming the system.
Her entire life reads like a person who desperately wants to be good at something, but knows they have no chance so they spend all their time figuring out how to game every system there is so that she is the last resort. I wouldn't be surprised if she dies with a super bowl ring, a nba championship ring and a few ncaa championship rings for sports where she worked her way into a position as a ball washer or laundry courier or mail handler all so she is on staff. But she then keeps them all displayed and believes she deserves to have them as if she personally competed in the games.
It saddens me that they changed the rules to make it that much harder for someone like Eddie to compete.
Eric the Eel only got in because he was exempted on the ranking requirements because of a wildcard entry draw for athletes from developing countries.
They changed rules to prevent the Olympics from becoming a novelty joke for people that have no business being there. Pretty soon you have to make accommodation for 200 swimmers for every race and the games will take 2 months to compete. Then in the case of Jamaica Bobsled and Eddie The eagle. They can very very easily kill themselves and others.
We currently have a half pipe skier that paid her way to travel the world to hit up competitions where she could do zero tricks and finish in order to get enough individual points to qualify for the Olympics.
The Olympics were originally meant for amateur athletes. The amount of corporate money and number of professional athletes make the current Olympics a joke.
Also can't even watch it for free in the US. Basically owned by NBC/Comcast.
Doesn't it democratise it though? If it's amateur then the only people that can compete are those that can afford to train instead of having a job. If athletes can make money, anyone with the talent and dedication can compete, even if they weren't born rich.
You got it the other way around. If it's professional then the only people that can compete are those that can afford to train instead of having a job. If it's amateur then it's opened to anyone.
Talent and dedication isn't enough. If you are born to a poor family, especially in a country with poor social security, then you probably can't afford the same amount of training as others of your talent level or even below. You might not even be able to train at all due to having to find a regular job since most amateur level sports doesn't pay shit, hell many of the sports allowed at the Olympics doesn't pay enough to live on outside of the very elite.
Oh no... please don't let the Olympics become a joke...
The Jamaican bobsled team always qualifies for the Olympics. They just never win because, well, they’re from Jamaica.
Pretty soon you have to make accommodation for 200 swimmers for every race and the games will take 2 months to compete.
In a scifi series that takes place ~150 years into the future or so, the Olympic Games take most of a year to complete because they have many hundreds/thousands of different events and they will accommodate any Olympian that wishes to compete in multiple events. In theory, if you demonstrably were decent at a given event (and qualified for any other event) you were allowed to compete in every event if you so chose and they'd work out the scheduling to allow it. In practice most people limited themselves to 1-5 events. But what sort of events they considered worth finding the "pinnacle of humanity" for was vastly increased in scope. For example, the human mind was one such realm they addressed and so a variety of events (including a full chess tournament) was added.
This timeframe was rather useful because the world was getting ready for World War 4 to begin and a VERY influential figure in the world called for an temporary pre-cease-fire. Wait for the Olympics to begin and end before opening up combat. The world had not had a war in over a century at this point and most major disasters were largely minor inconveniences, so just buying the hospital system alone the majority of a year to mass produce and stockpile medical resources would dramatically decrease the suffering of those not participating in the upcoming war.
In a fair lot of cases that's sensible ski jumping is fucking dangerous letting amateurs have a go it at like that should not be encouraged.
One of the biggest scams of the olympics, if you're the best athlete your country has to offer, you goin the olympics as their representative.
The other thing that the olympics need to change is start providing standardised equipment to all athletes, because it's unfair how competitors from rich nations get access to a bunch of advanced equipment that other poorer countries could never supply
Here’s the coverage of it from the show “The Dream” the night of Eric’s race.
https://youtu.be/R_AePNEmIGs
Aw this is so sweet❤. Everyone cheering for him as he tries his best. Given his training circumstances, it is very impressive and inspiring that he pushed through. Also nice to hear he's improved since then. Hopefully his country has developed more resources and adequate training facilities for their athletes after this incident.
Australians love an underdog giving their all.
Great video. “3 tremendous competitors” The announcers really got into it.
Love the Equatorial Guinea record line that appears at the end.
They are legends here.
How did he even qualify into the Olympics?
Edit: "Moussambani gained entry to the Olympics without meeting the minimum qualification requirements via a wildcard draw designed to encourage participation by developing countries lacking full training facilities." From Wikipedia.
In the spirit of the olympics (as it used to be), a country could nominate four of their top athletes to compete (if I remember correctly). As it should be - but sadly, now that's all gone to save money etc and make the whole thing more elite.
Wow, he is super athletic. Swimming like that is insanely hard.
Understandable that with just four years of [additional training after this attempt] he was able to post a time that would've been a world record in 1920.
According to Wiki "He took up swimming eight months before the Olympics and had practiced in a lake, and later a 12-metre swimming pool in a hotel in Malabo, that he was only given access to between 5 and 6 AM."
He had never even seen an Olympic sized swimming pool before going to Sydney.
That's very different than four years of training. I also was watching and he was described as "an unemployed 20 year old". I don't think I've ever heard of another Olympic athlete referred to as "unemployed".
Edit: just realized your post wasn't referring to the 2000 Olympic, but later events, for which he did train. Ignore me.
You'd think with a 12 meter swimming pool as his only training apparatus his kick turn would be really strong.
What if that pool was super shallow, and kick turning was excessively dangerous/impossible?
Love me some Roy and HG.
“Hello boys!”
Crazy Date Crazy Date ohh Bum In The Air with Twinkle and finishes with a Hello Boys
and… shut the gate!
(Don’t forget the ‘Battered Sav’ too!)
Eric the Eel and Roy & HG is the epitome of the Sydney Olympics. And I’ll mention ABCs ‘The Games’ because it was hilarious.
Was it The Games or The Dream? So long ago I’m confused now. Loved Fatso - the alternative mascot!
Roy and HG are ‘The Dream’. ‘The Games’ was John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, along with Gina Riley and Nick Bell.
classic
I am surprised at how good his turn and entry was compared to his stroke
He was training in a 10m pool at a hotel so he would have had a lot of practice turning.
When I turned 50 I thought I'd take up Masters Swimming because I swam competitively as a teenager and still enjoyed it. Then I discovered that those guys are mad and train as much as Olympians!!
To put Eric's time in perspective then, the world record for men's long course 100m for 70-74 year olds is currently 1:04.19 set by David Quiggin in 2014.
George Corones is much less impressive at 2:24:21 but then he was 99 at the time.
As a teenager I thought I was cool breaking one minute for 100m. Clearly not.
I lifeguard. There's an old guy who will slap on a mask and snorkel and just swim like that for 20 minutes, after spending like half an hour swimming normally. Shit's wack
I lifeguard.
I took my first lifeguard exam at 14 and my last at 60. I still counts heads in the pool even if I'm on a sunbed. ;)
EDIT: Thank you for the hugz kind stranger
My partner took me to a pool party for his sisters' birthday last month and I had such a hard time winding down.
make sure to wear sunscreen !
My friends brother is a lifeguard and he just got diagnosed with some type of really bad cancer which they think all stemmed from a really small spot of skin cancer on his forearm that metastasized
I work at an indoor pool, so instead of sitting in the sun I stare longingly into the light
I lifeguarded at indoor pools in the UK but since this was the 90s, they also had UV tanning beds. We'd get a short break every hour to keep us alert, and most of the teenage lifeguards spent every single break on the sunbeds. Thankfully even at 16, I know it wasn't a great idea (both health-wise and because I wasn't keen on having leathery orange skin).
Who TF doesn’t wear sunscreen as a lifeguard?
1980s teens
Also, sunscreen/block helps limit sun damage, but it's not 100% effective in stopping damage or cancer.
What is?
Darkness.
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ALL of my PE teachers back in high school that got certified and lifeguarded during the summers
They actively encouraged us to get slow-cooked under the sun and actively discouraged the use of sunscreen
They were 35-40, but they looked like 70 yo raisins
They actively encouraged us to get slow-cooked under the sun and actively discouraged the use of sunscreen
Why?
my friends brother. He got sunburned so bad one time on the tips of his ears that he had to have some kind of skin graft or something.
Sucks the dude is so sick right now because hes funny as hell
Hopefully it is more common now, but growing up through the 90s, most lifeguards I saw were ridiculously tan from not ever wearing any.
Damn.
I got certified in the late ‘90s and worked at my school pool and the community pool over the summers.
We always had a huge bottle in the guards’ shack. Pretty sure a single rotation without sunblock would get you a nasty burn.
I took my first lifeguard exam at 14 and my last at 60.
Im 34 and this was my first Summer not lifeguarding. I still train like I do and will always count heads!
I lifeguard
Three Laws of Lifeguarding
First Law
A lifeguard may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law
A lifeguard must obey the orders given them by the country club manager beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law
A lifeguard must protect their own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Zeroth Law
A lifeguard may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Shit, I am an asimovian android
Except isn't the Third Law much more important for lifeguards, on par with the First Law?
I used to lifeguard at a pool that was regularly used for big competitions. Once we had the UK masters and it was the oldest age group doing the 50m butterfly, there was one guy who must’ve been 10-20 years older than the rest of his age group (there were hardly any competitors in this event anyway, 3 I think). He was so slow his body was basically vertical for most of the race as he moved through the water, which doing butterfly makes the stroke infinitely harder, everyone else finished and he still had half the length to do with everyone just watching him get slower and slower as he went on. I got down from my chair and had my rope ready as his arms were struggling to get out of the water with each stroke, anyway he managed to finish his length in something like three and a half minutes and the place went berserk.
I mean, if you broke a minute, you were faster than at least one Olympic swimmer in 2016 so it's not like chump change
I remember swimming in high school, and being one of the best in my province.
In the off season, I'd hit the local public pool for lane swimming times, and knock out a workout a few times a week. There was ALWAYS that one old guy. He was in the fast lane, going 30% slower than everyone else and never stopped. I'd do a sprint, and if I saw him coming, would start my next lap to I didn't have to find my way around him again...because he was slow, and just kept plotting along. Easily the most frustrating person in the pool.
I'm now middle age, and aspire to one day be that slow ass guy in the pool.
Soo your entire point is basically if you can't beat em, join em?
ok he's old but 2:24 is 100 meters in 144 seconds. How can you physically swim that slowly without sinking? a meter in 1.44 seconds?
Eric the Eel and Eddie the Eagle. Olympic legends!
(Then they change the rules to have fancy qualification times and RUIN IT FOREVER!)
I get why they changed them, to stop making their respective countries look foolish, but i kinda feel the olympics was really the thing that embodied the come and have a go if you think you're hard/fast/good/twirly enough spirit
At least it gave us a couple decent sunday-afternoon films in Eddie the Eagle and Cool Runnings. We do need an Eric the Eel one though, if anyone is looking for a project.
I have never wanted anything more than to be twirly enough.
That is the point of the Olympics, it is supposed to be an amateur event, having qualification times isn't really in the spirit of that as a global event.
Having true amateurs against the Professionals in everything but technicality was somewhat part of it.
In some sports, they are riddled with amateurs going against professionals. Heck, they probably earn more than professional athletes
Well professional athletes didn't use to be able to compete. Used to be all amateurs, which would've been way more fun and realistic.
slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72, however won his heat as all other competitors false started.
Him and Steven Bradbury should start an athlete super group of some kind. Who else can we pull in?
Hamish Blake entered a bodybuilding competition as a joke and won because nobody else was in his weight class.
I e-mailed him when I was in Jr High because I thought he was so cool! He responded back (or someone did). I wish I still had it but it is long lost on some hotmail.com email address :(.
Eric the Eel.
Every time the Olympics rolls around again, I have to watch his swim. It's simultaneously hilarious but also genuinely inspiring and heartwarming.
He's also my go-to when people make the comment about wanting to see a regular guy compete, to see how good everyone else is. Show them Moussambani and say that a regular person who hasn't trained would still lose handily to him.
Depends what we’re talking about as “regular” here. I’ll also assume the ages are controlled so we’re talking about an adult roughly the same age is Eric.
Most folks that have purposefully swam laps in their life would be able to swim 100 meters free style faster than this with relative ease. Eric learned to swim just 4 months prior to this and was practicing in a 12 meter pool. At the end of the race he was all arms and was barely able to finish. It’s about the slowest you can possibly go and still finish the race.
Folks that haven’t ever purposefully swam laps would probably not be able to finish.
Most people, period, have never purposefully swam laps. Regular people, aka probably 99% of people, would do even worse than his original time.
Yeah but that doesn’t really fulfill the spirit of wondering of people making comment on wanting to see a “new regular guy compete”.
“Well if you picked a male at random from the population of earth, they would probably have to be saved from drowning by a lifeguard”
I think a lot of fairly athletic people could beat that time tho. Inspiring and brave to be sure but probably only 70-75 percentile. Source: high school swimmer who never swam year-round but could smoke that time
High school swimmers represent the top 5% of swimmers. You are a terrible comparison to make for the "average person" who probably last swam (not just waded in the water) in 8th grade.
Yep. There's a big difference between a practiced type of swimmer and a vacation-type of swimmer. I belong in the latter and I don't think I can even swim 100m before my muscles start to cramp.
Right, I ran cross country in high school. I was a shitty runner compared to my peers. I never even made it into a varsity race, meaning I was never considered one of the top seven runners on my team, and I don't think I ever just missed the cut, either. I usually ran around a 21:00 5K with a personal best of 20:05.
Those times would probably defeat 97% of the population-at-large. Not a good comparison.
I always go back and watch Bradbury's gold medal race from 2002 myself. Say what you want about the Olympics and how they are run, it's the possibility of watching athletes like them have incredible and improbable moments that make me tune in.
I mean not his first time. Tons of people that don't train professionally can easily beat that time. His new best is quite quality though.
He is not a regular guy, a regular guy is not as fit as him. Have you seen his picture for the 2000 Olympics?
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I actually got my fastest 800m time that way. I didn’t really care about track very much (xc runner) so I goofed off and started the race sprinting as fast or faster than the people who were a lot better than me in the hopes of throwing someone from a different team off their pace.
Did surprisingly well, close to collapsing on the finish line because I gave it 100%.
Good times
Was your time under 2 minutes?
I have a story about an 800m relay that was the worst race of my life. I'm a hurdler, my main event was the 110 hurdles but I also competed in the 400m hurdles and was an alternate on our 4x4 team. My two closest friends were both on our 4x8 team. We had a relay meet, but my friends had to stay after school working on a project. 30 minutes before the 4x8, my coach told me that they weren't going to make it, and I would be running in the 4x8 (If I'm remembering correctly this was partly to punish me for missing a practice for something or other, and partly just to give me a workout and see what I could do). I was the third leg, got the handoff, and went. I really went. We were ahead of all of the other teams in the race so I didn't have anyone to pace me. My coach gave me my split as I came through the line: 55. Oh no. At 500m I was dead tired. On the back straight I was passed by three runners. Apparently my two friends were pulling into the parking lot as I rounded the final turn, laughing their asses off at me. I finished at 2:22. Never again.
Just found it. It was 2:27 😂😂
ngl that’s fast af
Lol. Still wasn’t a good time, although it was my best.
I speak for all of us, we are still proud of you
I remember senior year Regionals for swim. 100m breaststroke, I had 0 vision because of how hard I was pushing myself and holding my breath lmao. Got my personal record that day of 1:04.7 and then got pulled out of the water by my father and my coach l. Good ol days.
Eric the eel!!!
The reaction time at starts of swim/running events always seemed weird to me. I mean when you are talking about tiny fractions of a second separating competitors, you'd have to start tensing your muscles before the sound officially happens. What if you were the world's fastest swimmer, but just didn't have quick reflexes on the start?
Then you'd lose the race, or you could enter a longer race where the impact of your slow reaction time is outweighed by your faster swimming time.
It's this reason that leads to one of the biggest misconceptions in sport: it's often assumed that the "world's fastest man" is the winner of the 100m sprint, but in fact the average speed is usually higher in the 200m, since most of the 100m is spent accelerating, not at full speed.
Thats for running not swimming. You don’t accelerate in swimming. You are the fastest when you enter the pool.
I think OP knows, based on their first paragraph. The second paragraph is 100% about running, and just an aside.
And possibly even higher in for the winner of the cheese rolling championships though I can’t seem to find timings anywhere.
Edit: I did at once go to an athletics event where they had a straight (I.e no bend) 150m race, under the premise that this would provide the highest average speed, no idea if it did though.
What if you were the world's fastest swimmer, but just didn't have quick reflexes on the start?
Then you wouldn't be very good at this competition? Like what are you trying to prove, it's a race, everyone starts at the same time. It's just part of the competition.
YES! By default, my favourite way to win!
I vividly remember the German TV commentary at the time that Eric Moussambani was "... im Kampf gegen die Uhr und das Ertrinken..." which loosely translated means "... battling the clock and drowning."
I thought it meant 1 hour, 52 minutes lol, I was confused for a bit.
The Jamaican Bobsled Team, Eddie "The Eagle" Cheever, 1980 US Hockey Team, and now Eric Moussambani ... everybody loves underdogs.
Here's the video to his race which is more entertaining than a wiki
https://youtu.be/8rqI8xwXVac
Or the Australian speed skater who won because the others just kept falling
Stephen Bradbury. It’s actually a saying in Australia - “to do a Bradbury” is where everyone else just does so shit that you’re the last man standing.
His story is a lot more than that though, he'd won a bronze in the 1994 Winter Olympics and was a top competitor for much of the 90's. In 1994 though, in the World Cup, a skate cut through his leg and he lost over 4 litres of blood, nearly dying and setting him back from competing for 18 months. Then in 2000 he broke his neck and was told by doctors he would never compete again, but he was determined to make 1 more Olympics, and, well, the rest is history. Knowing he didn't have the pace to win a sprint vs the rest, his strategy was to hang back out of the action and avoid accidents, and it worked out perfectly.
Eric the Eel! I love stories like this. The video of him competing shows the crowd cheered him on the entire way. Just proves you don't have to be the best in the World to have the proper spirit. In my native England we have a similar hero called Eddie the Eagle who competed in the ski jump.
Eddie the Eagle is an absolute legend XD He definitely had the spirit of an Olympian, even if he didn't have the speed. That still took a lot of guts.
It's hard not to be the best in your country when there's no one else from your country to compete with. (Kind of like the infamous Jamaican bobsledding team). Also, if I'm not mistaken, some country literally shanghaied (pun intended) some poor bastard to swim in the 2000 Olympics who had never even seen a pool before - let alone swam. But hey, when your country is offered a spot to compete intentionally, you don't refuse. You just make do.
For comparison. I swim at a 1:50 pace during my daily mile swim. And I'm old. And not a great swimmer.
Yep. Also older guy who started swimming for fitness in April. I’m right around 1:52 over 2k these days and I have an absolutely ugly turn because I haven’t learned the fancy way the pros do it yet. Crazy that I would be neck and neck with an Olympian lol!
Move to that country and try out for the Olympic team lol
For comparison. I don't swim and it takes me about 1:50 to drown. And I'm old and good runner.
I'd take way less time than that to drown. And I'm relatively young and don't run.
And the crowd's ovation when he finished is probably my favorite Olympic moment.
if you cant race fast race clean, i always tell this to new competitors
Every other Olympian trained for years and basically their entire lives to get to the Olympics. Eric the Eel trained for 8 months. What a legend.
Also he trained in a lake. Then a hotel swimming that he could only use between 5-6am. Imagine that. An Olympian. Training at a 12m long hotel pool. Before the guest woke up
This is as good as the Australian winning the Winter Olympics Ice Skating after everyone else fell down. All it matters is following the rules and crossing the finish line
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Yes, but without the people who false started.
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Honestly, I don't know what the rule was at the time, but these days - both in swimming and in track - a single false start gets you thrown out of the race. I believe this was done after a track race had to be restarted many times which is unfair to the athletes who don't false start.
It would be nice if the Olympics had more opportunities for amateurs like this. Overcoming obstacles and having fun can be just as impressive as record-breaking times.
There's still a rule in place in athletics called universality so that every country can enter at least one man and one woman in any athletics event, even if they don't make the qualifying time, so that each country has at least some representation. This year 104 countries have sent athletes via this method.
I've always liked this idea, as a compromise:
I heard the idea a while ago that they have a couple randos in each event so you can see just how good the other guys are. If everyone is just as fast as everyone else it doesn’t look quite as impressive, ya know?
olympics is supposed to be ONLY amateurs but.... well.... dream team?
That amateur ship sailed a long time ago. Maybe good, maybe bad but we’ll probably never see this kind of underdog story again.
The Russians were all professionals paid by the state long before the dream team.
Da, comrade, I am "truck driver". The state pays me to drive this truck to and from the ice rink. Pay no mind to the 8 hours I spend there.
Even before that professional athletes were playing in the Olympics.
The rules at the time only barred NBA players but allowed professional FIBA players to play.
And the gap was so big that even without NBA players the top US college players pretty consistently won gold.
The Russians among others killed the amateur aspect by having national teams that were officially amateur but in reality played the sport as a full-time job while being a "soldier" or something.
The IOC eventually had to just start allowing professionals to compete to cut down on the cheating, and the ~~1996 Atlanta~~ 1992 Barcelona (had an idiot moment) games were the first time professional basketball players were able to compete, so you had all the best NBA players in the world who had never had a shot at the Olympics all get the opportunity at the same time, so they all went.
1992 in Barcelona. Not '96 Atlanta.
Yeah, I brain-farted that one.
Uhh, 1992 in Barcelona? They didn’t call it the Dream Team for nothing.
Was it a full heat? Because, good on him, but EVERYONE false starting but him? Wut?
Edit : It was not. There were only three swimmers in it. So while everyone is correct, "both" is more accurate.
"While Moussambani's time was still too slow to advance to the next round, he set a new personal best and an Equatoguinean national record."
You're telling me that before his 2000 Olympic swim, no one swam a faster 100m freestyle in the entire country of Equatorial Guinea? I find that hard to believe.
Nobody swam one faster that was timed by Olympic officials in an Olympic standard pool.
It’s about having an international regulation sized pool available. They’re devastatingly expensive to run, and poor countries may not have that luxury. Heck, in all of Alaska there is only one 50-meter pool - the girl who won the 100 m breast had to move to swim there…and the pool was set up for short-course training!
I remember watching him when this happened and I was SO PROUD of his determination to finish, no matter what. I wish the Olympics had more stuff like this.
He was nicknamed Eric the eel in Australia
Guess they really weren't kidding when they said sometimes just showing up on time is enough
Eric the Eel was his nickname at the time.
I think he received a bigger ovation than the winner of the race. It was awesome to watch!
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I never heard of him either but a quick google lead me to this short video about him: True Story of Eric "The Eel" Moussambani. Apparently, he didn't even know how to dive when he arrived at the Olympics.
Romain Cannone, fill-in for the French team this year, and least-likely, just took home gold in mens epee....
Roy and HG commentating this during the Sydney olympics was the best. The guy became a proper local celebrity in Australia for about 2 weeks. Great story though. He wasn’t kidding himself though - he always just said he was happy to just be there. What a legend.
You feel for the other two fellas though - apparently they had never been told how the start was supposed to happen and spoke no English, and when they got on the blocks, they heard “on your marks” thinking it was the signal to start. So they both jumped in.
But still - props to Eric “the Eel” Moussambani. What a legend. Here’s the two most Australian guys ever commentating. It’s the best.
https://youtu.be/R_AePNEmIGs
Quirky as it may be, he will always be known as an Olympian. I love stories like this.
Here's the Sydney 2000 event as it happened with Australian commentators, Roy & HG.
https://youtu.be/R_AePNEmIGs
Seems like the definition of "It ain't much, but it's honest work"
It was the only time that a lifeguard was needed during an olympic swimming event.
Man I read about that, when it happened in a magazine (Geo I believe) and immediately knew it was the person who trained an hour in a hotel swimming pool which had only 25m and was bombed or broken in some other way iirc.
What an absolute legend that's 21 years ago and I still remembered him instantly.
My father was at the event. He said it was wild.
I remember watch this, the crowd cheering him on was fantastic but there were times when you wondered if he was going to make it. It was touch and go
In case you want to see it. https://youtu.be/8rqI8xwXVac
How about Anthony Nesty from Suriname in 1988. Coming into the Olympics America was treating Matt Biondi like he was the second coming off Mark Spitz. Nesty beat him for the 100 meter butterfly. Despite Suriname not having a 50 m pool.
I remember the condescending interview with NBC after. They said “Wow you must be amazed that you could possibly beat Matt Biondi.” Nesty said. “No. I’ve trained really hard and am fast. I always thought I could beat him.” The NBC guy was literally gob smacked and could say nothing.
I was at this event and it was the highlight of the day. He was considered a legend by the Australians and given the name "Eric the eel" by local Australian media. His pace in the last 25m was so slow people thought he might not make it, but he never gave up. The crowd went wild. It was the first time the Olympic lifeguard actually looked like they might have to do something!
He "almost didn't finish" 100 m swim?
that's weird isn't it?
No, he’s from a country that doesn’t have Olympic sized pools. They aren’t really known for swimming. His time was the slowest in Olympic history while simultaneously being the record for his country, which tells you nobody in his country swims that distance…ever.
100 mtr pool will be 100 mtr long, right? As in I am trying to say he knew what 100 mtrs are and must have practiced the same distance, right?
I am trying to learn what caught him off guard
Edit : Got the info
He was only at the Olympics due to a wild card entry and he didn't have to qualify for the event. He only learned how to swim 8 months before the event and didn't have access to any training pool except for an hour a day at a hotel.
Most pools are 25 yards/meters, as a 50 meter pool is exponentially more expensive to operate. If you’ve only ever worked out/competed in a short-course pool, as they’re known, when you see a proper 50 meter pool it look gargantuan. It’s a completely different pace since there’s no flipturns. There’s really no other equivalent. Maybe ice hockey, where the international rinks are bigger than NHL rinks? And the key on the international Basketball courts are wider, maybe? Those are the only two size changes that I can think of besides the short-course vs long-course pool difference. Suffice to say, changes in size of playing surface makes a big difference.
Olympic pools are 50 meters though. The term is long course vs short course for swimming. Most winter seasons are short course (common for high schools, especially up north) and summers are long course, where public pools open up for clubs.
But the question was “what caught him off guard,” not about lc v sc - to understand why he was caught off guard you need to know that most pools are not 50 meters, never mind that there are no 100m pools - most pools are usually 25 yds/mtrs. So him seeing a 50 meter pool for the first time would have been an enormous shock. He hadn’t practiced in an Olympic sized pool ever.
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It's better than the 100m medley. I can't imagine having to mashup Broadway power ballads between breaths.
IOC changed the rules after that fiasco, so participants have to meet a minimum international time rather than just be sent to the games with no experience at all.
Yesss! I love this story I was just talking about it last night. I remember watching this live in 2000 and it’s one of my fondest Olympic memories because he truly embodies what the Olympics are about. I can still hear the fans in the stadium cheering him on to finish the race.
how does everyone else false start but one guy? huh.
edit: I read the wiki and I guess it was only 2 other people, but wow
Language barrier and unfamiliar with the instructions. It’s likely that these guys had never been in a race with a starting judge in their life.
pure luck? and a record is a record anyway, even as the lowest...
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That's kind of like the girl from Alaska who won gold last night. Evidently there's only one olympic sized pool in the whole state of AK and the pool she trains in is just a 25yd pool. She seemed much more humble than the American favorite in that race too so I was happy to see her win
Lol - it’s funnier than that - she actually trains at that pool but they have it set up for short-course, so she’s never trained long course even though she’s at a long course pool!
Yes, we all saw the post on r/videos from 2 days ago
In not flexing or anything but, i still haven’t seen an olympic sized swimming pool. And I would gasp for air if i walk chest deep in the water.
Eric the Eel!
I watched that happen live.
Reminds me of the speed skater guy who won because everyone else fell
I think his nickname was „the eel“
the run for anyone whod like to see it https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/news/videos/moussambanis-memorable-solo-swim
The guy is a fucking legend.
Imagine rolling a D20 in the Olympics. As a non pro
Nicknamed Eric the Eel by the British media. The seafaring Eddie the Eagle, if you will.
Omg I remember watching this in high school! I don't care how long he took - he showed up. I remember being so inspired.
Does he have a support fund to donate to?
Who could forget Eric the Eel?
Eric the Eel!!!
I remember watching this dude. And this is why I love the Olympics. I've seen Africans cross-country skiing in the winter Olympics, I've seen people struggling to break a minute in 400m sprint. I saw the Jamaican bobsleigh team and I saw Eddie Edwards. I'm watching events I know nothing about (fencing and archery are pretty cool, also curling in the winter games) and I'm loving it. I know it was questionable to organise the current games with the pandemic but yeah, I sure am enjoying it
Thought they were going to have to send the lifeguards in after him
Uh, I remember that. Commentator was half worried he would drown
I believe his nickname the the eel.
I was a fat 15 year old whos water polo nickname was "driftwood" and i was legit way faster than this dude. nice.
Equatorial Guinea also has the lowest average IQ worldwide. The previous dictator executed anyone who might lead any political resistant so everyone living there now is a generation out from an intellectual cleanse. It’s crazy place.
https://youtu.be/lfQMJtilOGg
And, if I remember correctly, he got on an Olympic postage stamp in Australia (which may've only been available in the village but was a legal stamp).
Eric the Eel. What a guy. Good on ya, Eric.
In a somewhat hilarious segue, one of the swimmers who false started and were disqualified were really pissed off that Eric became a hero in Australia (and the world). Being inside the olympic village and seeing/knowing about stuff was gold, gold, gold! Good times.
I’m pretty sure this was the same race if my memory serves me right, but apparently the lifeguard on duty had to pace down the side of the pool with him because he was so slow. lifeguard who is watching Olympic swimmers easily clear the length of the pool “oh shit I have to do my job?”
It's good to see that being a figure of fun in the media didn't put him off. He recorded his best time of 56.9 seconds in 2004 which is a bit more respectable.
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“Better than a lot of people”… I mean hes at the olympics so I should hope so lol
But I believe he was only at the Olympics because he was given an exemption so he didn't have to qualify for the event. He only learned how to swim 8 months before the event and didn't have access to any training pool except for an hour a day at a hotel.
For anyone else who is curious on why the Olympics would do that.
Moussambani gained entry to the Olympics without meeting the minimum qualification requirements via a wildcard draw designed to encourage participation by developing countries lacking full training facilities.
I want to see an equivalent movie to "Cool Runnings" for this guy
Pool Runnings
*puts on a swimming hat made from a cleaned out condom and goggles made from recycled plastic bottles
"Kiss me lucky egg"
Before diving into a river filled with alligators or piranhas to make him swim faster.
That's Hollywood baby
Cool Swimmings
his swimming technique is called the basilisk where he runs so fast he can skip across the water
The cool runnings guys qualified. This guy didn't.
So kind of like a dinner for schmucks situation. You invite people who have almost no knowledge of a sport, and have no way of even practicing said sport, to compete with literally the best athletes in the entire world. These athletes alsohappen to use training facilites that combined cost more to build than the GDP of the wild card nation.
I've seen the meme that they should have one average person in each Olympic event to show the contrast. Its a really cool idea if they know the plan going in...
Well that's where the Eddie the eagle rule comes from:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_the_Eagle#:~:text=Following%20the%20widespread%20attention%20that,Eddie%20the%20Eagle%20Rule%2C%20which
That page also includes this gem:
The fact that Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards does not speak Finnish might be the least surprising thing I've learnt today.
I don't understand why, really. It was a big media event and drew a ton of interest.
Yeah and it’s not like he moved to Botswana and enrolled as a ski jumper, the dude was still doing legit jumps.
It was more fun because it was him, most other cases are more offensive or sad really, for example take a look at Elizabeth Swaney's run at the olympics. Hell even I know dozends of people who could do runs like that... And at that point it stops beeing funny.
I can understand this rule, I would imagine the next Olympics would be full of characters who just want their 15 minutes of fame and it would turn into a massive joke.
It’s bc they’re a bunch of stuffy old bureaucrats who take themselves and their stupid little rules too seriously. They felt that Eddie “embarrassed” them and their institution by being….. joyfully bad at his sport and just revelling in the fact that he got to be there at all.
He got hurt really badly. Imagine putting a teenager who only rode the bunny slopes on a triple black diamond.
There are still some people who figure out loopholes, last one happened at the 2018 Winter Olympics with an American snowboarder who represented I think Hungary? And did it by basically doing like... runs that were super easy but wouldn't disqualify her, and then I think got her citizenship through her grandparents.
I think they qualified for the Olympics by recording a top 30 finish in a number of certified tournaments
How did they get around this?
They entered tournaments with 30 or fewer competitors
Desktop version of /u/sunrise98's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_the_Eagle
^([)^(opt out)^(]) ^(Beep Boop. Downvote to delete)
Such a dumb rule. The Old school Olympics, early days of modern Olympics, not the Greek games, were all about bringing common folk together. Mingling and meeting people from around the world and goofing off. There were some times it was considered gouache for a professional to enter, and some it was straight up disallowed. By forcing restrictions designed to only let top competitors in they've pretty much killed the last of the original intent.
I could see that working with a "decent amateur". Rules like no more than 5 hours/week training, no coach, etc. So kind of what your average person could hope to achieve. Grabbing someone random off the street and having them try to run a half marathon would be less fun for me.
What you do is a lottery for the host country and make it a fun honor to be the shmuck. So, ahead of time, I’d have only put my name in for events that I know I could at least complete. For skiing is where it gets tough. I live in a ski town, and I’m probably in the top 70% of skiers. Like I shred. I still wouldn’t want to be the shmuck for most of the skiing stuff. Idk that I could safely hit an aerial jump. But it would be cool to see an average joe do the thing.
I am in the top 100% of skiers!
So am I!
Top 70% means only 30% of people are for sure worse than you. Did you mean top 30%?
You mean you're in the top 30%? The top 70% isn't worth bragging about especially if you get into the worldwide ski numbers.. Can't be too many skiers.
That's why it was so awesome to see Latvia beat Team Canada at the World Championships this year. Canada has 2800 indoor hockey arenas; Latvia has less than 20.
On a sadder note, the Latvian goalie for that team passed away this month in a freak accident.
On the up side, though, that country gets to compete on the world stage with everyone else. There’s national pride even if you won’t medal.
I would assume you had to enter the wildcard draw and those who did were probably fully aware of the situation and were okay with it.
I mean, this year the judo competition at the olympics (iirc) invited a number of people that didn't qualify through traditional means to come and participate. All of these people have a background as refugees (from violent conflict iirc).
The idea isn't that they are going to really be able to compete for a top spot, but that they are allowed to attend, face the top professionals, and get an experience they are unlikely to ever forget. It should be a huge morale boost, even if they end up dead last.
It might be different for other people, but if I was selected for it, I would be excited. I already know I won't win, so I wouldn't feel crushed if I lost. I suppose I might feel terrible if I couldn't even put up a fight considering it would be broadcast, but that feels far less stressful that if were actually in contention.
They don't see it that way, they see it as a great honour to be there regardless. Ofc they know they aren't gonna win anything, that's not the point.
Sport isnt about winning. These athletes got to compete on a world stage and proudly represent their people and their country in the name of unity and sport. I think it's amazing
This, exactly you ever wonder why the u.s. stomps I'm basketball every year(except this year) its because the other countries didn't have resources to train, but it's all changing fast other countries are competing with the Giants now
Not like Cool Runnings?
You get to represent your country, i think it is good enough
Was that the reason for the Jamaican bobsledding team?
Not really, its the same type of exemption that brought you the movie "Cool Runnings" about the Jamaican bobsled team.
I would say its not like that at all. It's the best way to encourage countries without facilities to still encourage their people to try sport and bring attention to their lack of facilities so that their situations can improve.
they go knowing they aren't going to be the best but so does most of the competition
Decades ago I read a Popular Mechanics article (on dead trees, no less) that raised the same point. If an American has a $250k swimsuit for the Olympics, is it really a fair challenge for other countries? Then they went into all the tech that went into the suits.
Or swim suits co-developed by friggin NASA that were so fast the international swimming authority banned them. How can developing nations compete with that??
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/olympic-glory-week-lzr-swimsuits
Holy shit, it’s like QWOP in real life!
“We should point out that many of the other women represent countries that don’t have swimming pools.”
Trevor the Tortoise did the 100m sprint at a World Championship
Ran like 14.5sec at 300lbs
Pretty sure someone did worse a few years later
I would be amused to see weight categories for sprints or any distance competition
Triathlons frequently have a "Clydesdales" classification.
Only found it because I remembered he was a shot putter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogelau_Tuvalu
edit: oh he was only the second slowest, wonder who the slowest was (I'll be disappointed if it was someone that injured themselves half way down but still finished)
It was another shotputter.
I wanna say in 2009? Ish? I was in late highschool so '09-'11.
Edit: here's the other dude, Tuvalu
The slowest was Kim Collins in '97, he he became world champion in 2003, so I'm assuming injury lol
Video of the race
Sure for the 2000 olympics it sounds like. His sub 1 minute time was 4 years later.
He was sponsored by Speedo after the 2000 Olympics and received a lot of training.
Edit: corrected year.
Which is crazy. I'm a great swimmer (swam in HS) and I never did a sub-1:00 for a 100M (yds, yes, but not meters).
Yeah because a 1:52 is an awful time
What the fuck? And he became an olympic level swimmer that quick?
But it was a holiday inn express so that makes up for it.
Sub 1 minute in a 100m is still mostly out of the realm of possibility for anyone who hasn't swam competitively.
Probably couldn’t even get there with flippers and a snorkel
Yeah.. but its the olympics. Its like going to an NFL game and being like, wow, that QB is better than most people! Even if its Brock Lobster, hes in the NFL.. ofc hes better than most people lol
You realize the same guy literally went to the olympics with double the time?
Brock Lobster!
Down
Down
This does remind me of last season where the Broncos had to play a game with a Practice Squad wide reciever at QB because of covid. It was kind of entertaining, but thats a guy who is still a pro athlete, albeit one who hadn't played QB since high school. Now, if you put, say, me, at QB it might be funny for one play. And then it would just be shit for the audience and painful for me.
A 56 is mostly outside of the realm of a lot of swimmers who do swim competitively though. I was 53 myself, which will hardly get me at the olympics, but a 56 after 4 years of swimming at a later age is pretty respectable in my books.
I swam on a team for one year when I was 12, I could go out and swim a faster 100m freestyle time than 1:52 today at 30yo. That is a slow time.
That’s better than average people and terrible for Olympian. I swam faster than that in HS
"better than a lot of people" is an understatement.
Yeah, it's not quite Olympic medalist territory (upper 40s). But you're definitely in the ballpark of a powerful competitor at the high school level.
I swam from when I was 5 through a D1 college on scholarship. I was close to trials cuts, but didn't quite get there, so I was fairly good but not really close to top tier.
I can guarantee that there are VERY few people who haven't swam competitively in college that can go sub minute in a 100m freestyle.
I have a small triathlon that I’m doing in 2 weeks. Signed up for it back in March. It’s a 300 meter swim.
I thought I knew how to swim but it became very apparent to me after one lap in a 25 meter pool that I really don’t know how to swim. I can swim 300 meters in about 10 minutes.
Swimming’s fucking tough.
Wow that is a seriously impressive improvement in just 4 years.
It is pretty impressive though there tends to be much higher time shedding when you are as slow as that for a baseline. Usually that rate slows down after they break the 60 second barrier. Especially if he was training diligently to drop said time
Well yeah, he shaved a minute off. How the F are you gonna do that once you're sub 60 seconds lmao
Become a time traveller
Quantum water tunneling, arrive at the finish line before you've entered the water.
“Sorry sir you lost the race”
“No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!”
Fuck, I wish I'd used that line when my physics teacher gave me my grades. I bet she would have given me a chuckle point or two
Get really really good at jumping so you enter the water at the other side
This is brilliant. I just imagined them slipping and sliding in a full sprint to jump as far as they can.
Would it be faster to retrain the long jumpers to swim? Or the swimmers to jump?
Fuck it. 100m dash into long-jump into a ~43m swim.
But wouldn't a long jumper technically be canon balling in? Wouldn't the sprint to dive be more effective?
I'm excited for this sport.
Don't be stupid. It's obviously easier to train the oil drillers to swim.
So am I!
You seem like a really fun person :)
Triathalon 2.0
Now I kind of want a long jump/100m combo event
Pole vaulting straight into freestyle.
Wait jk pole vaulting is vertical
Pole vault/high dive combo? I like where your head's at
Things get weird when the guy at the starting line changes his mind about participating and then they have to fight to the death over which one gets to continue existing.
Someone get Luis Elizando on the line.
* pulls out a single blank piece of paper and a sharpened pencil * my time to shine.
Loool very true. I meant that, throughout those 4 years of training, his time probably drastically dropped from the initial almost 2 minutes to close to 1:00. But from there, his rate of time dropping probably slowed until he finally hit his time in 2004.
When I first did cross country in high school, my first 5k was like 31 minutes, and by my last meet that year it was a 22:23. Ngl, it almost feels better when you start so bad and just knock off chunks of time every meet lol.
I was about to say, when I was a highschool swimmer I did 1:20's as my practice speed (ten 100's on 1:20 was an everyday thing) and I wasn't very talented. I can't imagine doing 1:50 in the Olympics.
Glad he developed.
I can clearly remember him having a very hard time to finish the last 50m.... He was going to one side to the other of the lane. You may feel bad for him until you saw his satisfaction after finishing, he just lived a dream and was absolutely happy (and tired)
And the crowd cheered for him like he was a true champion. It was a bit silly, but the crowd made it sweet.
They usually sponsor a couple of people from countries too poor to send someone. It's usually someone who's barely had opportunity to train.
It's still cool to see that they can still attend at least.
in regards to this Equatorial Guinea (where Eric Moussambani is from), they have one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa, but they're a dictatorship, so regular people never see that money
Search for Eric the Eel on YouTube. That is Eric Moussambani.
I guess anyone who ever swam competitively swims better than him in 2000. Thruth be told it was mentioned before the Olympics he only ever seen a 25m pool.
edit: typos
Link for the lazy
https://youtu.be/YDqwYUe_U7I
There's something about watching someone in the position he's at in those last 25m. Where everything breaks down, there's no technique, there's no energy, it's just almost pure survival. You don't get to see it much in professional marathons or in football (American and soccer) and other sports at levels where they're all professionals. But if you see something like an obese person pushing to finish their first ever mile run, that kid who's in wrestling practice or football practice for the first time barely hanging on during conditioning, or my experience, seeing someone in basic or tech school where it looks like their body is just done but their brain is pushing them through that last bit. It's really amazing how your brain can tell your body "fuck you, we're not done here."
Mad props to this guy. I'm glad the community was supportive. Because let's be honest, it's funny. But he's a badass for giving it all he had. Even if what he had was miniscule compared to the rest.
That’s basically describing my 100m fly career. Man i would’ve been such a great yards swimmer if that was thing over in europe😂
long course or short course
Short course. As I said, I was not talented. I barely made State my Senior year. Just giving some perspective to people who don't know anything about swimming
Making state is pretty good dude.
i guess that heavily depends on the state..
Yeah I made state in lacrosse in Virginia. Doesn't mean I'd even come close in maryland or new york where people actually care about lacrosse
Agreed. State in tennis every single year. I consider myself a decent player at best - my state just gave no fucks about tennis.
What is the difference and how does it affect your times? If you don't mind me asking
In short course you swim shorter distances between each turn at the wall. Generally your under water work (good flip turn and strong dolphin kicks) is much faster than actively swimming!
Long course are 50m long pools (or yards depending on the level of swimming) Short course is 25m.
so short course is more like 25x4 and long would be 50x2 ?
Yep exactly!! The 50x2 will feel MUCH longer even though it’s the same distance.
Something else to note, I’d you pay attention to the lane lines you will see a red stripe on it. This is the 15m(or yard) mark. Underwater swimming can be so much faster that they actually had to make a rule that you have to resurface before getting to the 15m mark!
How much of you has to resurface? How is that generally interpreted?
From my understanding when you resurface you then have to begin doing whatever the stroke of that event is. So let’s say the event is 100m backstroke, each time you hit the 15m mark you better be doing backstroke haha
Just have to break the surface. Though obviously you can't just dive back down after that.
Your body has to resurface as it passes the 15m marker. So your hands must surface before they pass the marker.
Hands break first generally, and they’re the furthest part of your body in front of you
So true. When I was like 8 I made it through divisionals in my summer league to the regional meet for butterfly. I was terrible at butterfly, but the only kid who figured out I could just dolphin kick halfway down the lane (it was a 25yd race.)
I got destroyed in regionals lol
When was that change made? Did it result in slower times across the board, or fewer world records being set?
I don’t know specifics, but focus on under water work has really taken off within the last century. If you look up videos of early 20th century competitions you’ll notice a huge difference in how they swim today verses then.
If I had to guess I would say that rules were created in hand with new techniques being developed so probably didn’t have huge effects on over all times.
i had shit turns and was much more better at long course
in the states, it's 25yards for short course. it actually makes for some neat pool designs where it could be made regulation short course both ways. like a square pool
Yeah I worked a pool with that same idea! One direction was short course, the other direction was long course . Each way was used depending on the league! Was super annoying to have to constantly change the lane lines for the various practices through out the day haha
Plus generally, short course is in yards and long course is in meters. A meter is 10% longer than a yard.
Not unless your pool was built during that brief stretch of time when everyone though the US was going metric!
I swam in a short course meter pool in high school. It was the oddest thing to train in but compete in a yard pool when we traveled.
Would you say that gave you an advantage or disadvantage in travel meets? There was one pool my team would visit that had a meter pool, all the others were yard pools, and just the mental disconnect of actual distance vs expected distance I was used to in training would throw me off a bit. Especially in IM, since I was awful at backstroke to begin with!
I don’t think that’s true. Short course/ long course times are always compared in the same measurements. Meters in the rest of the world and yards sometimes in America and Canada, though even there at any relatively high level it’s meters. As a Canadian swimmer we only ever used meters for ac/lc.
Edit: sc/lc
You're right in Canada and wrong in the US. In the States, short course is traditionally 25 yards, with long course being 50 meters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_course
Long course is a 50m pool, short course is a 25m pool. Short course times are faster than long course because you can push off the wall every 25m as opposed to every 50m
Also, in the US, short course is usually 25 yards, so the distance may also be slightly shorter, depending on if it's SCY or SCM.
That makes sense. Thank you
Short course is 25 yards and long course is 50 meters. A 100 in short course is not only less distance but you are also doing a flip turn 3 times, pushing off the wall, saving energy and making times faster.
Short course is 25 yards/meters(some pools use yards, others meters, at least in the US) typically while long course is 50 yards/meters. Basically you have more times you push off of a wall in a short course race, which tends to be faster then actually swimming, so times tend to be a bit faster that way.
I mean, if you already know you're going to lose, you may as well go down in history for the slowest time ever.
And if you realize you're going to win, even more reason to.
1:20 was my actual speed in HS (summer league, totally casual). My coach put me in the 100 free one weekend because we didn't have enough swimmers in the heat and I probably did the most 16 year old pout ever. Naturally, I swam breast stroke instead of forward crawl because, you know, fuck that noise. I think I ended up in 4th, which was a point or two towards the team score.
Are you sure he didn't just swim really slowly because he knew the others false started? That time is too slow to think he was actually trying, especially since he later improved his time by almost a minute.
"All right Eric, easy now. Don't get disqualified. Don't get disqualified. Don't gst disqualified..."
"Listen for the horn, count to 2 and then jump in"
No he was trying. He was struggling and ran out of energy.
Here is Eric talking about it
https://youtu.be/YDqwYUe_U7I
He only learned to swim 8 months before the event and only had a hotel pool to practice in.
Well that explains the extremely slow time, then.
He was put in purely because he was from a small country, and equality and all that. I’ve heard he was taught about how to swim faster by the other athletes at the olympics venue.
He started with everyone laughing but at the end the entire crowd was rooting and cheering for him as loud as they could. He persevered and didn’t give up, which changed the heart of the crowd where they wanted to see him do his absolute best.
I remember the news broadcast, as they presented it in a way that reflected the Olympic spirit, most athletes are never in running for gold and are trying to get a personal best. Right after this event, he was given a suit by speedo and if I remember correctly they sponsored him and he received a coach and training.
What was his time in the next heat? I'm wondering if he was aware of the faults and took a leisurely swim for fun and to save energy
Honestly you should YT it. I remember watching it and was worried he was going to drown at one point.
Oh....on the last 25 meters he looks like one of those videos of a small plane going up against so much wind that their ground speed is 0
Ah, this was me when I first tried swimming on a recreational team as a kid. During tryouts my coach later said that he was afraid I was going to drown as I frantically dog-paddled my way across the pool.
After about a year I was on the 100m freestyle relay team and competing at a decent level. I won the team medal for most improved swimmer, but mostly because I was not a swimmer when I started lol.
you used to be a drowner but you weren't very good at drowning
He is why Olympic pools have lifeguards.
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I mean regardless of your swimming ability you could still suffer a stroke, or heart attack, or any other sudden onset medical emergency while swimming which would necessitate a lifeguard's intervention. Water never stops being dangerous no matter how competent you are.
I'd imagine it's more dangerous when you're competent. You're pushing the boundary of what you are physically capable of, which means sometimes you slip past that boundary and either set a personal best, or cramp/collapse/pass out.
I don't know where the edge of my envelope is, so I throttle myself long before reaching it (if I even could reach it). These guys know exactly where that line is, are capable of reaching it, and potentially exceed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_AePNEmIGs
Since all y'all are assholes and won't post a link
I was wondering that too. Tried to find his time in the next heat but instead I saw the video of him swimming that first heat. He was really struggling just to stay afloat at the end, that time was legit the best he could pull off.
Apparently he was basically picked out of no where to represent his country as part of an outreach program for developing nations and had only practiced swimming in a lake for 8-9 months.
He won his heat but didn’t qualify due to time
Only the top 16 times in the qualifiers move on to the semi-finals, so you can conserve some energy by not going all out, but you can't be too slow, either
So do the heat pairings matter at all, then? If I'm understanding correctly, you can be last in your heat and still be in the top 16, or first in your heat and 17th overall?
Did not qualify...
Almost the exact opposite. He was completely gassed after the turn. His time wasn’t good enough to move onto the next heats.
Yeah I was going to say I'm pretty sure I could beat 1:52.
Looks just like a case of being too eager from the video. He was actually pretty fast at the start even though his form wasn't great, he just burnt through his energy very quickly. I think a decent number of people could do better if they just went at a more steady pace.
56.9 in a 100m Olympic sized pool is about a 49 in SCY so that’s actually really good for 4 years of training
Sub-50 for SCY is fucking moving.
Big props to the guy. Even after being a dedicated year round swimmer for however many years I was no where close to the progress he has
As an American not knowing how far 100m is, I thought the post read that he took an hour and fifty two minutes and that you were telling me he shaved that down to 56.9 seconds and I was seriously impressed
Is that true? Thats faster than johnnie weissmuller
Wow, he managed to cut the time in half, but how was he in the Olympics with such a terrible time before?
There are, or at least were, a number of wild card invites given out to countries which did not have athletes with qualifying times.
Wild card, bitches!
that's a legitimately good time... I was always built like a sprinter so I flag really quickly, but my 50m times in high school swim were usually just under 30 seconds. his first time I could probably still beat to this day being out of shape and all, but I absolutely could not do a sub 1 minute 100m anymore
How does one donate to his teachings?
56.9 is fucking hauling for a longcourse 100 free.