Eric captures spirit of the Games - without a breather

By PETER CALDER

It was one of those special moments of sport that will live in the memory for years. A heroic struggle that took almost two minutes and ended with an exhausted smile and huge applause.

The star of the Olympic Aquatic Centre yesterday was a solo-swimming African who had never covered 100m without stopping for a breather.

Eric Moussambani, from Equatorial Guinea, was the only swimmer left in the first heat of the blue-ribbon men's event on Tuesday morning when the other two competitors were disqualified for jumping the starter's signal.

After much confusion, Moussambani completed the heat unaccompanied, a few seconds slower than the time the superstars had swum in the 200m final the night before.

Without the vocal support of the largely Australian crowd he may not have made it at all.

His solo performance captivated international television audiences.

After the two false starts, the only remaining entrant was getting a little confused. He returned to his seat twice before finally getting the gun. After resurfacing he stopped, apparently waiting for a recall, before striking out for the other end.

He barrelled through the first 50m in a brisk 40.97 seconds, but the return leg was more problematic.

The 22-year-old, who started competitive swimming in January and practises in a 20m pool at a hotel in the capital of Malabo, had grown accustomed to stopping for breath but the 2.8m-deep pool here was not designed for pauses.

So he didn't pause. He floundered and splashed his way up the lane, slowing and gasping, looking like he might go under at any moment.

Meanwhile the two disqualified swimmers - Karim Bare of Niger and Farkhod Oripov of Tajikistan sat in seats behind the starting blocks, bowed in disappointment.

When Moussambani finally touched the wall to a deafening roar of applause, the clock stopped at 1:52.72; the "flying Dutchman" Pieter van den Hoogenband had won the 200m the night before in 1:45.35, equalling his own world record.

The Olympics are the first taste of international competition for Moussambani who carried the flag for his nation in the Opening Ceremony.

Yesterday's "race" was his first win. Until last week he had never even left his country - a pocket handkerchief square of land and five offshore islands beneath the bulge of West Africa. And he had never seen an Olympic-size 50m swimming pool before arriving at Homebush.

"I didn't want to swim 100m," he said through an interpreter after the race, "but my coach told me I should do it anyway. I was hurting going out. I thought it was too much - but I made it.

"I want to send hugs and kisses to the crowd because it was their cheering that kept me going."

Moussambani's qualification for competition at the games was an invitation issued as part of a plan by swimming's world governing body FINA to promote swimming in countries not already competing. The national swimming federation in Equatorial Guinea was formed six months ago; it has seven members.

Another team swimmer, Paula Barila Balopa, who featured in the Herald last week is entered in the women's 50m freestyle and, to judge by her form in training, may not fare much better than Moussambani.

The team's local attache, Derek Hayward, an Englishman, said the swimmers were finding it too cold to take advantage of the early morning slot they had been allocated for training in the aquatic centre near the athletes' village. They could only train in the afternoons in distant Blacktown.

"Their year-round temperature is 30 degrees with very high humidity," he said. "But the mornings here are crisp, even for us."

On Tuesday night the little swimmer was cruising Sydney harbour as the guest of a German TV station and was the talk of the town. But he was keeping his sudden fame secret from his family who would be watching a delayed telecast on Wednesday morning (New Zealand time).

"They don't know anything yet and I'm not going to tell them anything until they see me on the TV," he said. "I only carried the flag because they needed a small swimmer to do it and nobody knew who I was. But now, when I go home, everyone will know."