Eric and Eddie and Paula

By quercuscommunity on Aug 1, 2024

Do you remember Pieter van den Hoogenband from the Sydney Olympics in 2000? He won Gold in the 100m freestyle with a time of 47.84 seconds. You'd have to be a top class quizzer or a swimming fan to know that.

But if i ask you if you remember Eric "the Eel" Moussambani, I bet you remember him. Three months before the Games he answered an advert for swimmers to try out for the national team, which had been given a wild card entry. Two people turned up - Eric and a lady called Paula Barila Bolopa. They were both selected. With little preparation time, no coaches and, more importantly, no Olympic size swimming pool, they started to train. Eric asked someone at a hotel to coach him, and was able to use the hotel's swimming pool between 5 and 6 am. It was a 12 meter pool. The rest of his swimming was done in a river (sharing it with crocodiles) and in the sea, where local fishermen gave him coaching input. They didn't see an Olympic size pool until they arrived at the games.

He came last on the day, in swimming kit given to him by a South African coach, and he needed oxygen after finishing, but the Australian crowd cheered him on, even when he thought of giving up. The crowd turned out to cheer Paula on too, a few days later. Both swimmers recorded the worst Olympic times ever in this event. But they both tried and they are both Olympians, which is more than I am.

Eric Moussambani did improve, though he never troubled the upper reaches of the sport, and he eventually became National Coach of Equatorial Guinea, a country which now has two Olympic size pools.

In subsequent news reports he was compared to Eddie the Eagle Edwards, another famous Olympic loser. Eddie the Eagle had a rule named after him as the sport tried to keep him out. But it didn't really matter. As with Eric the Eel - who remembers the winners.?