'Lympic Legends #2 - Eric 'The Eel' Moussambani

The name of Pieter van den Hoogenband could not really be described as ‘household’. Rather, it remains in the form of memories of some legendary races upon which swimming aficionados can look back. But long after his gold-medal performance in Sydney had slipped out of the public consciousness, one name from the 100m event remained ingrained in memories forever: Eric Moussambani.

With 5 lanes of the huge pool already unoccupied, the two other competitors of the first qualifying heat leapt into the water with the haste of suicidal maniacs with expiring life insurance. They were promptly disqualified, leaving us watching Equatorial Guinea’s finest embarking on his Tobler. This, of course, looked funny. It was nothing compared to what was about to happen next.

See, little did we know that the bould Eric had learned to swim a mere 8 months beforehand. And he trained himself. For a 50m race. Which would be a challenge in itself, as prior to his arrival on raceday, he had never seen a 50m pool before.

These details didn’t really emerge until later, of course. Standing on his blocks, all rippling muscles and tiny blue keks, he certainly looked the part. But as he leapt into the drink one thing became very quickly apparent – he couldn’t swim. And not in the way Trevor the Tortoise couldn’t run, or Eddy the Eagle couldn’t jump. They could, just not very well. No, not long after halfway, Eric lost the ability to swim. Flapping, splashing, veering sideways, and looking as comfortable as a dog in a microwave, he touched the wall in 1:52.72, over 7 seconds longer than it took van den Hoogenband to win the 200m.

In the coming years Eric would reduce his PB by almost a minute, but internal wrangling as a result of the perceived shame he had brought upon his nation put paid to both a scholarship to an American university and his ambitions to compete in Athens. That, however, appears to definitively be left in the past, as he travels to London as the Equatorial Guinea swimming coach.

But nothing he could ever do will compare with September 19th 2000 - the day The Eel wriggled his way into Olympic folklore.