If you’re sick of all those tired old “greatest Olympic moments” round-ups, check out Neatorama’s collection of five truly bizarre moments in Olympic history, including a British ski jumper with Coke-bottle glasses who had never seen a ski jump, two Kenyan cross-county-skiiers who had never seen skis, and a German track star who was groped by Hitler.
My favourite, though, features Eric “The Eel” Moussambani (video above), a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who dog-paddled his way to the top of his heat even though he learned to swim just a couple of months before the Sydney Olympics. He apparently trained in a tiny hotel pool, and had never seen a 50-metre Olympic-sized pool until he got to the Games. Even the Australian announcers were cheering him on.
This stuff is why I love the Olympics.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Marie-Michele // Aug 22, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Delightful !
2 Asher Vijay // Feb 7, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Bjørn Dæhlie was super-cool!
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