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Top 100 Memories: 2000-09 ( Part V)
Jan 26, 2010 - Craig Lord
Welcome to part V of our trawl back in time with the fifth 10 entries in the Top 100 memories of the past decade - Jan 1, 2000 to end '09 - starting backwards from 100 downwards in chronological order from the beginning of the Millennium. The top 10 will disregard the chronological order of things and dedicate itself to events that went beyond the thrill of a singular moment or event.
Today: 60 - 51 - the year 2004
60. March 27: the day the Thorpedo tumbled in and tested the strength of his destiny as one of the greatest middle-distance freestylers the world had ever known. Day one of Australian Olympic trials in Sydney back at the scene of a home hero's three gold medals (and a silver) at the Sydney 2000 Games four years earlier: Ian Thorpe, world record holder and six solo world titles, the man aiming to defend the Olympic 400m freestyle crown steps up to his blocks for the heats of the eight-length race. Hushed silence. Plop! Thorpey toppled over and fell in. Under the one-start rule brought in in 2001, there are no second chances and the champion is disqualified, his hopes of retaining the Olympic crown dashed in a no-dive. Thorpe's club launched an appeal. That was rejected by the meet referee and the jury of appeal. Australia Swimming President John Devitt (an Olympic champion who was no stranger to Olympic controversies) said that the decision would stand. Grant Hackett wins the final and Craig Stevens, Thorpe's clubmate, takes second, inside qualifying time to secure the second Aussie berth for Athens. in On April 6, Thorpe, who in late 2002 switched coaches from mentor Doug Frost to Frost's assistant Tracey Menzies, called on the International Olympic Committee to consider automatic entries for defending Olympic champions, while Stevens contemplates his option to withdraw to make way for Thorpe. Thorpe said on Australian TV: "I don't think it (withdrawal) is going to happen but it depends on what his (Stevens) reasoning is. If Craig feels that he doesn't want to do it, that it's going to affect his other races (200 free relay and 1,500 freestyle), that's when I will consider it. If he's been pressured into it or he's made to make that decision, I won't swim the race either." The war to get Thorpe on the Athens blocks is to be found everywhere. A Sydney lawyer calls on FINA to make the false start rule less ambiguous: Chris Branson said that FINA rule 4.1 that freestyle race starts "shall be with a dive" needed to make a distinction between a dive, which would provide an advantage, and accidentally entering the water by overbalancing or fainting on the blocks. The stance was stretching a point. Thorpe flopped in: he false-started - and false starts were barred in 2001. On April 20, the Australian Olympic Committee confirmed that it had the right to nominate Thorpe to the Olympic Team and that he would be eligible to swim the 400m free if Stevens withdrew. Questions were raised about whether the next eleigible athlete in line would be Josh Krogh, third in the 400m final at trials. AOC lawyer Alan Sullivan, supported by former chief justice of the Australian High Court, Sir Anthony Mason, noted that the Australian Swimming Selection Criteria uses the term "next ranked athlete" and in the opinion handed down by the AOC that, in fact, meant the "highest ranked non-selected and qualified athlete" - Thorpe. On April 26, after much anticipation and weeks of speculation, not to mention pressure, Stevens formally announced on Austalia's Channel Seven that he would step. Thorpe would defend his 400m crown after all. For Thorpe and for the sport of swimming, the news is good. Few would have wanted the race in Athens to go without the thrill guaranteed whenever Thorpe fired in an event that became his signature race when, back in January, 1998, aged 15 at Perth, he became the youngest male world champion (still is) in history. April 27 sees Thorpe accept his spot, while Channel Seven is reported to have paid Stevens $60,000 for making the announcement on one of its programs (as well as signed him to a 12-month contract with the network). Stevens says that the "money was never, ever a motivation whatsoever in the decision I've made". He praises Thorpe as "not the type of person who would put pressure on anyone". The AOC states: "Craig Stevens has shown great mateship and won the admiration and support of all Australians. His decision to stand aside in the men's 400m freestyle is unselfish and typifies the spirit and camaraderie with the swimming ranks. The past few weeks have been disruptive for Craig and Ian Thorpe and they can now get on with the job of preparing for Athens ... We applaud the manner in which Craig and Ian Thorpe have conducted themselves over the past four weeks." In Athens, August 14 was a sizzler for the start of racing in an Olympic pool about to steam. Pray silence, as Thorpe steps up in lane four of the last of six heats. Hackett has set the pace, at 3:46.36. No mistakes this time: Thorpe cruises a 3:46.55 to touch just ahead of Larsen Jensen (USA), on 3:46.90. Those three take the centre lanes for the final. A big moment for Thorpe and Menzies, now beyond a honeymoon period in which the super-talent had retained his 200m and 400m world titles. Hackett smelled blood and a very tight and thrilling race ensued, as told by the splits after a battle that granted Thorpe a higher plinth in the pantheon with gold, Hackett silver and Klete Keller (USA) bronze a stroke ahead of teammate Jensen.
Thorpe had rarely been as expressive at the end of race, the double-fisted pump accompanied by a roar that was followed by a look of sheer relief as the pressure of the previous few months melted away. "I was emotional yes," said Thorpe. "I didn't realize how much this event meant to me. I am more excited now that it is off my shoulders." By his side, Hackett added: "I just needed a few more metres ... we've had a lot of great races over the years, but this one will go down in history. He is a great guy and a good friend." Two days later, Thorpe added the 200m freestyle crown to his Olympic tally ahead of Pieter van den Hoogenband (NED) and Michael Phelps (USA) in what was rather prematurely dubbed "the race of the century". It was that 200m free (it is in solo events, not relays, that destiny is held in the hands of the one fighter) that blocked American Michael Phelps’s path to seven crowns in Athens. In what would turn out to be Thorpe’s swansong, Athens contributed a fine final chapter to the lore of a legend. He joined fellow Australian Murray Rose as the only other member of the club of men who have retained the 400m freestyle. Thorpe had one last historic punch to pull, one that promised something for a potential future that never came to pass: in 48.56 he took bronze in the 100m free retained by Hoogie (see entry 56) to become the first man ever to win medals in the 100m, 200m and 400m at the Olympic Games (the 200 was swum in 1900 and 1904 and then not again until 1968). At the end of 2004, the last season of Thorpe at speed, the Australian boasted nine of the top 10 fastest 400m free times ever: the 10th entry on the list was the 3:42.51 of Grant Hackett, for silver behind his teammate at worlds 2001.
59. August 15: Kosuke Kitajima (JPN) pops the cork on bottled-up emotion in Athens with an Olympic poolside primordial scream of "Cho-kimochi-ii". Loose translation: "I feel mega-good". The expression, delivered after he had just won the Olympic 100m breaststroke crown, won Kitajima a second prize: the 2004 U-Can Neologisms and Vogue Words contest. In July, 2004, at US Olympic trials in Long Beach, Hansen cracked out world records of 59.30 and 2:09.04. The stage was set for a showdown with the world champ from Japan in Athens. The mood was particularly tense because of events surrounding Kitajima’s style: he provoked a protest at the World Championships in Barcelona 2003, with Americans claiming that he was using a butterfly action underwater out of turns. These protests were lodged again in Athens but nothing could alter the pathway of a man destined to be the most successful breaststroke swimmer in history. In 100m heats in Athens, Kitajima threw down the gauntlet with a 1:00.03 Olympic record. Hansen answered in the first semi-final with 1:00.01; Kitajima took the second semi in 1:00.27. In the final, Hansen turned in 28.22, Hugues Dubosq (FRA) on 28.25 and Kitajima on 28.26. With 15m to go, gold was surely going to either Hansen or Kitajima. The day belonged to Japan's hero: he put in a frenetic and powerful last few strokes as Hansen tightened: the crown went, in 1:00.08, to Kitajima, Hansen 0.17sec back, with Dubosq third and also inside 1:01. In 2:09.44, Kitajima added the 200m crown three days later. "That talk about the kick just motivated me all the more to stick it to them. They can stop talking now," said Kitajima, coached by Norimasa Hirai. Kitajima was never disqualified but the incident prompted the FINA Technical Swimming Committee to remove doubt in rule interpretation by subsequently allowing one dolphin kick out of breaststroke starts and turns. In 2005, Kitajima lost both his world titles to Hansen, who in 2006 left the world records at 59.13 and 2:08.50. More on Kitajima later.
58. August 15: South African throws an historic party in the pool. Roland "The Blade" Schoeman leaps on the start block, flexing and pumping at the crowd, Ryk Neethling, first of the anchors home, leapt aloft the laneline, Darian Townsend and Lyndon Ferns leapt for joy as fellow gatecrashers at the wake of American sprint freestyle relays. The South Africans had not only become the first men from their continent ever to win an Olympic swimming title, they had done so in world record time: 3:13.17. Readmitted to the Olympic Games in 1992 after apartheid fell into the pit that had long awaited it, South Africans had never even made a 4x100m final before 2004, 7th and 8th places in the 4x200m free at Helsinki 1952 and Melbourne 1956 their only previous Olympic-final appearances. The 2004 splits told of impressive progress with passion at its heart: Schoeman (48.17, African record inside a 48.69 2003 best), Ferns (48.13, his best off a standing start 48.99), Townsend (48.96, his best off a standing start 49.80) and Neething (47.91, his best in 2003 off a standing start 49.06). In the history of the event, the USA had won seven crowns and lost one (AUS, 2000). In 2004, the US had to settle for bronze, courtesy of Pieter van den Hoogenband's sizzling 46.79 split for a quartet making its 4x100m podium debut for the Netherlands. For Schoeman, coached with Neethling by Frank Busch and Rick DeMont in Tuscon, Arizona, at the time, the relay brought a third medal (50m free, bronze; 100m free, silver). The tears flowed on the podium, the moment epic in the sport and for the spirit of a nation setting out on a brighter road. "Standing on the podium that night, I knew that it wasn't just for us, it was for a whole nation. The glory and excitement we felt was shared by every South African. It was a moment that will forever be engraved in my mind and in the minds of all South Africans," said Schoeman.
57. August 16, a symbolic date in a sensational week for trio with a triple each to celebrate: if the African Kings had excelled together on one blast of a night, the African Queen thrilled us all week long in Athens, as did the Queen of Gaul and the Polish Princess. The stories of Kirsty Coventry (ZIM), Laure Manaudou (FRA) and Otylia Jedrzejczak (POL) met in tandem in Greece: all three became the first women from their nations ever to win an Olympic swim crown (the efforts of Coventry and Jedrzejczak also transcending gender). All three ended the week with three solo medals, for Coventry and Manaudou one of each colour, for Jedrzejczak one gold and two silvers.
On this, the third day of racing in Athens, Coventry and Manaudou shared a podium, alongside the champion of the 100m backstroke, American Natalie Coughlin (see entry 55). The day after the 100m backstroke, Coventry won bronze in the 200m medley and three days later claimed her nation's first Olympic crown, in 2:09.19 over 200m backstroke. David Marsh, then head coach at Auburn University, where Coventry had trained (before later moving on with coach Kim Brackin) and studied said of her: "The truly exciting thing that's happened with Kirsty's experience is that it has completely transcended sports and the Olympics." Indeed so. Within a week of her winning her three medals, the 20-year-old white African's fame had spread well beyond the pool: her name was being heralded in the maternity wards of far-flung hospitals across her native Zimbabwe, where the majority black population took her success not only to heart but to the registry of births. Kirsty Coventry Mapurisa and Kirstee Coventree Kavamba were among the first two babies to have the honourable name bestowed on them but their parents must surely have regretted their lack of originality in the days that followed. Try these out: Threemedals Chinotimba, Swimmingpool Nhanga, Freestyle Zuze, Breaststroke Musendame, Butterfly Masocha, Backstroke Banda, Goldmedal Zulu, Goldwinner Mambo, Gold Silver Bronze Ndlovu and, last but not least, little Individual Medley Mbofana. The start list at the Harare swim meet in 2020 could be very confusing indeed, as I wrote at the time. When Coventry returned home to Africa after the Games, the predictable sound of politicians (most corrupt ones at that) jumping on band wagons could be heard. Coventry's gaze was elsewhere. She later recalled her homecoming thus: "Then it really hit me," she said, in reference to the many thousands of Zimbabweans - black Zimbabweans - who came to cheer her: traditional dancers, tribal drummers, presidential motorcade, banners welcoming "our princess of sport" and cries in Shona, the country's primary indigenous language, that Coventry could not comprehend. When she asked one of the national team coaches to translate, he told her that the crowd was calling "give her a farm" (such irony is rarely lost). "It was very, very overwhelming," Coventry says. "I felt so much pride, seeing how much it meant to so many people. It really brought tears to my eyes There were no political issues. There were no racial issues. Everything was put aside for a few days so people could celebrate. I can't really put it into words." After she had visited schoolchildren to share her experience and show them her medals, Coventry was quoted as saying: "It was so nice to meet so many people all happy for the same reason, racial issues and everything put aside for a couple of days. Hopefully it will carry on like that." The nation's weekly Financial Gazette said that Coventry had not only "shown her Zimbabwean soul, but soothed it too".
Manaudou inflamed French passions and stole her nation's heart. The day before winning bronze in the 100m backstroke, she had had a busy and historic day: she qualified for the semis of the 100m back at 10.15am, the final of the 400m freestyle just before high noon, cruising into lane four in 4:06.67. By 7.40pm she had qualified for her second Olympic final, over 100m back, and a little over an hour later became the first Frenchwoman ever to win an Olympic swimming title. Her 4:05.34 victory, 0.50sec ahead of Jedrzejczak, shaved 0.50sec off the European record that had stood to Anke Moehring (GDR) since 1989, and made her the first French swimmer to claim an Olympic title since Jean Boiteux in 1952. The rules are stricter these days, so not quite so easy for Laure's dad to make a dash for his daughter: in 1952, after Boiteux had held off Ford Konno (USA) to win the 400m free, a man wearing a beret rushed forward and, fully-clothed, plunged into the water to embrace the champion ... reporters gathered to find out the identity of the man ... could it be the team manager, perhaps his coach, a French fan? Non! Jean beamed: “Papa!” The daughter of a Dutch mother and French father, Manaudou, born in Villeurbanne nine months before legendary Janet Evans set her first world record, had become European 400m champion earlier in Olympic year 2004. In Athens, she gave the first public display of talents known well to her coach Philippe Lucas: four days after the backstroke bronze she raced at the helm of the 800m freestyle final for 650m before Ai Shibata (JPN) pipped her at the wall, 8:24.54 to an 8:24.96 silver lining for Manaudou. She would later gain a reputation among French reporters for being a touch temperamental and in 2006, on the eve of breaking Evans's 1988 world mark over 400m, appeared to confirm as much, saying: "I'm not difficult, I'm very difficult! I moan all the time in training...but I work hard. I want them [my rivals] to fear me on the blocks, to think all is lost before the race; that it's not worth it. I don't want to accept defeat".
That summed up Jedrzejczak's attitude too. When she stepped up for the 100m 'fly final in Athens, Poland had yet to win a women's swim medal at any Olympics. She emerged with silver behind Petria Thomas (AUS) and ahead of defending champion Inge de Bruijn (NED). Less than an hour later, Jedrzejczak, coached by Pawel Slominski, added a silver in the 400m freestyle behind Manaudou. Three days on and the Pole stood up for the final of an event for which she was world record holder. She would later say: "There was so much pressure for me, but it was my own. When I tell myself, I have to win, then I go to the start and I'm afraid. But I wanted to have the one medal, in the 200-m fly, because that's my race." Time and again, she had shown a great aptitude for firing down the third length of four - and Athens was no exception. Indeed, in 1:04.96 she was 1.22sec faster than the next best in the 200m field on the way home to a 2:06.05 victory that marked Poland's first Olympic swim triumph. Athens 2004 became known back home as the Otyliada (Olympiada is Olympics in Polish) and thousands flocked to welcome her home to Ruda Slaska, a coal-mining town in southern Poland. Her good deed out of the pool was yet to come: she had read a novella by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt called Oscar and the Lady in Pink, the tale of a 10-year-old boy dying of leukemia, who, encouraged by a hospital volunteer, writes letters to God about his experiences. Jedrzejczak, who cited her hero as Pope John Paul II, was inspired, saying: "Before my first start, I told my friends, If I win [a gold medal], I'll sell it for the children." She did just that, raising $86,000 for a children's leukemia hospital in Warsaw in December 2004. Would she not miss the medal? "I don't need the medal to remember," she said. "I know I'm the Olympic champion. That's in my heart."
56. August 18: the boy done good - bloody good. "I kept a book of all the records of 9-, 10- and 11-year-old boys in my bedroom. I wanted to be the best at every age. There were a lot of talented swimmers, but they stopped because of the pressure of the sport. But I enjoyed it." So said Pieter van den Hoogenband (NED) recalling his passion for swimming as a boy. As a man in Athens with two Olympic crowns to defend, he entered the 100m freestyle final on this day with the stinging memory of loss at the back of his mind: on August 16, he was forced to settle for silver in the 200m behind Ian Thorpe but ahead of Michael Phelps (USA), the two men who had attracted the lion's share, somewhat unfairly to the Dutchman, in what was ridiculously and somewhat prematurely dubbed "the race of the century" four years into the new Millennium. The morning after his silver lining, Hoogie, coached by Jacco Verhaeren, composed himself, got back on his proverbial horse and bolted to a 48.70 lead time. The semis delivered a shock: the advance of Roland Schoeman (RSA) to a 48.39, ahead of Hoogie's 48.55 paled by comparison to the news that an Olympic sprint free final would unfold without Alex Popov (RUS) for the first time since 1988. Thorpe claimed the last of the eight berths on 49.21, leaving the quadruple Olympic champion of the 1990s and 2003 double sprint free champion ahead of Hoogie just 0.02sec shy of the cut. In the final, Schoeman, as expected, shot into the lead, turning in 22.60, with Hoogie 5th on 23.27 and Thorpe 6th on 23.57. The "Eindhoven Express" then lived up to his billing: 24.90 on the way home was faster than Thorpe's 24.99 and a peg ahead of the African's 25.63. The Olympic 100m free crown had been retained for only the third time in history (Weissmuller, '24, '28; Popov, '92, '96), in 48.17. Schoeman took silver in 48.23 to add to gold in the 4x100m relay, and Thorpe bronze in 48.56 (a 3:40 400m free swimmer) as the only man ever to win an Olympic medal over 100m, 200m and 800m (let alone taking into account his world title and world record over 800m in 2001). Four years on in the midst of the first season of a short-lived shiny suits circus, Hoogie would come close to returning to the podium. More on Hoogie in our top 10. As 2004 ended, Hoogie had nine of the all-time best 25 times ever clocked over 100m freestyle, including the best four ever. In August 2007, Stefan Nystrand (SWE) joined the Dutchman as the second member of the sub-48sec club. By end 2009, post shiny suits circus, the world had witnessed 81 sub-48sec swims in suits, including 18 sub 47.50 efforts and two sub 47sec efforts, while six of the all-time top 10 by end-2009 had never featured in the all-time top 10 at any time prior to summer 2008. In this tome of the decade, it says much for the depth of thrill and quality in the race pool that we cast off in a short sentence the lofty achievements of the likes of Ukraine's Yana Klochkova (who retained both medley crowns - never done before), Inge de Bruijn (NED), who retained the 50m free crown, and Grant Hackett (AUS), who retained the 1,500m crown in a boiling last-day battle that features in our top 10: 14:43.40 to American Larsen Jensen's 14:45.29 and a European record of 14:45.95 for David Davies, of Wales and Britain.
55. August 18: Precisely 17 years to the day when a GDR 4x200m freestyle quartet set a world record of 7:55.47, the Olympic champions of 2004, Natalie Coughlin, Carly Piper, Dana Vollmer and Kaitlin Sandeno (USA) brought down the curtain on an East German era - at least as far as the world-record books was concerned. Their time, 7:53.42 got inside the 7:55.47 set at the 1987 European Championships at Strasbourg by Manuela Stellmach, Astrid Strauss (in the 1990s banned after testing positive for steroids), Anke Moehring and Heike Friedrich. For Coughlin, champion over 100m backstroke and winner of two other silvers in relays and a bronze in the 100m free, gold and a world record in the 4x200m relay had a bitter-sweet taste: her lead-off time of 1:57.74 would have won her the solo 200m gold too, that title having gone to Camelia Potec (ROM) in 1:58.03. The only time faster than Coughlin's in the entire relay final, all flying starts from 2nd berth to anchor included, was the 1:57.20 effort of Petria Thomas that left Australia 0.05sec shy of a medal behind Germany, with China taking silver behind the US, on 7:55.97. That 1987 time of the GDR's remained second-best ever. All four of the record setters in Strasbourg had been victims and beneficiaries (to the extent that such a thing is possible) of State Plan 14:25, a systematic doping programme that build sporting success on the back of feeding banned substances to thousands of young athletes for some 20 years until the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989. The legacy of the 144 gold, 120 silver and 120 bronze Olympic medals won by East Germans at the Games of 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1988 (the Games of 1984 were boycotted) is one of disabled children, sex changes, severe ill-health and a generation of athletes cheated out of their true place in sports history. The sensations experienced by those who win on their day were denied to many forced to settle for silver, bronze or no medal at all behind one, two and even three East Germans (the 1980 Games in Moscow allowed three per nation, for example, to bolster numbers in the face of boycott). In the 1990s, FINA said that it would wait until the legal cases in Germany had concluded before making a decision on records and on prizes and pins given to GDR athletes and officials. The wait was surely over in 2000 but when asked by The Times what he intended to do about those prizes, such as the silver pin given to Lothar Kipke (whose name was once preceded by Dr. in the days when he dishonoured his profession, deceived swimming and damaged young lives), who was handed down a criminal conviction in Germany in 1999, Mustapha Larfaoui, the president of FINA, said, in so many words, that he was only following orders: swimming he said "had to take its cue from the International Olympic Committee, which had decided to leave the results and medals standing". FINA did much to step up its fight ion doping, under pressure from coaches and media and athletes too. On the line of 'let sleeping dogs lie', Larfaoui was not alone, of course: whole generations of officials have let down not only those cheated out of their just rewards but those cheated of a healthy life by rogues who remain honoured in the annals of swimming history, and the history of other sports too, and Olympic history, to this day. In the absence of sports leaders strong enough to deal with the past, the future is left to the athletes of the hour, and in Athens, 17 years after another generation-leaping standard was set to applause from the FINA gallery, the US women's freestyle relay confined the GDR clock - but hardly its legacy - to history with a thump and a cry of victory that transcended the moment. The US women were not the only ones jumping for joy that day.
54. August 19: Three days after Aaron Peirsol claimed what would turn out to be his first of two Olympic 100m backstroke crowns in the decade past, the American became embroiled in a controversy that saw him win the 200m, suffer disqualification and then get reinstated within 20 minutes of the end of the race. It ought to be noted from the outset that Peirsol turned first throughout the race, in 27.17, 56.15 and 1:25.30, before stopping the clock in an Olympic record of 1:54.95, on his way to a victory that left him a relative ocean of 2.40sec ahead of Markus Rogan (AUT), in second, and more ahead of the pack. James Goddard (GBR) had raced closest to Peirsol throughout before tightening in the closing metres and sliding a touch behind Rogan and Razvan Florea (ROM). Not long after the last man came home, the scoreboard was readjusted: Peirsol had been disqualified, the gold was Rogan's , the silver Florea's and the bronze Goddard's. The allegation was that the American had rolled on his front too early at the third turn. That had forced him to engage in a prolonged freestyle kick into the wall and thus breach the rule that states the backstroke turning action must be “one continuous motion”. But the paperwork submitted by Woon Sui-Kut, the chief referee on the night, was nothing short of unintelligible. I saw it. It was nonsensical, not worth the paper it was written on. If Peirsol had indeed breached one rule, it seemed that the official had broken another: FINA officials decided almost instantly that the disqualification could not stand because the paperwork from the lane judge and chief judge would not have held up under the scrutiny of protest. Eddie Reese, Peirsol’s coach in Texas, said: "We did keep looking for ‘just kidding’ to come up on the scoreboard." Rogan said: "I might have been the shortest Olympic champion in history. It was in my head for a second but never in my heart." FINA reinstated Peirsol but issued a statement saying: "Fina received a written protest from the Amateur Swimming Federation of Great Britain (ASFGB) and Austrian Swimming Federation (VOS) regarding the re-instating of the swimmer Aaron Peirsol (USA) after his disqualification in the 200 metres backstroke event at the Olympic Games Athens 2004. The Jury of Appeal heard the Referee and the Fina Technical Swimming Commission after which the Jury of Appeal unanimously decided to reject the protest of ASFGB and VOS as the report of the referee did not show any violation of the Fina swimming rules by the swimmer Aaron Peirsol." The next day, the three judges at the heart of the dispute were dismissed from the Olympic Games. Woon Sui-Kut, of Singapore, Felix Mikhailov, of Russia, and Denis Cadon, the president of French swimming judges, refused to acknowledge that they had made a mistake. The trio were dismissed after the paperwork they submitted was deemed "indecipherable", though it was not the last time they officiated at swim meets. For Peirsol, meanwhile, just redemption made him he fifth man to win both backstroke crowns, after Roland Matthes (GDR, an historic twice, 1968 and 1972), John Naber (USA, 1976), Rick Carey (USA, 1984) and Lenny Krayzelburg (USA, 2000). Four years on, Peirsol (silver, 200m in 2000 and gold and silver in 2008) would join Matthes (double gold 1968, 72 and bronze 1976) in the club of those who have won medals on backstroke at three consecutive Games. At a Games where the US story, if not the story as a whole, was dominated by Michael Phelps, it is worth noting that, at a time when there was talk of US men being propped up by its superstar, Peirsol's victories contributed to a tally of 18 medals (and meet victory), including 9 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze, a score the vast majority of swimming nations would be delighted with over several Games put together. Beyond Phelps and Peirsol, US men claimed one other solo crown, which leads us to ...
53. August 20: Known for showboating, a fact that caused him to be loved by some, hated (it seemed) by others, the son of Gary Hall, one of the pathfinders of the 1960s, had much to shout about on this day at the 2004 Olympic Games. Alex Popov, the Russian who kept Gary Hall Jnr at bay over 50m and 100m in 1996, had been the first man ever to retain the Olympic 50m free crown. Now there were two. After sharing gold with teammate Anthony Ervin (see entry 85) in 2000, Hall arrived in Athens having spent much of the previous season as a man more mouth than trousers as far as the clock was concerned: 13th and 15th best in the world in the 2002 and 2003 seasons respectively, he had been swimming at least half a second off the pace of the best in the world. But then that was Gary Hall Jnr, and at 2004 US Olympic trials he dropped the bomb: 21.91 and the heat was on. In Athens, he set out as he intended to go on: a leading 22.04 in heats, ahead of 22.24 for Fred Bousquet (FRA), 0.18sec ahead of his coach to be Brett Hawke (AUS), before slipping to 12th in semis on 22.29; a 22.18 in semis that left the defending champion 5th behind Roland Schoeman (RSA) on 21.99; before a final that sorted out the men from the boys. The first five home could all have been Olympic champion, but it was Hall who had the edge, however narrow - 0.01sec in fact: on 21.93 to Duje Draganja's 21.94 silver for Croatia and Schoeman's 22.02 for bronze, Hall Jnr, coached by Mike Bottom, had confirmed himself as one of the great sprinters of all time, a man with medals at three successive Games, two of those back-to-back gold. Stefan Nystrand (SWE) on 22.08 and Jason Lezak (USA), on 22.11, completed the challenge for the podium. The event marked the passing of an era: at the 2003 World Championships, Popov had become king of longevity, winning both the 50m and 100m titles at 31 years of age. In Athens, missing the 100m final by 0.02sec had dealt the ace a blow that he could not recover from. Popov greeted his passing with grace after clocking 22.58 for shared 18th place in heats of the 50m, 0.03sec shy of a place in the semi-finals. One of his legacies survived, however: Hall Jnr's 21.93 fell 0.02sec shy of the 1992 Olympic record set by Popov back in 1992.
52. August 21. The Australian women's medley quartet is the first in history to win the Olympic crown, and does so in a world record of 3:57.32. The names on the sheet: Giaan Rooney, Leisel Jones, Petria Thomas and Jodie Henry. The moment capped a phenomenal week not only for the girls but for the Australian coaches and sports scientists who had worked with an Australian women's team that had long been a storm threatening to break. Take the medley relay: 4th in 1988, 5th in 1992, silver in 1996 and at a home Games in 2000, then gold. But the success story had started to stretch well beyond the medley relay. By the time the squad arrived in Athens for the 2004 Olympic Games, Libby Lenton and Jones had already set world records, respectively 53.66 in the 100m free and 2:22.96 in the 200m breaststroke. Then on August 14, the first day of racing in Athens, the quartet of Alice Mills (a volunteer who had carried the basket containing Inge de Bruijn's clothes from the block at Sydney 2000), Lenton, Thomas and Henry whacked out a 3:35.94 world record to win the 4x100m freestyle ahead of the USA and NED. It had been 40 years since Australian women had last stood on the Olympic podium at all in the sprint free relay. Henry was on fire: her 52.95 split was the fastest ever and first sub-53sec effort, one that overtook the 53.36 standard set by China's Le Jingyi in 1997 at the National Games of China. Defending 100m champion De Bruijn clocked 53.37 and Lenton 53.57. Henry followed through in the semis of the 100m free on August 18 with a 53.52 world record. Little wonder then that the 20-year-old walked out to take her place in lane four for the final beside the 31-year-old defending champion with a broad smile on her face. The clock conquered, the final was about having fun, she would later say. In 27.46, Henry was the only woman to race home in less than 28sec, the crown hers in 53.84, to De Bruijn’s 54.16. The first Australian winner since Dawn Fraser in 1964 and first to hold the 100m world record since Shane Gould in 1972, Henry claimed two more gold medals, in those 4x100m relays. Born in Brisbane, Queensland, and coached by Shannon Rollason and John Fowlie, Henry took up competitive swimming late, at 14. In February 2008, suffering from muscular complaint, she announced that she would not defend her Olympic title in Beijing and subsequently retired. She had been a member of an Olympic sorority that found itself on the crest of a wave in Athens 2004: Thomas claimed the 100m 'fly crown ahead of Otylia Jedrzejczak (POL) and a silver behind the first Polish Olympic swimming champion in the 200m, helped the 4x100m relays to golds in world record times; Lenton took bronze in the 50m free; Brooke Hanson and Jones took silver and bronze respectively in the 100m breaststroke (Hanson oddly not being granted the medley relay berth) and Jones a silver in the 200m. In the wake of Athens, Hanson stole the limelight at the world short-course championships, her legacy is a lesson in longevity for younger athletes. In Indianapolis, she spoke eloquently about the struggle from junior to senior waters. The trough between talented youth and strong woman was tough but it was, she said, "worth hanging on in there and working your way through it - there is light at the end of the tunnel". In Indy, she scooped a record six gold medals. At 29 in 2007, she retired following a freak accident in a spa pool in which she was electrocuted. Her international career spanned 13 years and included a championship medal tally of 22.
51. August 21: And so back to Michael Phelps (USA). The last day of the Athens Olympic Games, is, perhaps, an odd one to choose for he gave up his place in the medley relay to Ian Crocker and did not race on day 8 but victory for the US granted him a sixth gold medal and took his tally in Greece to eight medals, two of them bronze. The magic seven of Spitz and that $1m bonus from Speedo was not to be - this time round. The result, stunning by any standards, fed a shark hungry for more, as it would turn out. The most significant date in Phelp's stunning week in Greece was August 14, or day one. When asked in 2009 to name the victories that had stood out down the years, he cited "Athens 2004, my first gold in the 400 IM and the world record." On the day in Athens, an elated Phelps, the pressure released, said: "The whole day I was thinking about this race. I didn't sleep last night, and I just swam as fast as I could." Silver went to the same man who won silver in 2000 behind Tom Dolan, Erik Vendt (USA). Some months after Athens, I asked Phelps' coach Bob Bowman what had been most special for him during those days of grace in Greece. He replied: "The first gold medal. When he came back from the race, after going through the mixed zone ... I've never seen him smile like that and he never stopped the whole night. I've never seen him so purely happy and that was the best thing for me. That pure happiness is something you don't ever really get. We were both the same on that." It was the only world record of the week for Phelps and his second that year, his Athens effort of 4:08.26 inside the 4:08.41 he had clocked on July 7. If the 400m medley brought the height of happiness, the most significant moment in Phelps's campaign was the bronze medal won behind Thorpe and Hoogie in the 200m free. As Bowman put it in 2005: "A highlight for me was the 200 free. That was his best swim of the meet. On that given time and place that was as well as he could do." Third place - in a sea of gold on fly (100m and 200m) and medley (200m as well as 400m) and as a member of the 4x200m free relay in which a 1:46.49 lead-off was significant to the Americans' ability to keep Thorpe's thunderous homecoming for Australia at bay by 0.13sec - bit and stung and itched. One year on and Phelps was world 200m free champion, by 2007 world record holder and by 2008 Olympic champion, that gold one of a record eight and a record 14. More on the Motivation Machine later. For now, one last word on the Gain in Spain, from Bowman on that last day when his charge stepped back to step forward: "When he stepped aside in the relay. ... I think he wanted to give Ian the chance to win the medal. It may be that Ian is a better relay swimmer but he thought that that was just the right thing to do. My first reaction when he came to me with it was 'no way, you're doing it'. I said 'you earned it, you're doin' it". But I'm glad he did what he did. It worked out really well."
The Top 100:
Part I: 91 - 100, the year 2000.
Part II: 81 - 90, the year 2001.
