THE Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics featured various iconic moments, including the home favourite Cathy Freeman winning the 400m gold (making history by becoming the first Indigenous Australian to win an individual Olympic gold medal, after being chosen to light the Olympic flame to start the Games), another Australian legend Ian Thorpe breaking multiple swimming world records, and Sir Steven Redgrave, the British rower, winning a gold medal at his fifth consecutive Games.
There were also some incredible finishes to races, with the greatest example being the men's 50m freestyle swimming final, which resulted in a rare tie for gold between American swimmers Gary Hall Jr. and Anthony Ervin, both touching at 21.98 seconds. On the track, the Men's 10,000m Final also proved to be an incredibly exciting finish after a very tactical race with Haile Gebrselassie clinching gold from Paul Tergat by a mere 0.09 seconds, closer, interestingly, than the finish of the 100-metre final where Maurice Greene won the gold medal from Ato Boldon by 0.12 seconds.
That 100 metre men’s final, often seen at such events as the highlight of the Games, states that Aziz Zakari ‘Did Not Finish’, due to a hamstring injury that he incurred mid-race, so the last finisher was Kim Collins, 0.30 seconds behind the winner.
However, one of the most memorable moments of those Olympic Games was the first of ten heats in the 100m freestyle swimming event where Equatorial Guinea's Eric Moussambani, later to be ironically nicknamed "the Eel", had qualified by virtue of a "wildcard" bid meant to encourage the progress of athletes in developing nations. The only problem was that Moussambani had never seen an Olympic-sized pool before arriving in Australia, having trained in a hotel swimming pool previously.
He was placed in a heat with two other swimmers, Karim Bare of Nigeria and Farkhod Oripov of Tajikistan, but both false started and therefore were disqualified, leaving Eric to ‘race’ on his own. Reports later recorded that he “flapped and flailed his way through the pool” to finish in a time of 1:52.72, more than double the eventual gold-medal pace, with the crowd cheering him on throughout in a strangely uplifting performance, finishing 71st out of 71 swimmers.
In short, he was dead last finish but his name is in the record books and his efforts are in Olympic annals.
At those same Sydney Olympics, C.J. Hunter, the American world champion shot putter, qualified but withdrew before competing due to knee surgery, thus missing out on a probable medal, while promising Australian athletes long jumper Nicole Boegman and middle-distance runner Craig Mottram missed out on selection after national trials and unsuccessful appeals.
All of the above highlights in graphic terms the statement “Dead last finish is greater than did not finish, which trumps did not start” (Anon) which in turn reflects another anonymous statement that “Slow progress is better than no progress” (Anon).
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If anyone has ever accurately portrayed the description, Eric ‘The Eel’ Moussambani certainly was the ultimate “dead last finish” – his nearest competitor in times was Dawood Yosuf Mohamed Jassim, who recorded a finishing time of 58.37 seconds, almost a minute faster than Moussambani (the winning time by Pieter van den Hoogenband, was 48.30 seconds). He was last by a country mile – but he finished. He did better than Bare and Oripov. He did better than Zakari. They did not finish. Yet those two did better than C.J. Hunter, Nicole Boegman and Craig Mottram, none of whom managed to start.
These are important lessons for our children to learn.
They must learn to finish – like John Stephen Akhwari who finished last in the 1968 Olympic marathon an hour after the winner, having fallen at 19 kms and injured himself badly.
He finished dead last but pointed out "My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.” That is why in schools athletics meeting, stewards should not stop runners in long-distant races from completing the race if they are lapped by the fastest runners. Credit must be given to them if they finish, even dead last.
“Dead last finish is greater than did not finish, which trumps did not start”.
That does not beat ‘did not know’. We know now. Dead last finish still beats many others and is worth cheering all the way. They may even be ironic iconic moments. They are vital learning moments for life. Finish. End of.
