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Top 100 Memories: 2000-09 - No 4
Mar 4, 2010 - Craig Lord
In our countdown of memories from the past decade, we consider outstanding Olympic action (no relays) from the past decade and the best single performances among men and women.
No 4: Three of the best Olympic races at each Games, men and women and why, and the best single performances
Sydney 2000
Men - 200m freestyle
You could have heard a pin drop as the Homebush venue, filled to the rafters with 17,000 folk almost all of whom were there to see one of the most extraordinary young athletes ever to grace the water, fell silent in anticipation of a showdown between two world-record setters in the form of their lives. Pieter Van Den Hoogenband (NED) got the touch over Ian Thorpe (AUS) two days after the young Australian had played a key role in what was one of the most electrifying of sessions in the race pool I have ever witnessed. The 200m was gladiatorial, world sport at its most thrilling, the moment when the starter called the fighters to their blocks one that would have seen mere mortals crumple at the knee. They swam stroke for stroke, all but literally, their last turn splits a precise match. It was Hoogie who had that little bit extra left in his tank in the last 10m.
The head of the race:
(And that was medal No 3 for Thorpey, early in the programme)
Men 50m freestyle
It had happened once before in Olympic history but the first time round it did not count: in Sydney two men stopped the clock at the same moment to a hundredth of a second and shared the gold medal. US teammates Gary Hall Jnr, stepping up from silver behind Alex Popov (RUS), and Anthony Ervin took gold, with Hoogie just 0.05sec away from securing a third solo win at Sydney 2000. Ervin's reaction time stole the show: 0.68, to 0.73 for Hall, the fastest two reactions in the final, and decisive. Hoogie, Lorenzo Vismara (ITA) and Popov all reacted in 0.82, for 3rd, 4th and 6th respectively. The showboater finally had excellent reason to give us a flash of his cape and star-and-stripey knickerbockers.
The race
Medal No 3 for Van Den Hoogenband
Men 100m butterfly
On the first night at Sydney 2000, Michael Klim gave the Dolphins a perfect start in the 4x100m freestyle in a world record of, 48.18sec, 0.03sec inside the standard that had stood to training partner Alexander Popov (RUS). The most prolific winner of medals at the 1998 world championships in Perth, Klim stepped up for the 100m 'fly final in Sydney alongside teammate Geoff 'skippy' Heugill and a home 1-2 was in the air. The Aussie boys done good but Lars Frolander (SWE) did that little bit better still in the chase for gold. In fourth, an 18-year-old called Ian Crocker, who would emerge as the pioneer of 'fly speed over the course of the decade. Crocker turned in 7th and was fastest man home bar one - Frolander. Klim's silver lining included retaining his world record of 51.81.
The race:
In 2010, Huegill, in the midst of a comeback, is the only one among the top four in Sydney, still in the swim
Women 200m freestyle
Many of the best 200m free races through history have been those that have not produced world records, and the follow up to such a great race that produced an Aussie winner back at the world championships in 1991 (Hayley Lewis) was the Sydney 2000 final that gave Aussie golden girl a second Olympic crown to add to her win in the 200m 'fly in 1996. When Susie O'Neill got her had to the wall in 1:58.24, 0.08sec ahead of Martina Moravcová (SVK) and defending champion Claudia Poll (CRC), the roof surely rose from its rafters at Homebush.
Here's how it panned out:
In 2002 Poll was suspended for a doping violation. To this day she maintains her innocence
Women 100m breaststroke
Megan Quann, a 16-year-old from Puyallup, Washington, claimed the Olympic 100m breaststroke crown ahead of 14-year-old Leisel Jones (AUS) with a killer of a finish, the two newcomers keeping at bay a giant of breaststroke swimming, the first woman ever to win both Olympic crowns, Penny Heyns (RSA), icon for a nation reborn in 1996. Since she was 14, Quann had practised visualisation, including start, start of stopwatch, race, stroke for stroke, and the stopping of the clock, beyond which there was even, from time to time in practices, the imaginary announcement of her victory and award ceremony. Quann went through that visualisation many times over the night before her big day Down Under. In the race proper, she turned third behind South Africans Penny Heyns and Sarah Poewe but, just as she had imagined, the American took the lead with 25m or so to go and went on to win gold. Jones did too: eight years later. In July 1999, Heyns was in the form of her life, setting 11 world records in the space of three months. Her summer long-course sequence started at a meet in Los Angeles on July 17 with a global mark of 2:24.69 in heats of the 200m, followed by a final in which she shaved a further 0.13sec off the record. The next day she became the first woman inside 1:07.00, by 0.01sec, in heats, and took 0.04sec off that mark in the final. She closed her summer account with world-record victories over 50m (30.83), 100m (1:06.52) and 200m (2:24.42, heat; 2:23.64, final) at the Pan Pacific Championships in Sydney (August 23 - 28). In September, back home in South Africa, she broke three short-course records, one in the 50m, two over 100m. Disaster struck in March of Olympic year, 2000: one of Heyns’ closest friends, Tara Sloan, of Canada, died after her car crashed. Heyns was with her when she passed away in hospital and it had a profound affect on the Olympic champion. At the Games in Sydney, Heyns took bronze in the 100m and finished 20th over 200m breaststroke in 2:30.17. Of deep religious conviction, Heyns said: “I am not at my best but I have given my best. You never know how you will handle disappointment until it comes your way. And I thank God that he didn't spare me that experience." She retired officially in 2001 and later became a member of the FINA Athletes’ Commission. Today she is a businesswoman, motivational and public speaker and television presenter. That race and those moments after it ape the Olympic story, the unexpected, the lore, the 'what can happen', that is told time and time again in various guises but never grows tired.
The race:
And that was that last time we saw Heyns in a race. She withdrew from the 200m in Sydney and retired soon after.
Women 200m butterfly
The one that got away. The crowd had come to see Susie O'Neill. Let's face it: who wouldn't want to see her. And silver was possible two, with Petria Thomas seemingly the biggest threat to the defending champ who already had one in the bag, with victory in the 200m free. Misty Hyman (USA) had other ideas. Until then she had been best known for swimming on her side out of turns, for a great dolphin kick off walls and for fading over the last 50m. Not in Sydney. Few at Homebush that night expected her to hang on to an early lead in an outside lane as O'Neill and Thomas piled on the pressure. But she did, set an Olympic record and rained on the Aussie parade. Hyman then touched on a controversial edge to the battle between the two aquatic superpowers: she mentioned that she had been taking "42 pills every five minutes". Dr Lupnitz, with Team USA, explained that they were a mixture of amino acids and other stuff. Other stuff? To tell us that, he said, would be to reduce the advantage of Americans. Could he assure us that it was all legal and within the bounds of sporting rules? "Absolutely". It didn't quite play out like that in the Aussie media at the time. Like Rome, Phelps Vs Cavic, some races, great as they are on their own, have that little extra spice courtesy of life on the outer edge, and sometimes over the edge, of excellence. The 200m 'fly in Sydney 2000 was won off first 100m speed and the ability to hold on come what may and against the expectation of rivals in the centre lanes and caught on the hop. O'Neill kept the world record at 2:05.81. To win in Sydney, she would have not only had to replicate the slightly quicker speed of her first three lengths on her way to getting past Mary T Meagher's 1981 milestone at Olympic trials earlier in the year, she would have had to have swum at the same speed down the last length. At trials, O'Neill, who also won two silver medals in relays in Sydney, came home in 33.10. In Sydney, Hyman came home in 33.44, to 33.54 for O'Neill.
The race:
Thomas went on four years later to win the 100m gold and take silver in the 200m
Athens 2004
Men 400m freestyle
Thorpey had fallen changed coaches. He had then fallen off his blocks at trials and a sage of will-he, won't he defend his crown ensued. He did, and did so successfully. The time, three seconds off best, was irrelevant. The race was everything. By his side, teammate Grant Hackett. Chasing, Klete Keller (USA). It was a boiling affair, one that could not be called until the fastest middle-distance swimmer the world has seen to date stopped the clock. The relief on Thorpey's faces told a tale of months of pressure and build-up. The focus out-with had been on whether work with coach Tracey Menzies would keep Thorpey ahead of the game, even if the 200m and 400m speed he achieved over years of mentoring by Doug Frost was behind him. The splits told the tale of a mission accomplished at a Games that saw Thorpey take bronze in the 100m and become the only man ever to stand on the podium in all three freestyle events.
The race:
Thorpe never raced a top flight 400m again and retired in late 2006 at a time when he was working on improving his sprint speed.
Men 1,500m freestyle
I recall my then sports editor at The Times being stunned in Sydney 2000 to find folk hanging out of bar windows, standing on crates in the street and craning their necks to get a view of a TV screen downtown on the night that the 30-lap crown passed from Kieren Perkins to Grant Hackett in a race from which both protagonists emerged with heads held high. Big news the 1,500m Down Under but sometimes hard to convince broadcasters and others of its merits as a spectator sport. Hard to to understand how anyone who likes sport could come away from the Athens 2004 battle without having gleaned some insight into what makes the distance fight so special. It was a boiling affair in which pride, heart, lung, gut and the hardest work you can imagine in world swimming came into play. Each man had a fine tale to tell and a record to boast of in the aftermath of the fastest 1,500m podium in history and the first 30-lapper to produce three sub 14:50 swims. For Hackett, the title retained and an Olympic record, for Jensen an American record, for Davies a European record.
Here is how it panned out:
In 2008, Hackett took silver, Jensen fifth and Davies sixth.
Men 100 Butterfly
Ian Crocker beat Michael Phelps in 2003 and 2005 at world championships and the latter produced the most phenomenal 100m 'fly time of the decade, a 50.40 that withstood the hammering of shiny suits on the all-time world rankings like no others beyond the two WR that were left standing by the end of it all, the 1,500m for men and women. But in Athens, chasing Spitz and a place in outer orbit, Phelps gave the first hint of what he was capable of when racing over 100m 'fly knowing that he would not be up there at the half-way mark (skills he put on full show in spectacular fashion in 2008 and 2009 in a 50% poly suit). In Athens, Phelps had to make up the best part of a second on Crocker if he wanted gold - and he did it. Fast forward to his battles with Milorad Cavic then and you see the psychology of Bob Bowman, as well as the pure maths of it, in telling his charge that he could not let his Serbian rival get more than .7sec ahead at the turn ... ie, come on Mikey, it's easier than it was with Ian, you've done it all before, nothing under the sun and all that ... The 200m butterfly final was in may ways just as thrilling, though from a different perspective: Phelps in the role of hare outdoing hounds that had a very fine day out, they being Takashi Yamamoto (JPN) and Stephen Parry (GBR), No 9 on a media paper exercise of Brits who might have won medals in 2004, as I recall, and a man who proved that heart, mind gut and soul must all fire on the day.
The 100m race:
The same three men had shared a podium at the 2003 world championships in Barcelona, where each set a world record, first Serdinov in semi 1, on 51.76, then Phelps, in semi 2, on 51.47, before Crocker cracked the 51sec mark with a sensational 50.98 effort to take the title a day later.
Women 100m freestyle
Since winning three gold medals in Sydney, Inge de Bruijn (NED) had featured rarely in international competition and had shied away from big 100m battles after winning the 2001 world title. In the meantime, Australia had been working with a new generation of sprinters and on March 31, 2004, Libby Lenton broke the Dutchwoman’s world record with a 53.66 effort in the semi-finals at the Australian Olympic trials in Sydney. Lenton then lost the final to Jodie Henry and Australia had two women in line for medals at the Games in Athens. But in the semis, the young Lenton struggled, her 55.17 not good enough for a place in the final. Henry went the other way: a world and Olympic record of 55.52, off a 26.24 split. As the finalists walked out for their big moment, the contrast between De Bruijn and Henry could not have been more stark: where the Dutchwoman was stony-faced and serious as she focused on the final ahead, Henry waved to the crowd, broke into a beaming smile and even open laughter. It was as if she knew that there was no reason for alarm as long as she did what she knew she was capable of. De Bruijn, the most successful woman swimmer of the decade as it would turn out, led the way at 50m, in 26.12, with Natalie Coughlin (USA) on 26.21 and Henry fifth in 26.38. Out of the turn, the Australian picked off her rivals one by one and caught the defending champion just after halfway down the length home. From there, the momentum was all Henry’s and the Australian pressed on to claim the crown in 53.84, 0.32sec ahead of De Bruijn, with Coughlin on 54.60. De Bruijn retained the 50m free crown in Athens and also took bronze in the 100m 'fly in another fabulous final in Greece, one won in which two other women featured in these selections featured prominently: Petria Thomas took the crown in 57.72, to 57.84 for Jędrzejczak and 57.99 for the Dutch defender.
The 100m free race:
On the eve of Olympic trials in 2008, Henry announced that she would not seek a place on the Australian team. She was suffering from a painful condition that affected her pelvic muscles.
Women 400m freestyle
The daughter of a Dutch mother and French father, Laure Manaudou was born in Villeurbanne nine months before Janet Evans (USA) set her first world record. In spring 2003, a year after leaving her parents to live in the family home of coach Philippe Lucas, 16-year-old Manaudou made a big breakthrough when she clocked 4:10.68 over 400m. In April 2004, the most famous citizen of Ambérieu-en-Bugey, Ain, started to roll towards the Olympic crown with a 4:08.72 over 400m to lift the French national title at Dunkirk. Two months on, she claimed her first international senior prizes, winning the European crown over 400m in 4:07.90 and the 100m backstroke in 1:00.93. In Athens, Manaudou cruised into lane four in the final in 4:06.67. In the final, she had a monumental tussle with Otylia Jędrzejczak (POL) and Kaitlin Sandeno (USA) on her way ton shaving 0.50sec off the European record that had stood to Anke Moehring (GDR) since the year the Berlin Wall fell, 1989. Manadou had also become the first French swimmer to claim an Olympic title since Jean Boiteux in 1952. On May 12, 2006, at Tours, Manaudou took down Evans's world mark after it had stood for almost 18 years.
The race:
After claiming the world 400m crown a year later, Manaudou reached a competitive peak at the 2007 world championships in Melbourne, where she won the 200m and 400m free crowns, adding the 200m world record to her treasury, and taking silver medals in the 100m back and 800m free and a bronze as a member of the French 4x200m free quartet. She then left for love and a life in Italy, which effectively ended her days as the world's No 1 middle distance free swimmer and the fastest one we had ever seen (and still have seen in one textile suit).
Women 400m medley
Yana Klochkova (UKR) made history in the final of the 400m medley by becoming the first woman ever to retain an Olympic medley crown. The race was tougher than she had imagined it would be, courtesy of Sandeno, 4th four years before and now gunning for gold. Klochkova took the race out hard in her usual manner but found herself second turning into backstroke, her 1:02.03 split a touch behind a 1:01.91 for Eva Risztov (HUN), who had finished second just half a second behind Klochkova at the 2003 World Championships. In third was Sandeno, on 1:02.95. The champion edged ahead on backstroke, turning in 2:12.03, 0.2sec up on the Hungarian, with the American on 2:13.30. Risztov fell off the pace on breaststroke, while Sandeno drew level with Klochkova going into freestyle, on 3:33.00 to 3:33.09. Both women had solid world-class middle-distance freestyle times to their names. The decision came down to the last five metres and timing into the wall. By just 0.12sec, Klochkova was champion once more, Sandeno the American record holder, with Georgina Bardach (ARG), never far from the action, overhauling the Hungarian for third.
Bardach became the first Argentinian to make the Olympic podium since Jeanette Campbell, born of Scottish parents, had earned silver in the 1936 100m freestyle final.
Beijing 2008
Men 100m butterfly
Michael Phelps (USA), Milorad Cavic (SRB), the hand of fate, the pressure required for a touch pad to know it was being touched, the race won in 0.01sec, the 8-gold dream alive, and a bronze for Andrew Lauterstein (AUS). Impossible to chose one of Phelps's efforts over another in Beijing. His efforts transcended suits, his winning margins, as they had been in Melbourne the year before, sensational. He would have won clad in fur.
For Crocker, his Olympic 100 'fly career ended as it began, with 4th place but this time by just 0.01.
Men 100m freestyle
The times on the clock deep through the ranks had already started to make a mockery of matters in the first season of shiny suits before 50% silliness became 100% silliness. We will never know how the world of sprint freestyle, which looked so different just six months before the Olympic Games, might have panned out in the suits of 2007. But the 100m free final was like a canon ball waiting to be fired. The world record had gone back and forth between Alain Bernard (FRA) and Eamon Sullivan (AUS), men who had never claimed gold on a world stage before. Come the hour the battle was tight, tight enough to produce, as was the case in the 100m backstroke, two bronze medals, for Jason Lezak (USA) and Cesar Cielo (BRA), 50m free champion later that week. Bernard became only the second Frenchman in history to win an Olympic swimming crown, 56 years after Jean Boiteux won the 400m free. Cielo was the slowest of the four men home on the way home. A year later only David Walters (USA) was faster on the way home in the Rome 2009 world title race, Cielo on 24.74, not much difference to the 24.93 of Beijing. But look at the opening split: 22.17 for Cielo, compared to 22.74 in Beijing. And that pattern was consistent among the vast majority of those those now wearing 100% poly suits and tells a tale of the altered nature of the sprint event and fatigue.
The Beijing race:
The 2007 joint world champions, Filippo Magnini (ITA) and Brent Hayden (CAN) finished 9th and 11th respectively, and the world's fastest man of 2007, Stefan Nystrand (SWE) was 8th in the final. Defending champion Pieter Van Den Hoogenband (NED) finished 5th, just 0.08sec shy of a medal after his wins of 2000 and 2004. He also finished 4th in 1996, making him the only man ever to race in four Olympic 100m free finals.
Men 10km marathon
It came down to a sprint for the line towards the end of almost two hours of toil which had left David Davies (GBR), on his third 10km outing, disorientated. he and Thomas Lurz (GER) went wide of the mark they needed on the way home. Maarten van der Weijden, a Dutchman who had fought cancer and survived, seized the day. It was like an aquatic Grand National, the hurdles replaced by the knock and sting of the pack. It proved a better spectacle than some had thought it might, its place in the Olympic Games secured.
The result
Lurz was the most prolific world champion open water man of the decade, while Davies goes down in history as the first man ever to win Olympic medals in the race pool and open water.
Women 100m freestyle
The suits were at play in a number of ways, with Britta Steffen having "only" a textile suit early in the season, with Germany committed to wearing adidas suits that did not include the properties of the Speedo LZR Racer, with Lenton wearing an FS-Pro and nearly failing to make the final four years after missing the grade in her fiorst season as a world-record holder, and then with Steffen turning up to her races in an adidas suit that had just as many polyurethane panels all over it as the LZR Racer did, as well as elasticated bands designed to provide extra "spring". It was hardly the ideal way to line swimmers up to race each other at an Olympic Games. However, the day belonged to Steffen, who turned last at the turn and, with Lenton to chase in the outside lane next to her, hunted down her quarry and got her hand to the wall first, by 0.04sec. The gracious way the two rivals treated and congratulated each other was part of the mix, with Natalie Coughlin (USA) half an arm adrift. They all wore suits that have since been banned, Steffen and Lenton among those who in 2009 both backed the ban on suits that overshadowed their work and skewed results. If Steffen's 50% poly suit had boosted her speed, then the 100% "speedboat", in her words, Hydrofoil that she wore a year later helped her go more than 1sec faster still. Lenton's silver lining included keeping hold of the world record for a while longer but Steffen in a Hydrofoil knocked that into a cocked hat in Rome 2009.
The race:
Trickett, nee Lenton, retired in late 2009 in the wake of a season that brought home to her the damage done by shiny suits.
400 m freestyle
The world record holder, Federica Pellegrini (ITA) looked all but unbeatable, having become the first sub-4:02 woman at the European Championships earlier in the year. Laure Manaudou, the Frenchwoman who was first to get past Janet Evans, remained a potential threat. But then came Katie Hoff, who swept all before her with tremendous performances day after day at the US Olympic trials. Come the Games, Hoff swam a smart race, Pellegrini messed up, Manudou was out of it, and a result that would not have been predicted a year before (not even a day before perhaps) unfolded. By racing a tad too cautiously, the field had played into the hands of on-form Brit and a woman heading for the swiftest 800m free in history later in the week, Rebecca Adlington. Hoff's fingers reached the pad 0.4sec too late the momentum of the best home 50m in the race swept Adlington (4th 0.03sec ahead of Pellgrini at the last turn and 1.46sec behind Hoff) to victory. Joanne Jackson have Britain double delight just 0.23sec adrift, with Coralie Balmy (FRA) missing a medal by 0.08sec, and Pellegrini locked out a second further back. A year later, Pellegrini, in a 100% poly suit, would swim more than 5sec faster and break 4mins. The world awaits that speed of swim by a swimmer without significant assistance from a suit. The splits from Beijing tell the tale of how Adlington became the first British woman to win an Olympic title since 1960.
The race:
Pellegrini made good her tactical error in the 400m with victory in the 200m free a few days later, and in winning that race became the first (and last) swimmers ever to win an Olympic swim crown while wearing two suits. The practice was subsequently banned at a time when buoyancy could be increased by two suits made of fabric that enabled air to be trapped in between.
10km marathon
The Brit pair of Keri-Anne Payne and Cassandra Patten did just about all the work out front, Larisa Ilchenko (RUS), multiple world champion, keeping as clear of the pack as possible, feeding off the leaders and biding her time until the final sprint for home. The tactic, as it had on so many occasions, worked a treat. Payne and Patten became the first women and marathon swimmers to race at a Games in both pool and open water, while Payne went on to become world champion a year later. As with the man's race a day later, the inaugural Olympic marathon exceeded expectations. The two races also delivered six medals, all of them, for Europe, with Britain accounting for half of the count four years out from hosting the event in the Serpentine in London. The lore alongside the race also caught the media's eye, as summed up by Cassie Patten when she said in words that will live long in the telling of Olympic history, with a nod to the physicality of it all: "I normally give them the three strikes rule. The first strike's an accident, the second strike 'you're playing on a dodgy line there', and the third time I give 'em one back... I'm a big girl so I can look after myself." That prompted teammate David Davies, who went on to win silver in the men's marathon, to say: "You know it's intentional when the girls take their handbags to the starting line."
The race:
Payne went on to win the 10km world title in 2009, while Patten will forever be recalled in Olympic lore, not only for her achievement in the water but for her immortal take on the physicality of the marathon swim: "I normally give them the three strikes rule. The first strike's an accident, the second strike 'you're playing on a dodgy line there', and the third time I give 'em one back... I'm a big girl so I can look after myself." That prompted teammate David Davies, who went on to win silver in the men's marathon, to say: "You know it's intentional when the girls take their handbags to the starting line."
THE TOP STANDOUT SINGLE PERFORMANCES
(Precedence was given within the swims listed to those times clocked under the pressure of championships conditions)
The Top 100 Memories:
Part I: 91 - 100, the year 2000.
Part II: 81 - 90, the year 2001.
Part III: 71 - 80, the year 2002.
Part IV: 61 - 70, the year 2003.
Part V: 51 - 60, the year 2004.
Part VI: 41 - 50, the year 2005.
Part VII: 31 - 40, the year 2006.
Part VIII: 21 - 30, the year 2007.
Part IX: 11 - 19, the years 2008-09.
Part X: No 10 - the best 20 swimmers of the decade
Part X: No 9 - the top 10 nations
Part X: No 7 - players and contributors
