Australia and the World Past and Present

There are many great moments of the Olympics.

We all want to know who won gold.

We love winners.

But the reality is that most of the athletes competing do not win gold. Most athletes do not get a medal.

Each athlete has their own story. Every athlete has overcome challenges in order to get the Olympics. Early mornings, endless hours training, blood, sweat and tears. Some have more support than others. Some train in better facilities. Some have high expectations placed upon their shoulders and some have none. Expectations may drive some forward or hold some back.

There are some athletes that will not succeed in the conventional sense. They will not finish near the top of the pack. But in their own way they do succeed. In fact, it may be a huge achievement for them just to finish the race.

Two individuals come to mind from recent Olympics.

Eric ‘the eel’

Eric Moussambani Malonga from Equatorial Guinea became a well-known figure at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

He had never seen an Olympic-sized pool before.

His country had been granted a wildcard from the International Olympic Committee to compete.

The purpose of the wildcard is to encourage the participation of athletes from countries that have limited training facilities.

Eric was in the 100 meters freestyle heat and he finished with a time of 1 minute, 52 seconds – the slowest time in Olympic history.

Why celebrate a time that many non-professional athletes could better?

I suppose the first reason is that the Olympic Games seeks to bring together athletes from all countries. Wildcard competitors are not in every heat. But the wildcard encourages greater involvement.

Eric’s effort was not amazing by world standards, but if one considers the context, it is quite an amazing story.

He may have set the slowest Olympic record yet he set his own national record.

How many years of training did he have under his belt? Well, he had only started swimming eight months before the race. The only way he could practice for the Olympics was by using a hotel swimming pool in his home country.

Eric continued swimming after the 2000 Olympics and eventually got his personal best time down to under 57 seconds. That is, he shaved around a minute off his Sydney time.

Kinzang Lhamo

In the 2024 Paris Olympics, Sifan Hassan took out gold in the women’s marathon. She finished with a time of 2 hours, 22 minutes and 55 seconds. It was a remarkable achievement – a new Games record.

90 minutes later, one runner was still running.

Bhutan’s Kinzang Lhamo finished 80th with a time of 3 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds.

This marathon was the first international competition for the 26 year old and the crowd got behind her. Many followed her in the final kilometers of the race, cheering her on.

These athletes became crowd favourites at the Games. Olympic athletes sometimes compete against each other, sometimes against the clock, sometimes against records and sometimes against history. But they also compete against themselves and against their previous best.

Eric and Kinzang make us want to cheer on the underdog and respect those who give things a go, do their best to finish, and overcome adversity.

Eric has gone on to improve his performance and there is every reason to expect that Kinzang will too.

Even at the Olympics, success may take different forms and these athletes show us how.