Greatest Olympic Moment.

Franz Klammer's downhill run at the 1976 Innsbruck Olympics was pretty impressive. I doubt I saw it originally, though.

That was great--I did see it when it was originally broadcast. Of course I was very young at the time.

My favorite Olympic moment was the 1996 Gymnastic team finals when Kerri Strug competed and nailed her last vault to help the USA team to win the gold medal despite a badly injured ankle! I was there in person and had tears streaming down my face with chills all over my body! The crowd went wild. It was an unbelieveable moment!:)

The same 1968 Olympics….in the men’s Marathon when the Tanzanian runner John Steven Okwarie had injured himself out on the course and hopped, limped, walked and sometimes crawled through the streets of Mexico City to finish the race in the middle of the night….hours after the last runner before him had finished. His grit and determination to finish that race was one the most moving moments I have ever witnessed in all of sports. The guy was dead last by hours, yet, his finish is considered one of the Top 100 moments in ALL of Olympic history.

I have never understood how that guy qualified for the Olympics.

Originally posted by aquageek I have never understood how that guy qualified for the Olympics. Yeah, I believe they instituted the 'A' and 'B' Olympic time standards so only good athletes make it now. They didn't then.

I'm suprised that no one said anything about the swimmer from Africa. I think it was in 96 but not totally sure. He couldn't swim much at all, but they said that he had only one small hotel pool to practice in. I just remember thinking that took some balls to do that.

I can't tell you what my best memory was, but I can tell you my worst. The 100 meters free at the 1956 Olympics. The full story is on my web site www.swimdownhill.com/.../page6.html George Park

The 1980 Hockey game US vs USSR-I became a hockey fan that day and have loved the sport ever since. Yes-I own "Miracle" and love it. It's a great inspiration for me to get up and work out!

I have no quarrel with any of the moments people have named, great examples all, but... DUH! What does the second S in USMS stand for?! If we can't flak for our own sport in our own forum why are we so surprised the popular media barely mention or cover us? My favorite moment is the mens medley relay in the '72 Olympics. It's purely personal. Like probably half the people reading this, I became aware of and interested in competitive swimming from watching Mark Spitz in the Munich Games. As a complete newbie to the sport, I noticed that they had different strokes, and they had individual races and relay teams, and I even noticed that they had individual races where the swimmer did all four strokes (who can forget that IM in the Munich Games Gunar Larsen won by a couple of one thousandths of a second?) The race I wanted to see, not even knowing whether it existed, was the medley relay. Finally, on the last day of swimming competition, the announcers start talking about the medley relay coming up, and I went nuts. It was the coolest thing I saw the whole Games, and given the show Spitz was putting on, that's saying something. To this day, I still think the medley relay is the coolest event. The first question that pops into my head every single meet I have coached is who's swimming our medley relay. My second favorite moment is the mens medley relay in the 96 Games, and the big U.S. upset of the Russian team to keeps its perfect record in the Olympics alive. To answer the question about Olympic QT's, and who were those dudes in the Sydney Games: for certain nations in certain sports where they are deemed "developing nations" the QT's are waived to encourage nations to field an athlete. The idea is the sport will then catch-on, and the next time around, the nation will field real competitors. In 2000 Equitorial Guinea (if I recall correctly) sent two swimmers: Eric Moussambani "Eric the Eel" who swam the 50 and 100 free, and Paula Barila Bolopa "Paula the Pirahna" who swam the 50 free. Both swimmers finished dead last in their events, and were warmly cheered and encouraged by the swimming mad Aussi crowd for their efforts. If I remember correctly, Eric was offered a chance to train in the U.S. after the Games. I also noticed in surveying the results that a number of other athletes in these events from other countries, e.g. Cambodia and Sri Lanka, finished no where near the A or B QT. This leads me to believe several nations had QT waivers for their athletes. If I can crawl on my soap box for a second, the warm response to these swimmers and their willingness to participate, even in the most "elite" meet in the sport and despite their obvious inability to compete at the same level as the other athletes, shows just what a wonderful sport we have here. I'm proud to be a part of it, albeit a miniscule and highly opinionated part... Matt