Greatest Olympic Moment.

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

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