Olympic milestones: Eric the Eel's 100m freestyle swim

Magical moment: Eric the Eel at the Sydney Olympics

10 April 2012

This is fantastic. In some ways, it epitomises the Olympic ideal. An unknown "swimmer" arrived in Sydney from Equatorial Guinea, his proud country's single representative in the 100m freestyle, and basically, he couldn't swim.

Eric Moussambani, it turned out, had been practising in a hotel swimming pool back in Africa and had never been in an Olympic-sized pool in his life. He must have seen the water stretching into the distance in Sydney's famous Aquatics Centre - the very place where Ian "Thorpedo" Thorpe had been hailed as a human shark in his full-length racing suit - and wondered what on earth he was doing there.

In his first (and last) heat, he dived in and crawled, literally, through the water. His rivals had finished their swim when he was barely at the turning point. Painstakingly, gasping for breath and very, very slowly, he crawled back down his lane and, to the popping of flashbulbs and world acclaim, he completed his task in 1 minute 52.72 seconds, twice the time it took the other athletes in the race. Eric the Eel was born.

You might expect me to question his inclusion. I wouldn't do anything of the sort. He didn't achieve the minimum entry requirements for the event, but the IOC has it in its power to award wild-cards to encourage the developing nations.

Eric was a beneficiary of the scheme and so wonderful was his reception and obvious his delight, it did nothing but enhance the magic of the Games.

I'll always remember an Indian skier at the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984, who missed a gate on the downhill run and then sidestepped back up again to take it properly. He looked like a beginner on a dry slope in Telford. I couldn't believe my eyes.

But I give him huge credit for having the courage to take part. Those are the important words to me - take part. It is a sharp reminder that the Olympic oath has genuine meaning: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

All right, I didn't mean them when I was competing at the Olympics. I wanted to win. But, honestly, had I ever been beaten by a better crew, I would have been disappointed but not inconsolable. For me, the point was to be the best I could be. If I had taken part and left every single particle of effort out there on the course, but been beaten, I would have had nothing to regret.

Eric gave it all he had, and he must be as proud of his Olympic appearance as any athlete who has ever competed in the Games. That is what makes it a truly global event. If only the best turned up, you would have the powerful few so dominant that huge parts of the globe would be unrepresented. What would be the joy in that?

Eric was pure fun. I can remember his closing few strokes, when he almost looked as though he was treading water. He was hardly moving.

The purists aren't always happy. I met Eddie the Eagle, our hapless ski jumper, at the Winter Games in Calgary in 1988, and he's quite a character. He didn't so much perform a jump as a flop, so brief was his time in the air, but who remembers who won? Everyone remembers Eddie.

I think that's why his shallow media celebrity was resented by various people, including members of the British team, and it was certainly a cause for reconsideration of entry qualifications by the IOC. It thought it made a mockery of the event (incidentally, won by Matti Nykänen of Finland) but I enjoyed his brief parabola across the Olympic landscape. If the Games ever lost its capacity for variety, sport would be poorer for it.

Great Olympic Moments by Steve Redgrave is published by Headline Books £20.

Olympic milestones: Eric the Eel's 100m freestyle swim

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