|
|
|
Odyssey of OdditiesSeventeen days, 10,750 athletes and 197 nations produced a flurry of fascinating facts and figuresby Steve Rushin
We cannot take a tailor's tape measure to these Olympics. We cannot fit the Games into a single tuxedo for this testimonial banquet—their dimensions are simply too disparate. From the Nigerian table-tennis competitor who was 17 centimeters tall to the Ugandan boxer who stood some 19 feet—why, you couldn't even settle on a single inseam.
Swiss modern pentathlete Phillipp Waeffler came up a bit short on horsepower.
photograph by
The figures cited above were provided by IBM's cockamamie Olympic database. And while it is true that nothing lends itself to unalloyed, computer-nerd number crunching quite like the Games, we can only begin to digest the raw data now and to quantify all those who qualified. The most we can do is sweep the sands with a medal detector and suss out the superlatives, the sublime, the silly: the bests, the worsts, the lasts, the firsts.
And the trends. These were undoubtedly the most egalitarian Olympics ever. A record 52 nations won gold medals. Even if the former Soviet Union were extant—a Big Red Machine reassembled from rusted component parts (15 former Soviet countries attended the Games, 11 of them won events)—42 countries would have won medals, still the highest number in history. Meanwhile, back at the Samaranch, the international Olympic movement has never been larger: Never had so many athletes (10,750) from so many nations (197) participated in the Games.
The centennial of the modern Olympic Games was not simply an occasion to recall firsts but to create them. Leave it to Greece to gloriously combine the two in Atlanta and win its most medals (eight) since Athens first hosted the world in 1896.
For the first time in Olympic history, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Syria won gold medals. Hong Kong won its first and last gold medal; it will become part of China in 1997.
Second
The second-place finish in the men's 100-meter sprint, by Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, was good enough to have won gold in every previous Olympics.
Third
By anchoring the Jamaican team that finished third in the women's 4x100 relay, sprinter Merlene Ottey became the first woman to get five bronze medals (in four Olympics). If not for her silver medals in the 100 and 200 in Atlanta, she would have earned everlasting, RC Cola-caliber renown as a synonym for finishing third.
Fourth
The fourth-place finisher in the men's 800, Norberto Tellez of Cuba, ran fast enough to have won every previous Olympic 800.
Fifth
With her fifth gold medal, in the 4x200 relay, swimmer Jenny Thompson joined speed skater Bonnie Blair as the most gilded U.S. women Olympians ever.
The former Soviet Union (that is, the aforementioned countries that once helped make up the Evil Empire) outmedaled the U.S. 123-101. Likewise, the former East Germany outmedaled the former West Germany 33-5/6-31-1/6 (teams in some events included athletes from both Germanys).
The top three Elvis impersonators in Atlanta were:
1) Elvis Konamegui of Cameroon, who lost his first-round bout in featherweight boxing.
2) Elvis Gregory of Cuba, who lost in the third round of the men's individual foil but continued to fight his opponent, defending Olympic champion Philippe Omnes of France, away from the dueling piste. The two eventually were separated by police, who were, you better believe it, duly piste themselves.
3) Yoelvis Quesada of Cuba, who won the bronze medal in the triple jump with a bound of 57'2-3/4". Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has leapt the building.
The Games' biggest oxymoron was Great Britain, which equaled its worst Olympic performance by winning only a single gold medal, in the men's coxless pairs. Rowing with Matthew Pinsent, Steven Redgrave earned his fourth gold in as many Olympics. Asked afterward how he felt, Redgrave seemed to speak for all his countrymen when he said, live on the BBC, "I'm f-----' knackered," which is Brit for beat. Meanwhile, 26 miles across the English Channel, France, with 15 gold medals, quietly celebrated its best Olympics since the Summer Games were held in Paris in 1900.
22.54 Average speed at which Donovan Bailey traveled during his world-record-setting 100-meter sprint.
23.14 Average speed at which Michael Johnson traveled during his world-record 200.
31.00 Speed at which 10-meter platform divers were traveling when entering the water.
Point: Sprinters, gold shoes and all, are still slower than gravity.
The first eight finishers in the men's 10,000 meters were African. Eleven of the 12 medalists in table tennis were Asian. The 12th was certainly not from Jamaica: The two-man Jamaican table-tennis team of Hyatt & Hylton (Michael and Stephen, respectively) opted for express checkout, losing all of its matches. The duo thus failed to live up to the legacy of a U.S. men's rowing pair that got silver in 1976: Coffey & Staines. (Olympic rings, indeed.)
The four best names to fail to make names for themselves in Atlanta were:
1) Hungarian badminton player Andrea Odor.
2) Slovakian wrestler Roman Kollar.
3) Hungarian gymnast Eszter Ovary.
4) South Korean shooter Boo Soon Hee.
... was the only thing set in Atlanta. On average, 9.25 track and field world records were established at each Olympics between 1968 and '80. From '84 to '96, that number shriveled to 2.25. Atlanta could conjure only two world records. As for swimming, the four world records of the Centennial Games are half as many as were set in Barcelona four years ago; they made Atlanta and Mexico City in '68 (also only four records) the hosts of the most unimposing pool parties in four decades.
The U.S. won the most medals (101), but the Yanks ranked 39th in medals per capita, with one for every 2,612,020 American citizens. India (one medal for its 936 million residents) finished dead last. The most densely decorated nation, with one medal for its 105,600 inhabitants, was Tonga, sport's newest powermonga.
1) The nonworking toilets at the tennis stadium in Stone Mountain, Ga., which became a notorious, malodorous Unflushing Meadow.
2) Tesh.
|
