Simon F said:
DarN said:
Bleh. Only olympics worth watching is the winter olympics.
What are you talking about? Min you, I suppose that the 2000 Olympics were held in September (iirc) and that's pretty damned close to winter in Sydney
Did anyone see Sth Africa in the men's 4x100m freestyle(/crawl)? They had outboard motors!!
Sorry .. just gotta add to this
Roland Schoeman, Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend and Ryk Neethling became instant heroes when they won the first Olympic gold medal for their country at the 2004 Athens Olympics with a world record 3min 13,17sec in the 4x100m freestyle relay at the Olympic swimming complex on Sunday night.
"We did it," screamed Ferns from the starting block, thumping a fist to his heart. "We are number one."
The triumph was South Africa's fourth gold medal since re-admission to the Olympics in Barcelona 1992, adding to the two won by swimmer Penny Heyns in Atlanta and the marathon gold by Josia Thugwane at the same Olympics.
"We're fast," raved Schoeman afterwards. "Real fast. It's taken 10 years to do this. We've always believed we could beat the Americans and the Aussies. Now we've done it. We knew we could do this. There's still a few days left, so watch out. We're not finished yet."
"That was fantastic," enthused Neethling. "Brilliant. I'll never forget this day as long as I live. Tell South Africa we did it for them."
The foursome stunned their opposition and sent ripples through the swimming world with their semifinal victory in the morning that was just off the world mark.
They surged to the world record in the final to add to the Olympic success of Penny Heyns who won two breast-stroke golds at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
They devastated the fancied Americans and Australians who boosted their teams with Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe. But the South Africans left them in their wake as Schoeman, with the fastest reaction time of 0,65sec off the block, set the pace with his 48,17sec.
Ferns and Townsend kept his momentum going with 48,13 and 48,96 then big Neethling opened up with a spectacular 47,91 to beat Australia's world record of 3:13,67 set at Sydney 2000.
