The Olympic movement has a long history of lovable losers but debate rages over whether they embody the spirit of Games or are a distraction unworthy of competing alongside the world’s top athletes.
Ski-jumper Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards, swimmer Eric “the Eel” Moussambani and the Jamaican bobsleigh team all caught the sporting world’s attention at the Olympics, even though they never had a hope of winning a medal.
Despite the misgivings of Games officials, the wildcard system that allowed some of the worst performers in Olympic history to compete remains in place for Beijing and speculation has already begun about potential flops in the making.
Moussambani, from Equatorial Guinea, remains the highest profile loser to emerge at a summer Olympics following his inept but dogged performance in the pool at the Sydney Games in 2000.
Urged on by a roaring crowd and monitored closely by concerned lifeguards, Moussambani flailed his way to victory in a 100m freestyle heat after his only two rivals were disqualified for false starts. He finished in 1:52.72, a minute slower than other heat winners.
He later revealed he had learned to swim only months before the Games.
Moussambani gained instant celebrity and a short-lived sponsorship from a swimwear manufacturer, overshadowing many athletes who had trained for years to reach the Games.
It was a similar story for Edwards, who became a cult hero ski-jumping for Britain in the 1988 Calgary winter Olympics, and the Jamaican bobsledders, who competed at the same Games and had a Hollywood movie made about their exploits.
But International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said in 2003 that he would like to get rid of the wildcard entries, even though he acknowledged the underdogs were always wildly popular.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier