5. 100m Freestyle Men's Finals

Eamon SULLIVAN (AUS) WR/ OR 2008

This was the event I was waiting for, I’m quite familiar with the swimmers for once: watched their heats, watched their other events, watched their semifinals, noted down their names for the finals, all I need was to put the ‘1st, 2nd & 3rd’ to their names. The new popular swimmer LEZAK was also in this race, but this is really between BERNARD and SULLIVAN. To recap:

BERNARD’S WR
Broken by SULLIVAN at the heats
Broken by HIMSELF at semifinal 1
Broken by SULLIVAN at semifinal 2

It’s an intense rivalry between the French and the Aussie; both are kings at this event; this is their strongest event and they only have this one shot at the gold medal. “Did they even get to sleep last night?”

From the start till the end, SULLIVAN and BERNARD were the only ones leading, the only ones under the WR. They were actually executing the same strokes, surfacing the same time, kicking their feet at the same frequency. Its an ‘attack of the clones’ kind of thing back there, no one could really tell who would win this. They’re 2 identical swimmers. BUT:

GOLD: BERNARD (FRA) WR
SILVER: SULLIVAN (AUS)
BRONZE: LEZAK (USA) & CEILO FILHO (BRA)

They later showed the 100fps version, the extreme slow mo-ed version of the race: BERNARD and SULLIVAN, having been swimming identically throughout the race, reached for the wall at the same time underwater. BERNARD, being the bigger guy, touched the wall first. In a race between 2 swimmers with the same speed, it’s really the little things that will count, like the length of one’s hand.
I’ve never seen a more disappointed man all my life. The look on SULLIVAN’s defeated face says it all. Interestingly, BERNARD’s physique had been a hot topic. “Look at the size of this man! H could be a weightlifter!”

*During the victory ceremony, French’s national anthem was played. For the first time, I hear spectators shouting their national anthem, shouting it out loud and proud. Like ITALY with PELLIGRINI, BERNARD was the only FRENCH who had gotten gold. (Nobody sang exceptionally loud during ADLINGTON’s (GBR) victory, though)