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Swimmers cheer for their peers
SYDNEY, Australia -- Greetings from the overflow seating section at the Sydney International Aquatic Center. This is the area located above and behind the 50-meter turn where organizers put athletes who don't fit into the main athletes' section and reporters who don't fit into the main press section. Patches of colors are forming around us as we take our seats. To our right we have the Brazilians decked out in blue-ish black, and a tame group of Japanese wearing red and white sweats and waving fans that open up to display the rising sun. To our left we have a sea of Canadian maple leaves -- apologies for using Daniel Webster's plural instead of Punch Imlach's -- beneath a patch of Italian light blue, which is just below the red, white and blue warm-ups of the U.S. team. Most of the swimmers not swimming tonight are among these groups, expecting to chant catchy slogans and hoping to belt out some words from their anthems. Most are energetic chanters and really bad singers. A glance over the assembled Yanks reveals Tom Wilkens carrying a large U.S. flag and sporting patches of red and blue in his hair -- and on his face. Behind Wilkens, Kaitlin Sandeno and Ian Crocker are tapping each other's heads with their pom-poms. Sandeno's pom-pom is red; Crocker's is white. The blue one appears to be missing. Staciana Stitts is wearing one of those tall, flat-topped, straw hats that is strapped on at the chin and sold two-for-one at the circus. Ashley Tappin is wearing a blue wig. Three large three large posters -- one bearing the letter "U", another "S" and a third "A" -- are being passed around from row to row. Gary Hall Jr. is the calm one in this group, having left his guitar and his bravado at home. Though there are neither Dutch nor Australian swimmers in our section, the place is nevertheless abuzz as Holland's Pieter van den Hoogenband sets a world record (1:45.35) in the 200-meter freestyle semifinals of 1:45.35 and Aussie hero Ian Thorpe strolls in at 1:45.37 in the next heat. I'm hearing "Ahs" to my right, and "Ohs" to my left. The vowels evidently change with the time zones. I'm told the local vernacular is "Oy." Later Wilkens leads a chant of Olé Olé Olé Olé when Ed Moses walks onto the pool deck for the start of the 100-meter breaststroke final. The Italian team counters with "Fiora, Fiora" for Domenico Fioravanti. Moses swims well, but the euphoria to my left is growing as Fioravanti pulls ahead for good. It is Italy's first Olympic gold medal in swimming, and soon it seems everyone around me is talking with his or her hands and practicing warm-up renditions of L'inno di Mameli. Again, bad singing knows no borders.
A half-hour later Brooke Bennett is tearing up the pool after winning the 400-meter freestyle. Her U.S. teammate Diana Munz, who has just won the silver medal, is swimming into her lane to congratulate her and from afar Sandeno is leading the cheer of "one-two, one-two." The evening's final event is the men's 400-meter individual medley, a race with a strong Canadian threat named Curtis Myden. "Gimme a C," starts the chant. "Gimme an A. Gimme an N. Who can? Can-a-da. Can-a-da." Cute. Garret Pulle is sporting his I-want-to-be-on-CBC look: shirtless and wrapped in a Canadian flag. Jennifer Button is giving in to the nervous energy by ending the debate about whether to eat the cookie she's been holding. Goodbye, cookie. As the race goes off, it's clear that Tom Dolan of the U.S. is about to defend his title. Behind me, Wilkens is being a trooper, cheering and hurting at the same time. Wilkens was favored to join Dolan in this race, but finished third at the U.S. trials in Indianapolis. At each 50-meter interval he looks up at the scoreboard to compare split times. His time at the trials, 4:15.69, would have left him in the medal hunt in this race. Instead his face is red, and blue. After Dolan touches the wall in a world-record 4:11.76 and teammate Eric Vendt finishes second, Anthony Ervin taps Wilkens on the shoulder. Wilkens nods. Yes he's O.K., thanks. Then Wilkens leads the cheer: "One-two, one-two." After a five-minute wait, several teams have cleared out of our section and we are waiting for the final two anthems -- both of them the start The Star-Spangled Banner -- to be played. As the cheering U.S. swimmers make their way past me to the railing, I feel a hand dig into my shoulder. Samantha Arsenault has nearly tumbled down the seats she is climbing over in order to get off a good snap with the Instamatic. At the railing Kristy Kowal is pushing up her hands and, at 6' 1", raising a very tall roof. Stitts has pulled out the camcorder and with her view blocked by the other swimmers, pans from the video screen, where Bennett is still cruising, to the scoreboard and back. "Let's hear it loud and proud," shouts a team official, who gets his wish twice. One postscript from the press conference in the swimming sub-center, where all is not going well: "Excuse me," a volunteer asks the assembled reporters who are waiting for Fioravanti to talk about his victory in the 100-meter breaststroke. "Are there any Italian journalists in the room who can also speak good English? We seem to have forgotten, I mean we are without now, well we could some help with . . ." Finally Ubaldo Scannagatta from Quotidiano Nazionale volunteers, saving us from the world's longest run-on sentence. He steps onto the platform and then searches for another volunteer to explain for him the microphone's on button. Scannagatta's translations are unfiltered and funny. After one answer we won't repeat, he tells us, "Excuse me, I must write down myself. It's good answer." The translation of the next question is: "So you finally win the gold medal. Why you don't celebrate more? You cry, you shout, you throw your mobile phone onto somebody, what do you do, eh?" Then Fioravanti answers and Scannagatta interprets: "He say now he's tired," Scannagatta interprets as Fioravanti shakes his head, folds the four other fingers onto his thumb and shakes head and hand incredulously. Some things need no translation. Sports Illustrated writer-reporter Brian Cazeneuve is in Sydney covering the
Games for the magazine and CNNSI.com. Check back daily to read Cazeneuve's
behind-the-scenes reports from Down Under.
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