|
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Top moments 'Best ever' Games churned out memorable moments
SYDNEY, Australia -- IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch gave his "best ever" blessing to the Sydney Olympics at the closing ceremonies on Sunday night. The sentiment was right on. Everything from the efficient organization to the friendly volunteers to the venues and the clean city deserved high marks. Here, in no particular order, is a list of the top 11 moments of the Games. (To check out more indelible moments from other SI writers, click here.) Women's water polo finalThe conclusion was controversial and confusing, but in the end, the Australians scored a goal with one second remaining to beat the U.S. 4-3. In the closing seconds, Brenda Villa of the U.S. deliberately fouled Australia's Yvette Higgins in order to prevent Higgins from taking a shot. Rules stipulate that Higgins should have been required to pass the ball after the whistle, thereby assuring the U.S. team that regulation time would expire before the Australians could take a shot. Instead, Higgins turned and fired a shot over Bernice Orwig, the U.S. goalkeeper. The celebration began in spurts, since some of the Aussie players weren't certain the goal would count. Later, FINA, the sport's governing body, backed the decision of Italian referee Dani Renato, allowing the goal to stand because Higgins had fired the shot from beyond the seven-meter mark. Whether the goal was fair or flawed, this was an unforgettable way for women's water polo to make its Olympic debut. Men's 10,000-meter finalThe best race of the track and field competition looked as though it would never come off. Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie, the top distance runner of this and many generations, told everyone early in the year that he would run the 10,000 and skip the 5K. Kenya's Paul Tergat, who is Gebrselassie's 1A, originally had been slated only to run the five, and had to talk his way into the 10K with Kenyan officials. The Kenyans became so determined to beat Gebrselassie, they switched Patrick Ivuti, a likely candidate to win the 5,000, back into the 10K just to be Tergat's pace-maker and try to take away Gebrselassie's famed finishing kick by running it out of him early in the race. In the final lap, Tergat surged into the lead, but Gebrselassie tore after him and closed with a devastating sub-26-second final 200, to nip Tergat at the line, 27:18.20 to 27:18.29. Dawn Fraser's tireless supportAny time you looked over at the Australian swimmers who weren't competing that day, you saw Dawn Fraser leading the cheers with the Aussie team. She may not have had an official role with the swimmers or at the Games, except to be simply the most beloved figure anywhere she went. After amassing four gold and four silver Olympic medals for Australia from 1956 to 1964, Fraser took on several roles supporting Australian sport and was even team manager for men's water polo at one Olympiad. She represented the Sydney suburb of Balmain in the Australian parliament and was considered by many observers to be the favorite to light the torch at the 2000 Games until Cathy Freeman received the honor. Her bouncy enthusiasm at the pool -- and frequent bearhugs of buddy Thorpe -- were testament to her unwavering enthusiasm. Ian Thorpe's 4x100 anchor legThe final leg of the 4x100-meter freestyle relay was simply one of the greatest races in swimming history. To review, Aussie coach Don Talbot pulled his own brilliant stroke by having Michael Klim lead off, rather than swim last, to establish an early lead for his team. It worked. Klim set a world-record 48.18 in his leg. Anthony Ervin swam well in the adjacent lane, but Ervin's U.S. teammates were already 0.7 seconds behind. Neil Walker and Jason Lezak closed the gap on Australians Ashley Callus and Chris Fydler, and Gary Hall Jr., a top-notch 50-freer, took the lead away from Ian Thorpe in the first half of his anchor leg. Thorpe was down by half a body length when he stormed back on Hall, seemingly letting the 18,000 spectators draft off his every kick. Both teams went well under the existing world record, with Thorpe barely edging Hall at the wall in 3:13.67. To boot, Thorpe swam his unforgettable anchor leg an hour after winning the 400 freestyle. Marion Jones' 100-meter finalIf you want to know how much better Marion Jones was than the rest of the women's 100-meter field in Sydney, consider this: The gap between Jones and silver medallist Ekaterini Thanou of Greece was .37 seconds. The gap between Thanou and eighth-place finisher Debbie Ferguson of the Bahamas was less than half that (.17 seconds). Women's soccer finaleThe women's soccer final between the U.S. and Norway was a classic. The teams exchanged leads (1-0, U.S.; 2-1, Norway) before Tiffeny Milbrett scored in extra time, her second goal of the game, to send the contest into OT. Dagny Mellgren won it for Norway in the 102nd minute. The U.S. players have gotten plenty of ink since they won the 1999 Women's World Cup. They deserve it just based on the competition they face. After losing badly to the U.S. 2-0 in its preliminary-round opener, Norway narrowly missed reaching the semifinals at all. A balanced tournament that includes the U.S., Brazil, China, Germany and Norway is bound to have a fantastic finish like this. Cathy Freeman at the Opening CeremoniesThe decision to have Freeman light the flame after taking the torch from a relay team of Australian female Olympic champions hit all the right notes: celebrating women athletes, paying tribute to Dawn Fraser and acknowledging a classy representative of the country's rich Aboriginal heritage. Has anyone ever handled so much pressure as gracefully? Let's see, Cathy, we want you to be a symbol for a country, a sport, a race of people. Don't disappoint them. For keeping her head screwed on when it started getting dizzy from all the obligation, Freeman deserved a gold medal even before she won the 400 meters. Steven RedgraveThe greatest oarsman in history one-upped Carl Lewis and Al Oerter by winning gold medals in five straight Games. Only Hungary's Aladar Gerevich, who captured six golds in team fencing between 1932 and 1960, won more. Redgrave and his teammates in the coxless fours eschewed conventional race strategy and simply burned their competition into the riverbed with a risky and devastating pace. After the race, Redgrave announced his retirement and then confessed he wasn't sure whether to believe himself. Upsets of Cuba, KarelinThere was a time when it seemed neither the Cuban baseball team nor Russia Greco-Roman wrestler Alexander Karelin would ever lose. The Cubans defeated 18 opponents on their way to winning baseball's first two official Olympic gold medals. Karelin hadn't lost an international match in 13 years that included three Olympic gold medals. But (cue cliché about winning on paper) ... In Sydney, Ben Sheets pitched the United States to a 4-0 shutout of Omar Linares, Orestes Kindelan and the slugging Cubans in one of the most dominant mound performances in baseball's brief Olympic history. Sheets allowed three hits on broken-bat singles, walked nobody and recorded 16 groundouts. On the mat, Rulon Gardner of the U.S. outlasted Karelin 1-0 and then celebrated with a cartwheel. The reactions of Gardner and tearful U.S. manager Tommy Lasorda to their respective triumphs were a nod of respect to the people they defeated. Women's 20-kilometer walk finalAustralia's Jane Saville seemed understandably devastated by her disqualification in the final 400 meters of the 20-kilometer race walk. Saville's lead over China's Wang Liping was large enough that she might have been able to win by walking on her knees before she was zapped for her third form violation. Saville fought exceptionally hard to compose herself and address the decision after the race. She refused to belittle the officials or any of the women who stood on the podium when she was unable to do so. For that she should walk tall. Bahamas win women's 4x100They are an island nation of less than 300,000 (or roughly 1/100th the size of the United States). Yet the Bahamas' 4x100-meter relay team of Savetheda Fynes, Chandra Sturrup, Pauline Davis-Thompson and Ferguson crossed the line first in Sydney. That other team with someone named Marion finished third behind the Bahamas and Jamaica. According to Olympics historian David Wallechinsky, the Bahamas is the smallest nation ever to win an Olympic gold medal in a team sport or team event. If it can pass the torch (or baton, as it were) to future generations, little Bahamas could become a big sprinting powerhouse. Sports Illustrated writer-reporter Brian Cazeneuve covered the Games in
Sydney for the magazine and CNNSI.com.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
