Attention had been showered on her from the moment her training partner and compatriot from Equatorial Guinea, Eric Moussambani, became the accidental hero of these Olympic Games earlier this week by thrashing his way tortuously through a heat of the 100 metres freestyle slower than the top swimmers take to complete the 200m. Barila Baropa, Eric the Eel’s sibling in mediocrity, was heaven sent.
There was no magic about it this time because there was no spontaneity, no unexpectedness. Nobody had known Moussambani was coming but everybody knew that Barila Baropa would provide more of the same. They wanted her to be bad. If Moussambani had epitomised the Olympic spirit because determination, comedy and a desire to take part when there was no chance of winning were all joined in him, yesterday felt like a made-for-television event, a device to allow the feeding frenzy to continue.
So after her heat, Barila Baropa held court, an 18-year-old plucked from obscurity into a world where men and women with cameras, tape recorders and notebooks were literally falling over one another in their hunger to talk to her. She had obliged by finishing last of three in her heat yesterday morning. It took her a shade under 64 seconds to complete one length of the 50 metres Olympic pool in freestyle. Inge De Bruijn, the world record holder, covers it in less than 25sec. Barila Boropa said nonchalantly that she had never heard of Inge De Bruijn.
As she was talking, though, a scene that was as real and as visceral as Barila Baropa’s story was frothy and manufactured, was unfolding a few yards away, all but unnoticed. Fatima Gerashi, the 12-year-old swimmer from Bahrain who is the youngest competitor at these Olympics, had taken part in the same heat as Barila Baropa and had beaten her by more than 10sec. It was nowhere near enough to get her into the semi-finals but she was beaming proudly as she climbed out of the pool, looking up at her time.
She spoke briefly and haltingly to the BBC who were waiting for her a few yards away and then began to move through the area where the media had pounced upon Barila Baropa. The press attache for the Bahrain team, Anne Radic, hugged her and congratulated her. It was the first time she had swum in an international meeting. Because she is a Muslim, it was also the first time she had ever competed in front of men.
Fatima went over to speak to several journalists. She was laughing. Her heart had been beating so fast before the start, she said. When she was on the blocks, she had been thinking about all the training she had done and how much she wanted to make her family happy and to thank them for allowing her to compete. How had it felt, someone asked her, swimming in front of so many people in the Olympic pool. “It felt great,” she said.
She was about to walk back to the changing rooms when an Australian journalist stuck a tape recorder in her face and started barking questions. He did not appear to realise that she spoke only limited English, he made no concessions to the fact that she was a young girl who had left her country for the first time and was doing her best in a strange culture. He asked her if she wanted to compete in Athens in 2004, ignorant of the fact that the demands of her religion will probably bar her from that. Then he dropped his bombshell. “Are you upset about being disqualified,” he said.
Fatima’s face fell. She turned on her heels. Another journalist had appeared at the Australian’s shoulder. “Can she come back,” she asked Radic. Radic called her but Fatima waved her away and kept walking. Suddenly, this was turning into a nightmare. Flashbulbs popped as she walked past and she shielded her eyes. Everybody was smiling at her glibly, unaware of what had happened, wanting her to stop. She hurried on and out of sight.
The problem, apparently, had been that Fatima had wobbled almost imperceptibly on the blocks just before the starting signal. She had not dived in early. In fact, she had plunged into the pool well after Moe Thu Aung, from Myanmar, who won the heat comfortably. Fatima swam a brave, technically proficient race that more than justified Bahrain’s decision to send her because of their faith in her potential.
If there was room for sentiment with Moussambani and Barila Baropa, though, there was none for Fatima. Neither sympathy nor admiration for her Olympic spirit was allowed to come to her aid. She was indeed disqualified for what the judges had ruled to be a false start even though one expert said privately that it was an “atrociously severe” decision. There was no room for appeal, nor was one lodged.
"I caught up with her just as she got to the changing room,” Radic said later. “Her coach and I talked to her about it. We reassured her because she was upset and we told her that she should be proud of herself. It was the first time she had been abroad, it was the first time she had swum in an international meeting. We wanted to encourage her. We all feel sad about what happened but it cannot be helped.”
Radic was right. Eric Moussambani deserves to be feted for what he did, for the impact he made. His sister in heroic failure, though, is not Paula Barila Baropa. It is Fatima Gerashi, a 12-year-old girl who swum her heart out.
Swede flies in to spoil the party
Australia was dealt another serious blow on the penultimate day of swimming in Sydney as Lars Frolander stopped world record holder Michael Klim and team-mate Geoff Huegill today to become the first Swede to win the 100 metres butterfly title since Par Ardvidsson in 1980.
Frolander’s winning time of 52.00sec established a European record that is slower than Klim’s best of 51.81 and the 51.96 in which Huegill set an Olympic record in the semi-finals. Such was the height of expectation placed on the Australians’ shoulders and such was the rivalry between the two members of the Telstra Dolphins, that both were driven to race inside world record pace at the halfway mark.
Frolander, 26, bided his time and was almost a body-length behind Klim emerging from his turn. Slowly but surely, he ran the world record holder down to stop the clock 0.18sec ahead of Klim, with Huegill a further 0.04sec behind.
In the first final this morning, Diana Mocanu, of Romania, became the latest to complete the double, by adding the 200m backstroke title to the 100m crown she won earlier in the week. Her time, 2min 08.16sec, was the third-fastest ever behind the great Hungarian Krisztina Egerszegi, winner of the title in 1988, 1992 and 1996, and two Chinese swimmers.
Romanian-born Roxana Maracineanu, whose parents migrated to France to escape poverty and persecution, brought France its first medal at the pool in 2:10.25. Miki Nakao, of Japan, was third in 2:11.05.
The Aquapacer developed by British helicopter pilot Patrick Miley worked its magic almost to the second tonight when Brooke Bennett, of the US, became only the second woman ever to retain the Olympic 800m freestyle title.
Her winning time, 8:19.67, was within a second of that which her Irish-born coach Peter Banks had programmed for her in the pacemaker that sits ticking metronomically on her temple in training.
The small battery-powered device, also used by Australian Ian Thorpe, is not allowed in competition but the imprint it leaves in the mind of the swimmer, like a mental blueprint of race speed, is starting produce some impressive results.
At the halfway mark, Bennett, 20, was 0.09sec inside the world record pace of Janet Evans, the American who won the title in 1988 and 1992. Her split of 4:07.83 was a fingernail behind the time in which Ireland’s since-shamed Michelle Smith de Bruin, won the 400m title in Atlanta four years ago.
Just 100m later, Bennett had dropped a fraction behind Evans’s pace and faded gradually away from it throughout the rest of the race. Evans still has her record, 8:16.22, set in 1989, when she became world champion.
Before today's race, nine of the top ten fastest times ever were set in the 1970s and 1980s. Yana Klochkova, of Ukraine, and winner of both medley titles in Sydney, changed all that alongside Bennett, her 8:22.66 the fifth-fastest on record. Kaitlin Sandeno, of the United States, was third in 8:24.29, the ninth-fastest on record.
Craig Lord
Swimming Correspondent
The Times
