Back to SWIMMING NEWS
Friday, September 22
Golden double for US mates
From Craig Lord in Sydney
Phoenix training partners Gary Hall Jr and Anthony Ervin rose from the shadow of Pieter van den Hoogenband and Alexander Popov today to share the gold medal in the 50m freestyle. Britain’s Mark Foster finished seventh.
The Americans’ winning time was 21.98sec to the flying Dutchman’s 22.03, while Popov, the Russian whose world record stands at 21.64sec, clocked 22.24 for sixth place, his worst result in an international career spanning back to 1990. With that, Popov’s chance of becoming the first man to win the same title at three Games vanished. He had won both the 50 and 100m title in 1992 and 1996 but finished second to Van den Hoogenband in the 100m in Sydney earlier this week.
In defeat, the Dutchman will remain one of several swimmers in Sydney to have won two gold medals in individual events, his successes coming in the 100 and 200m freestyle.
There had been only two other occasions on which two swimmers had clocked the same time, one resulting in swimmers sharing the gold medal, the other controversially not, and both involving Americans.
In 1972, Gunnar Larsson, of Sweden, and Tim McKee, of the United States, clocked 4min 31.98sec in the 400m medley final at the Games in Munich.
However, officials decided to look at then third decimal point and the Swede was awarded the gold medal, McKee the silver. The ensuing controversy caused a change in the rules and races have gone only to the second decimal point since.
At the same Games, Gary Hall Jr’s father, Gary, won the silver medal in the 200m butterfly behind Mark Spitz, who went on to win a record seven gold medals.
The first Olympic swimming gold medal to be shared went to Americans Nancy Hogshead and Carrie Steinseifer, in 55.92sec, in the 100m freestyle in 1984.
Hall Jr, 26 on Tuesday, finished second to Popov in both the 50 and 100m four years ago, while success for Ervin at 19 leaves room for him to emulate Popov’s amazing career. The Russian still holds the Olympic record at 21.91, his time from Barcelona in 1992.
One place behind Popov was Britain’s Mark Foster, on 22.41. Foster, the world short-course champion, admitted the time was worse than he has done in training lately. At 35m, the British and Commonwealth champion was in the race, even perhaps at the helm of it by a fingernail. But there it ended as the big guns going for gold rolled beyond him into a space a half-second ahead.
Foster said he had "felt good up to the 35 [metres]", and could not pinpoint why he had swum slower than in training races in recent weeks. "I just didn’t have it tonight," he said.
