Eric Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea had been swimming for only eight months before the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He'd trained in a hotel pool and a crocodile-infested lake and had never seen a 50-meter Olympic pool before arriving in Sydney. In his 100m freestyle heat, the other two swimmers were both disqualified for false starts, leaving Eric to swim alone. He dove in wearing loose swim trunks with the drawstring showing and started thrashing. By the final 25 meters, the crowd realized he might not make it. Lifeguards were put on alert. The audience, which had started laughing, began cheering desperately for him to finish. He touched the wall in 1 minute 52 seconds, roughly twice as slow as the world record, and the crowd gave him one of the loudest ovations of the entire Games.