I have decided to go a bit more mainstream with today’s effort, presenting my Top 5 Olympic Moments Post-1980, plus extraneous detail on where I experienced them.
1. Michael Johnson, 200m final, Atlanta 1996 (c)
The only man ever to win the 200-400m sprint double at the same Olympics proved his greatness with his electrifying 19.32 in the 200m. This shaved 0.34s off his own world record and was 0.40s faster than the previous non-Johnson record, which itself had stood for 17 years. I watched this in Arthur’s Pizzeria at the Spot in Randwick, Sydney, while dodging uni and enjoying a morning pizza. Magic.
2. Kieren Perkins, 1500m swimming final, Atlanta 1996
So famous it is almost an insult to the event for me to describe it. The (then) greatest 1500m swimmer of all-time had been brought low by illness and Greg Chappell-esque lack of form, just scraping into the final in lane 8 before hosing the field to win his second gold. The victory was sweeter because I won dinner off a doubting friend – she’d backed Daniel Kowalski thinking the Perkins the Great was finished.
3. Grant Hackett, 1500m swimming final, Athens 2004
I’d had to buy the dinner in 2000, as I’d doubled down on Perkins: Hackett swam into my bad books by taking gold. His repeat performance therefore would not make my top 100 Olympic moments but for the commentator’s remark in the final strokes: “Sometimes the victories that are the hardest are the ones that mean the most”. It turned out that Hackett was sicker in 2004 than Perkins had been in 1996, with injuries including a punctured lung(!). I’ve reflected on that line many times since, and found it to be an inspiration in difficult times. It’s also generally true – Wests Tigers smashing the Bulldogs by 50 on the weekend being an obvious exception.
4. Track Montage, Seoul 1988
Watched most of this seminal week of athletics from the Brisvegan madness of Expo ’88 (remember that?). Was visiting a mate who’d moved to Brisbane for a year and found the big TVs with Flo-Jo, Ben Johnson and Debbie Flintoff-King about 900 times more exciting than the Mongolian Yurt Pavilion and its counterparts. Johnson running a roid-fuelled 9.78 remains a classic, especially as Lewis subsequently proved to be equi-juiced. (It was revealed in 2003 that Lewis had tested positive before in the 1988 US Olympic Trials, but they picked him in the team anyway).
5. John Sieben, 200m swimming final, Los Angeles 1984
If Cathy Freeman doesn’t make No.1 on this list, she sure isn’t making No.5. That spot is reserved for Sieben, who was the unlikeliest gold medallist of his day. He was Rocky to the Drago of West Germany’s Michael Gross, but The Albatross had himself around his neck and Sieben surged home in world record time to take gold. In 1988 Duncan Armstrong continued the tradition.
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