Eric the eel becomes unlikely hero at Sydney

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Sydney: Everyone loves Eric the Eel, the accidental hero who became an instant overnight celebrity for swimming very, very slowly. He thought he might drown when he swam one of the slowest races in Olympic history but Eric Moussambani refused to give up and that is why the world is queuing up to say hello.

The German team took him out for a dinner cruise round Sydney Harbour, top swimmer Ian Thorpe congratulated him, 'Time magazine' clamoured for an interview, Speedo gave him a Fastskin bodysuit.

"It is all so overwhelming for me," the swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, who has emerged as the most unlikely star of Sydney 2000, said. Spanish, French, English, Swedish, Japanese, Canadian and Australian media queued up to hear his story. He went on NBC television's Today Show. Autograph hunters besieged him on a trip to Sydney's Coogee Beach. It was only the second time he had even seen the sea.

The frenzy was created by his solo run over 100 metres of the Homebush Bay pool where world records had been tumbling all week. His two fellow competitors had been disqualified in his heat so he had to swim alone.

He nearly didn't make it but the crowds roared him home in one minute 52 seconds, about a minute slower than the rest of the heat winners. The 22-year-old student, who had only learned to swim in January, thought he might be going under at one stage.

'It was all the people getting behind me'

"The first 50 metres were okay but in the second 50 metres I got a bit worried and thought I wasn't going to make it. Then something happened - I think it was all the people getting behind me," he said.

"I was really, really proud. It is still a great feeling for me and I loved when everyone applauded me at the end. I felt like I had won a medal or something," he told 'The Australian' newspaper.

Eric has been making new friends all over the place. Someone put a sign over his room at the athletes' village proclaiming "Eric The Swimmer". The South African team came round to say hello and congratulate him.

Moussambani went looking for his hero - the Australian swimming star Michael Klim. Instead, it was the other way round. "After the race the other night, he came to me," Moussambani said. "He just walked up to me in the dressing room and shook my hand. The only bad thing is I didn't have my camera."

Australian hero Thorpe knows all about the pressures of stardom. Fellow swimmers even video him eating his breakfast in the athletes' village.Thorpe had nothing but admiration for Moussambani whose race he watched on television. "This is what the Olympics is all about," he said.

Every bit of Moussambani is now hot property. The online auction site eBay is auctioning his only pair of goggles for charity. And now the swimmer in the glare of international publicity already has his sights set on Athens in 2004, "I'll be there, believe me," he promised.



(c) Reuters Limited.