The heartbreaks of the millennium

MANY WILL remember Finland's Juha Miato crying bitter tears of disappointment in the woods of Lake Placid in 1980 after he lost the 15-kilometres cross-country skiing Olympic gold to Thomas Wassbarg by one hundredth of a second.

A Swede also figured prominently eight years earlier at the Munich Games, when Gunnar Larsson won the 400m medley swim gold with an advantage of two thousands of a second over American Alexander Mckee.

As a result of such close decisions and the heartbreak of the second place finishers, the ski and swim federation did away with timing in hundredths and thousands of a second.

Merlene Ottey, however, knows this means nothing. The Jamaican sprinter is a tragic figure in the sports records of the century. Ottey lost the 100m gold at the 1993 world championships and 1996 Olympics to American Gail Devers after a review of the photo finish after both posted identical times.

A German and Italian Bobsleigh team were locked on the same time after four runs at the 1968 Games in Grenoble, but the Italians won gold because they had the best individual time.

Back to Devers. The American must have been relieved in 1996 because she had been through a different traumatic incident four years earlier in Barcelona. She held a big lead in the 100m hurdles final, but tripped over the last hurdle and placed only fifth. Four years earlier, 1988 in Seoul, the clear 10,000m race leader Ingrid Kristinsen of Norway injured herself when she tripped on a marker at the side of the track and had to pull up. At the 1984 event in Los Angeles favourite Mary Slaney- Decker pulled up after a collision with Briton Zola Budd in the 3,000m.

The Los Angeles competition also saw a swimmer almost as frustrated as Mckee. German Thomas Fahrner claimed an Olympic 400m freestyle record, but that was in the B-final after he failed to qualify for the medal race which was won in a time slower than his.

At the same games, decathlete ace Juergen Hingsen was disqualified before the opening of 100m when he committed three false starts.

But the first German to curse in Los Angeles was wrestler Wolfgang Ehrl back at the city's first Olympics in 1932. Ehrl won all his fights and only got the silver because Italy's Giovanni Gozzi, whom Ehrl also beat, took the gold because he had amassed more points in his fights. At the 1912 Games in Stockholm, Finland's Ivar Bohling and Swede Anders Ahlgren wrestled for nine hours without either athlete getting a point. The judges stopped the fight, gave both a silver while no gold medal was awarded.

At the London Games in 1948, Sweden was denied the showjumping team gold because one of its riders, Gehnall Persson, was not an officer but held a lower rank in the Swedish army. At the time only officers were allowed to compete, but the rule was changed afterwards and Persson got some compensation with team gold in 1952 and 1956.

Sweden's modern Pentathlon compatriots were not so lucky in 1968 Mexico Games because they lost the team bronze medal after Hans- Gunnar Liljenwall was caught with a too high blood alcohol level after the shooting competition.

In the same sport, Russian Eduard Zenowska had to settle for the bronze in 1992 in Barcelona after he fell off his horse. In Atlanta 1996, he was the clear leader in the final cross-country run when he fell with the finish line in sight. Kazakhstan's Alexander Parygin won the gold. Margaret Abbott of the U.S. may be the only athlete in Olympic history who didn't even know she won the gold medal. Due to chaotic organisation in 1900 in Paris she thought she won a small golf tournament and allegedly never found out she was an Olympic champion.

And finally there were three American sprinters Eddie Hart, Ray Robinson and Robert Taylor sitting in the Olympic village in 1972 in Munich watching the daily live broadcast, when suddenly the 100m quarterfinals were listed where Hart was to start in the first race. The trio raced to the stadium but only Taylor still made it to the heats.

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Section  : Sport
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