Bizarre Olympic Moment...Day 1

For each day of the Olympics we're going to find some bizarre clip to show you from a past Summer Olympics.

First up is Eric Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea, who was invited to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney as a wild card entry without reaching the qualifying standard. When he lined up for Heat #1 in the men’s freestyle he had never been in an Olympic sized pool, or even finished a whole 100 metre race.

His two competitors false started and were knocked out of the race. But Moussambani swam the 100 metres by himself…barely making it. He received loud cheers from the audience and the nickname “The Eel” for his performance. His time was 1 minute and 52 seconds…which is about how long it takes a top swimmer to swim 200 meters.

I have to agree with the commentator in that clip. Moussambani shouldn’t have really been there in the first place, but at least he was entertaining.

Take a look at the 16 most bizarre Olympic moments in history:

Day 1 - Eric "The Eel" Moussambani
Day 2 - Betty Robinson
Day 3 - Sally Robbins
Day 4 - Abebe Bilkila
Day 5 - 1972 USA Basketball team
Day 6 - Bobby Pearce
Day 7 - Byun Jong-il
Day 8 - Stella Walsh
Day 9 - Spanish Paralympic Basketball Team
Day 10 - Ingeborg Marx
Day 11 - Vanderlei de Lima
Day 12 - Hans-Jurgen Todt
Day 13 - Liu Changchun
Day 14 - Dorando Pietri
Day 15 - 1956 Hungarian Water Polo Team
Day 16 - 1960 Tunisian Modern Pentathlon Team