Word: hoogenband
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...year-old Krayzelburg called on both aspects of his background to win three gold medals and lead an underrated U.S. team to an astounding 33 medals in the pool. In a week in which some big fish got reeled in--Australian sensation Ian Thorpe, Dutch wonderboy Pieter van den Hoogenband and the Russian Rocket Alexander Popov each found himself bettered in one race or another--nobody caught Krayzelburg. Indeed, after a rough start, the rest of the U.S. team outswam the favored Australians, who performed before raucous hometown crowds. Swimming is the Olympics in Australia, yet the U.S. medal haul...
...swim alone. Moussambani had never even come close to swimming two pool lengths before. Halfway through the race, he started flailing and seemed in danger of drowning. But he prevailed, clocking in at 1:52.72. That's 1:04.08 longer than it took gold-medal winner Pieter van den Hoogenband and 50.27 longer than Moussambani's closest competitor, the 70th-place swimmer from Bahrain. It turns out that before he arrived in Sydney, Moussambani didn't know how to swim...
...center, with its temperature-controlled water and air, and the pool itself - 3.3 m deep, with special lane ropes to prevent backwash, two free lanes and a wet deck at the sides to stop waves - are state-of-the-art. "Yes, we are really going fast," said Van den Hoogenband, perhaps tired of the focus on a concrete and tile tank. "It's a nice pool... but personally I train real hard for these Olympics, and the other guys also trained really hard...
...Hoogenband, who avoided big international meets for the past year, it all came together last week. He became the first man since Mark Spitz in 1972 to win the 100-m and 200-m freestyle finals - perhaps an even greater feat than the American's considering the Dutchman's stellar opponents. In winning the blue-ribbon sprint title, Van den Hoogenband ended the reign of Alexander Popov, who was trying to win his third straight Olympic 100-m freestyle gold. "It's not the end of the world, obviously," said the 28-year-old Russian, undefeated over the distance...
Sharing the spoils was a swimming lesson Van den Hoogenband also taught Thorpe in the 200-m freestyle, breaking a world record in the semifinal to turn up the pressure on the teenager. Thorpe seemed to cope better with defeat than his expectant countrymen, accepting his silver medal with composure and grace. "It was a great race and it was a real privilege to swim in it," said Thorpe after the 200 m. "I gave it my best shot and while I was a little disappointed with the time, I wasn't with the result." The new champ had been...