Slowest Olympic heat winner

Eric Moussambani (Equatorial Guinea) clocked the slowest ever recorded time for the 100 metre freestyle in Olympic history with a time of 1 minute 52.72 seconds at Sydney on 19 September 2000. Remarkably he won his heat, the two other participants in the heat having been disqualified for false starts. Eric who acquired the nickname 'Eric The Eel' for his floundering swimming style had never seen an Olympic size (50 m) pool in his life. Training for the Games had been done in Equatorial Guinea's unique 20 m pool and local rivers. Regrettably his time was outside the qualifying time and he was eliminated from the Games and his time was almost 7 seconds slower than the gold winning time for the men's 200m freestyle.