They came, they tried, they failed. To win at the Games means glory, yet those who muck it up in style deserve a mention too, writes Pete Nichols
Thipsamay Chantaphone: Chantaphone celebrated his 19th birthday by competing in the 20km walk at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The Laotian came last, half an hour behind the next best walker and almost an hour behind the winner. His time of over two hours, 20 minutes was the slowest in Olympic history by over 20 minutes.
The Libyan Volleyball Team: Libya, who have never won an Olympic medal, would not normally qualify for the Games’ volleyball tournament, but in 1980 the absence of the boycotting nations offered the Libyans their moment on the world sporting stage. They played five matches and lost them all without winning a set, scoring just 30 points to their opponents’ 225. Their points difference of minus 195 remains an Olympic volleyball record.
General Patton: It wasn’t that George Patton (later the famous second world war general) was the worst modern pentathlete in the world, he was just the worst loser. Patton surrendered his medal chance in the 1912 modern pentathlon with a poor shooting performance, which ranked him only 21st out of the 32 competitors. Patton, however, claimed the judges had marked him down because one of his bullets had gone clean through a previously made hole in the target. Of course it did, George.
Gilda Montenegro had a poor first run in the canoe slalom in Barcelona in 1992. The Costa Rican finished with 470 penalty points, almost four times the eventual winner’s total. In the second run, she tried the unique paddling position of upside down. When this was found to be an ineffective way of making progress she gave up.
Derrick Tenai: Archer Derrick Tenai from the Solomon Islands had not seen a modern bow until he arrived at the 1988 Games in Seoul. Tenai broke the Olympic record for missing the target, which he did 55 times.
The US hockey team: With only three teams competing, the 1932 hockey tournament was hardly one of the most auspicious in Olympic history. India won, which was no surprise, with Japan second. The Americans, though, have still not lived down their performance. Losing 9-2 to Japan was bad enough, but their 24-1 defeat by the Indians still survives as the largest defeat ever inflicted in international competition.
Gabriele Anderson-Scheiss: When Gabriele Andersen- Scheiss hit the wall in the 1984 Olympic marathon, it was double-skinned. The American, who qualified to run for Switzerland, was only 20 minutes behind the US winner Joan Benoit when she arrived at the Olympic stadium, but it was the next six minutes that made her famous. Andersen-Scheiss was suffering from heat exhaustion when she ran on to the track and for the five minutes and 44 seconds, to be precise, she lurched from one lane to the next with her right arm limp and her left leg rigid. Doctors followed her around the track, the crowd begged her to stop, but Andersen-Scheiss made it to the line to finish 37th in the Olympic marathon.
The Russian Shooting Team: “Sorry we’re late” took on a new meaning when the Russian team arrived at the 1908 Olympics in London. Their team had been expected, but they did not reach London until all the events were over. The Russians, it transpired, were still operating under the old Julian calendar, while Britain — and most of the rest of the world — had adopted the Gregorian one by 1752. The two calendars were 12 days apart.
Paul Cerutti: While many marksmen have been known to take tranquilizers to calm their nerves during a competition, Monaco’s Paul Cerutti, at 65, was obviously worried that a couple of beta-blockers might have stopped him altogether at the 1976 Games. Instead, he took amphetamines, finished 43rd out of 44 with their help and was then disqualified for taking them.