Controversially, Van Alm -
sick originally missed the cut:
her heats time of 2:01.55 was
only good for 9th place. Fate
intervened: her teammate
Dagmar Hase, who had
placed 8th in preliminaries,
was persuaded – for the price
of a luxury holiday with her
boyfriend – to withdraw from
the final in favour of “Franzi”
taking to her blocks in lane 8.
The teenage prodigy swam in
anger, giving it her all in a
desperate quest for the gold
medal that she had almost
robbed herself of.

Franzi took the lead down
the first length but Lu Bin, of
China (and that summer suspended
for a doping offence),
ploughed ahead at the 100m
and 150m marks. The German
teenager found fire in her belly
on the way home and found
the strength to touch first, in a
world record time of 1:56.78
(0.73 of a second off the previous
mark, held by East
German Heike Friedrich). The
race went down in swimming
history for three main reasons:
1) originally, Van Almsick did
not make the final; 2) she won
from lane 8, beating a Chinese
woman from a squad that
dominated the championships
before seven of the national squad tested positive later that
summer, confirming suspicions
that all was not well; and
3) she won in a fabulous
world-record time, one that
stood for eight years (until Van
Almsick herself bettered it in
Berlin, at the 2002 European
Cham pion ships, on 1:56.64 at
the height of a great comeback).
Franziska van Almsick
grew up in Berlin, where she
was selected as a talented
youngster in the GDR sports
system not long before the
Berlin Wall fell. In 1992, at 14,
she was the youngest member
of the then reunified German
team at the Bar celona Olympic Games, where she sensationally
won two silver and two
bronze medals, two of those in
relays, the silver in the 200m
freestyle and the bronze in the
100m freestyle.
While the case of Franziska van Almsick remains
unique, other legendary
champions managed to win
big races from lane 8.


Franziska van Almsick

Even the Russian “Tsar”
Alex Popov can be counted
among them. On May 16,
2004, at 32 and while approaching the end of his
career, the best sprinter in history
won his fifth 50m freestyle
title on the last day of the
European Swimming Cham -
pion ships in Madrid. He barely
scraped into the final, qualifying
eighth in the semi-finals by
just 0.03sec. Swimming in lane
8 in the final, Alex took the lead
at the start and powered to the
wall, in his magical and incomparable
style, to touch as a
champion once more, in
22.32sec, for a record 10th
European crown 13 years after
his first, in Athens 1991.
Sweden’s Stefan Nystrand
was second in 22.42. Popov
said: “I am not 100 percent but
at least I know what I have to
do. It is a very busy time for me,
with the Russian nationals next
week followed by more races
and then the Olympics.” At the
time, Popov held both the
world and the European record
in 21.64 (from June 16, 2000 in
Moscow), as well as the
Championships record, of
21.95 (from July 9, 2000 in
Helsinki).

From the “king of sprint” to
the “king of distance”: Australia’s Kieren Perkins. At the
Atlanta 1996 Olympics, Perkins, also swimming in lane 8,
won gold in the 1500 metres
freestyle, in 14:56.40, well
ahead of compatriot Daniel
Kowalski. His stroke rate was
sustained, quite even, like a sprinter, and he managed to
keep it up throughout the race,
evidence of the hard training
he did to achieve that level of
fitness and efficiency.
Another Australian, Matt
Welsh, in Barcelona, at the
2003 FINA World Cham -
pionships, also swimming
from lane 8, won gold and set
a new world record in an event
he rarely swam, the 50m butterfly.
Welsh had built a reputation
as one of the world’s
best backstrokers of his era.

On July 2005, at the FINA
World Championships in
Montreal, Canada, three top
swimmers, all female, won
their respective races swimming
either in lane 8 or lane 1,
as they all barely made the
final. France’s Laure Manaudou won the women’s 400
metres freestyle, with the time
of 4:06.44. Manaudou was
under world-record pace for
the first half of the race. In the
second half, she was challenged
by Ai Shibata, of Japan
and the women who outreached her over 800m at the
2004 Olympics. Manaudou
eventually eclipsed the world
400m record set of 4:03.85
set by Janet Evans (USA) at
the 1988 Summer Olympics:
on May 12, 2006 on her way
to the French titles in Tours,
Manaudou clocked 4:03.03.

WINNERS
FROM LANE 1

At Montreal 2005, Kate
Ziegler, of the United States,
swimming in lane 1, won the
1,500 metres freestyle in the
time of 16:00.41, the third best
time ever (at that time, following
only world-record holder
Janet Evans’ 15:52.10 and
German Hannah Stock -
bauer‘s 16:00.18). Ziegler, a
rookie in the USA team, had
slipped almost unnoticed into
the final of the 1,500m free, on
16:26.75, the second slowest.
Ziegler also won the 800
metres world title, in 8:25.31.
Also at Montreal 2005 and
also from lane 1, Zimbabwe’s
Kirsty Coventry won the
women’s 100m backstroke
gold. It was a clear cut victory
as Coventry touched home in
1:00.24 ahead of Germany’s
defending champion Antje
Buschschulte, on 1:00.84.
American Natalie Coughlin
clocked 1:00.88. About swimming
in lane 1 and winning the
race, Coventry commented:
“You’ve got a lane and you
have to swim in it. Any lane is
good.” She was not put off by
her outside position, adding: “I
like lane 1 now. It’s my new
lane. I just swam my own race.
I couldn’t really see anybody
else. I was excited when I
touched the wall.”
From Athens 2004, two
Olympic gold medals were
won by women racing in lane
1: Romania’s Camelia Potec
in the 200 metres freestyle
and China’s Xuejuan Luo in
the 100 metres breaststroke.
On August 18, 2004, Potec
clinched the Olympic wo men’s 200 metres freestyle title with
a late surge down the final
length. The 22-year-old
Romanian, who won the
European title in Madrid in
May that year, turned third into
the last length and burst
through as world record holder
Franziska van Almsick saw
her dream of Olympic gold
fading away. Potec won in
1:58.03. Italy’s Federica
Pellegrini, then 16, the fastest
qualifier from the semifinals,
and Solenne Figués, of
France, were one-two into the
final turn but had to settle for
silver and bronze in 1:58.22
and 1:58.45 respectively. The
same happened in Atlanta,
1996, where the biggest
favourite, Jani Sievinen of
Finland touched the wall only
second to Attila Czene at the
200m IM: when the Hun garian
looked at the score-board his
first reaction was: “No, I can’t
believe it!” (Attila Czene was
recently appointed the secretary
of sports in the new government
in Hungary.)


Kate Ziegler

The 2004 Summer Olympics was the highlight of Luo
Xuejuan’s career. In Athens,
she claimed the 100m breaststroke crown in a Olympic
record of 1:06.64, the 3rd
fastest time in history at the
time, just 0.27 seconds off the
world record. She qualified for
the final in 7th on a mediocre
1:08.57; a remarkable feat
considering that she was one
of the slowest qualifiers for the
final and swam in the outermost
lane. Australian Leisel
Jones took bronze, with
1:07.16, after setting an
Olympic record of 1:06.78 in
her semi-final. On January 24,
2007, Luo announced her
retirement due to a heart condition:
doctors suggested that
her life could be in jeopardy if
she continued to train at the
intensity required for Olympiclevel
athletes. Following her
retirement, Luo resumed her
university studies. In 2008 she
became the first torchbearer
for China at the Beijing
Olympic Games.

Other winners from either
lane 8 or lane 1 in recent
years:

Melbourne 2007: USA
Women’s 4x200 metres
freestyle relay (lane 8)

Manchester 2008: Kylie
Palmer (AUS), women’s
200 metres freestyle (lane
8); Suzaan Val Biljon
(RSA), women’s 200
metres breaststroke (lane
1); Shayne Reese (AUS),
women’s 100m IM (lane
8; Duje Draganja (CRO),
men’s 50 metres freestyle
(lane 1); Nathan Adrian
(USA), men’s 100 metres
freestyle (lane 1); Yuri
Prilukov (RUS), men’s
400 metres free style
(lane 1); Liam Tan cock
(GBR), men’s 100 metres
backstroke (lane 8).

(Photos: Getty Images)