"I don't know Smirk about women's swimming, but apparently Misty Hyman is a good swimmer. She's not the best, tho. When she lined up to compete in the 200-meter butterfly, the announcers told us she didn't have a chance because the greatest lady swimmer in the world, Susie O'Neill, was in that race. Susie O'Neill, known in swimming circles as "Madame Butterfly," was so dominant in this sport, they called it "the Susie stroke" - whatever it is that they do to win this race. Besides Susie, the second greatest swimmer in the world, Petria Thomas, was there, too, and then there was little Misty Hyman from Stanford.
NBC, bless their greedy hearts, did something right. They placed a camera right next to the time clock.
Somehow, this Misty Hyman girl swam the race of her life Wednesday. Well, actually it was Tuesday, because the time changes ...
So she finishes the race, and the announcers are going ape-shit, screaming, "This is the biggest upset in Olympic history,"
I imagine they meant, "the biggest upset in Olympic women's 200- butterfly history," but I don't know Dole about the history of women's swimming, so I'll trust them.
Here comes the good part:
Not only am I an exceptional lip-reader, I read faces pretty good, too. When Misty finished kicking Aussie butt, first thing she did was surface and hear the crowd going ape-shit. She knew something had happened, but she was underwater when it occured so she was searching for a clue.
The first thing she did was look at the clock or the scoreboard, whatever it's called, and you could tell she was having trouble finding her name. She was looking in the middle of the pack of names and couldn't find hers.
All this time, remember, NBC had a close-up of her face filling the screen. You could see the confusion on her face, wondering where her name was on the scoreboard.
Then her eyes focused and she found her name at the damn top! She'd won this race!
She saw her name at the top of the list and immediately told herself that that couldn't be right because the goddesses of swimming were in the race with her, and her face told me she thought there'd been some kind of mistake. Then she looked around and saw the Americans screaming and hopping around like they were from Kansas City, and it started to dawn on her what she'd done. She looked to the left and to the right - I suppose she was looking for someone to pinch her, because she was having trouble accepting what her eyes and ears were telling had just happened.
As the seconds ticked by, it slowly started to sink in. Looking right into the camera, first she said, "Oh, my..." then she said, "Oh, my God!" She had just beaten the top two swimmers in the world and set an Olympic record!! She started bouncing up and down in the water in a fit of pure joy.
That look on her face - priceless.
Her buddy seems pretty excited, too.
Eventually, her eyes and ears overruled her brain and convinced her
she'd actually won.
Then, the reward for her years of work:
Clutching the gold medal while they played our national anthem."
-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 23, 2000.