Do you know who is Éric Moussambani?

This is the incredible story about a Guinean swimmer who was able to take part in the Olympic Games.

Moussambani was a wide-eyed 22-year-old when he made his way to Sydney for the Games: “I’d never even heard of Sydney or Australia, and it was the first time I’d ever been outside my country. The trip took three days and there were a lot of stopovers.”

The intrepid Moussambani was awestruck when he arrived at the Olympic Village and saw the facilities at Homebush Bay, home to the first 50m pool he had ever set eyes on: “I was scared by the sight of the first pool I’d be racing in.”.

"I come from Equatorial Guinea, a small country in the centre of Africa,” explains Eric Moussambani, who emerged as an unlikely hero of the Olympic pool at Sydney 2000. “I started swimming when I left school. We didn’t have a swimming pool. We didn’t have anything, and I went to train at a private hotel pool that was about 13 metres long I think.

“I trained on my own and I had no swimming experience. The pool was only available from 5am to 6am and I was only able to train for three hours a week. I used to go swimming in rivers and the sea too, though. The fishermen would tell me how to use my legs and how to swim. There was nothing professional about it at all.”