Monday Milestone: Lane Eight

In the spirit of London 2012, over the coming weeks the Monday Milestone will take on an Olympic flavour, as we examine some of the great moments in Summer Games history

This Week in History:
1996,   July 26
Kieran Perkins stuns Australia by winning gold in the men’s 1500m freestyle final in Atlanta from lane eight.

“A great Australian jumps out of the box… This is rare gold, the best kind of gold”
Commentators calling Perkins home in the final stages

The final turn. The bell rang. The lead was at least fifteen metres. All eyes should have been on the middle of the pool, as the duel over the final few laps was for Olympic gold.

Instead all the action was in lane eight…

Four years earlier, in Barcelona, Australian Kieran Perkins had lowered the 1500 metre world freestyle record to previously unthinkable levels. Here was a distance swimmer like none before him. In the coming years, with further records and titles, his dominance over the distance meant that by 1996, Perkins headed to Atlanta as a huge favourite.

That year, the Centennial Olympic Games returned to the United States, a surprise hosting choice. Yet amidst all the transport concerns and the bombing that would occur, the world would focus on the deep south of America for the Games of the XXVI Olympiad.

During the first week, when the 1500m qualifying heats began, it took just a few laps for Australia to realise something was very wrong with Kieran Perkins. Gone was the characteristically smooth stroke, the natural glide through the water. His time was abnormally slow. This was not what Australia had expected.

Almost forty seconds outside his world record, Perkins failed to even win his heat, and had the ignominy of waiting on tenterhooks to see whether or not he would even make the Olympic final. Experts say a fingernail was all that separated Perkins between qualifying eighth and ninth, between his shot at Olympic title defence and missing the final altogether. He’d just scraped in.

By the final, the world had written Perkins off. Australia’s hopes now lay with countryman Daniel Kowalski. But as they lined up at the blocks, little did Australia realise what they were about to witness.

From the starting gun, Kieran Perkins surprised everyone, taking Kowalski on, going out hard. His stroke was back, the stomach cramps and lethargy of two nights before, seemed a distant memory. He looked a different swimmer – more like the Kieran Perkins Australia had fallen in love with.

At the 800m mark, Perkins inexplicably led the field. The world waited for him to slow. Surely he couldn’t maintain this level of intensity. How long would he be able to keep up this charade?

Yet by the 1000m, he had turned in less than ten minutes, and was well clear from the rest of the field. Was he going to hang on? Australia dared to dream.

As the bell sounded for the final two laps, Perkins was on the cusp of one of the truly great victories. He was nowhere near his world record but it didn’t matter. This was all about Olympic gold.

When Kieran Perkins touched the wall first, he climbed out of the pool, raising his arms in triumph, and a nation stood both dumbfounded and ecstatic. Courage, determination and Olympic legend proved to the world that sometimes gold medals can be won from the last places we expect.

Even lane eight.

 

Milestone Five: Highlights of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics

5. Swimmer Michelle Smith becomes the most decorated Irish Olympian with three gold medals. Even though she would later receive a four year suspension for doping, her medals stand.

4. Canadian Donovan Bailey breaks the 100m track record lowering the mark to 9.84 seconds.

3. A pipe bomb goes off in Centennial Olympic Park killing two people and injuring over one hundred.

2.  Michael Johnson wins the 200m race in 19.32 seconds, a mark many thought was going to stand forever, before the introduction of Usain Bolt.

1. Against all odds, Kieran Perkins wins gold from lane eight in the men’s 1500m freestyle final, rated by many as among Australia’s finest Olympic moments