SA's awesome foursome hit the headlines

By Larry Lombaard

Athens - South Africa's golden boys led Olympic news in Greece and America after Roland Schoeman, Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend and Ryk Neethling broke the world 4x100m relay record for gold in the biggest upset of the Athens Olympics so far.

"South Africa's relay men cause upset of the Olympic Games," crowed the Olympic early Monday morning update on national Greek TV station Alpha. The station showed the entire relay, then focused on the jubilation of the foursome at the edge of the pool where Ferns, who turned 21 last month, stood on the block flexing his muscles and waving the South African flag.

"The South Africans dashed Michael Phelps' hopes of winning eight Olympic gold medals in major upset," lamented CNN's Olympic update.

Phelps came to Athens with aspirations of beating fellow-American Mark Spitz's Olympic record of seven golds at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the Australians, even with the legendary Ian Thorpe injected into their ranks, only finished sixth.

"Thorpedo Exploded" blared the Elleftrtyipia (Free Press) daily headline.

"Phelps re-counting his beads after South Africans sink ambitions of great stars to bottom of pool."

Ta Nea (The News) headlined it's story: "4x100m Lashed by SA Storm." The Greek TV coverage highlighted that one heart-stopping moment when Ferns, in his wild excitement, reached way down from the block to give Neethling a high-five and almost fell forward into the pool, but he was grabbed and steadied by Schoeman at the last moment. Fina rules stipulate disqualification if team-members jump into the water to celebrate victory with the anchor swimmer.

"He nearly went in, I grabbed him back just in time" said Schoeman at an international media conference attended by sports minister Reverend Makhenkesi Stofile before his departure to South Africa on Monday.

Neethling said on Monday that "few people in and outside of swimming gave us a chance here. We knew we were fast, but we didn't know how fast and we surprised even ourselves with that world record.

"Since coming down from the 1500m to sprints, this has been a new adventure for me." And what an adventure. They stunned everyone inside and outside of the pool when they became instant heroes by winning the first Olympic gold medal for their country with a world record 3min 13,17sec.

They devastated the fancied Americans and Australians who boosted their teams with Phelps and Thorpe respectively. But the South Africans left them in their wake as Schoeman, with the fastest reaction time of 0,65sec off the block, set the pace with his 48,17sec.

Ferns was quicker than Phelps (48,74) in his leg with 48,13sec and Townsend kept the momentum going with 48,96 then big Neethling opened up with a spectacular 47,91 to beat Australia's world record of 3:13,67 set at Sydney 2000.

Holland, claiming second, also broke the world record with 3:14,36 and America (Ian Crocker, Phelps, Neil Walker and Lezak) cut under the mark with 3:14,62.

The South African foursome beat Holland's Johan Kenkhuis, Mitja Zastrow, Klaas-Erik Zwering and Pieter Van den Hoogenband who swam 3:14,36. Neethling and Townsend sacrificed competing in the 200m freestyle to keep their outstanding form intact.

Schoeman, who may have a surprise in store in the 50 metre and 100m freestyle events - he swims the 100 freestyle heats on Tuesday - said he gave the glory of his swim to God and would consider his future after the Olympics. "If I can manage it financially, I'll carry on swimming. There's no such thing as professional swimming in South Africa. I need to live comfortably without restrictions. Also having a sports scientist here with us would have helped with recovery advice in the South African camp."

Townsend, who turns 20 on August 28 and who matriculated at Maritzburg College in 2002, leaves on September 3 shortly after arriving home from the Olympics to a scholarship at the University of Florida. "I would have liked to have joined Roland, Ryk and Lyndon at Tucson. There was communication but I hadn't heard anything from them by the time I got in at Florida." Ferns' jubilation was compounded by the fact that he made it into the team after a dramatic swim-off time trial in Athens last week in which he displaced Karl Thaning and Eugene Botes.

"When I was about to take over from Roland I saw this huge lead almost by a body length and I knew that Phelps was not that quick," said Ferns.

"I worked to hold him off and then when Ryk touched for the last 50m I knew that no one would beat them out of medals. We were a bit worried after swimming so fast for the morning heats, so we were a bit nervous before the final." The youngster, who grew up in Marble Hall in the Northern Province, recently joined Schoeman and Neethling at Tucson University in Arizona.

The pair, who have been low-profile icons among soccer, rugby and cricket-mad South Africans, have made huge sacrifices in their commitment and spent thousands of hours in the pool over the last decade to peak at these Games.

Chef de Mission of the South African team, Hajera Kajee, paid an emotional tribute to the swimmers and said she spoke on behalf of millions in thanking them for their commitment and effort.

She said afterwards that Nocsa were still talking to their business partners about incentives for medals. In Sydney, athletes were offered R1-million for gold, R500 000 for silver and R250 000 for bronze.

The sports minister, who was conducting political affairs with Slovenians, paid tribute to the swimmers and said that he would have loved to have stayed on. "But I'm not the Minister of Olympics, I have other sporting events to attend to," he quipped. "But, like that Elvis Presley song, you will be "forever on my mind." - Sapa