PHILIP, ERIC Y SHIZO

        In the world of sports, who does not know Usain Bolt, Rafa Nadal, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Pelé, Miguel Indurain and a long etcetera. Well, today we will not talk about them, but about three 'athletes' who had much more discreet performances in each of their sports disciplines.
        Philip Boit was the first Kenyan to participate in the Winter Olympics, specifically in Nagano in 1998. The distance to be covered was 10 km. finishing 92nd out of 92 entrants; the winner of the test made a time of 20 minutes and 1 second, leaving our protagonist until 47 minutes and 25 seconds. This meant that the awarding of the medals had to be delayed, but the sporting gesture was actually carried out by Bjorn Daehlie, the brand new winner, who waited for Boit at the finish line to hug him upon his arrival. This was not forgotten by Boit who would later baptize one of his children with the name of the winner.
        The most mediatic of our three athletes today was Eric Moussambani. This Guinean who was nicknamed ´El Anguila´ participated in swimming, in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, in the 100 meter freestyle test. A few months before going to this appointment, he learned to swim in a river, in the sea, and was even allowed to use a hotel pool that measured 12 meters, but when he arrived at the facilities where he was going to compete and see the pool of 50 meters exclaimed: “I can't do it!”.

        Moussambani had to face two rivals from Niger and Tajikistan in the first round, but both were disqualified for false starts and the Equatorial Guinean had to swim alone. He did a very worthy first part of the race, completing the first 50 meters in 40'97 seconds, but the ordeal began when he went around the pool; each stroke he took was distressing, the clock kept running and the pool seemed to get bigger, he showed signs of total exhaustion and the last 10 meters became eternal for him, for the people who were in the pool who constantly encouraged him and for the that we were watching him through television, that we were pushing so that he could get there. The final time was 1'52'72, but he made clear that spirit of effort and self-improvement, stating in an interview the following: “everyone believes that success is winning a medal, but mine was to enter that race”.
        We have to go back to the year 1912 in the J.J.O.O. of Sweden, where this peculiar anecdote took place, to say the least. Shizo Kanakuri participated in the marathon event and before competing he had to travel from his country, Japan, to the Scandinavian country. His trip on the Trans-Siberian railway lasted ´only´ 18 days and to this we had to add several mishaps, such as food poisoning, which made him arrive at the marathon dispute in totally precarious conditions. On the day of the race, around kilometer 30, Kanakuri had to say enough, his body couldn't take it anymore and he had to abandon the race, without notifying the judges of the race who gave him up for missing, discovering after some time that he had competed in different Olympic marathons later.
        More than 50 years later, in 1966, Swedish television contacted him to offer him to finish his degree. So he did and completed the marathon in a time of 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes and 20 seconds, at 77 years old.
        Patience is an Asian virtue...