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Eric Moussambani Malonga

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Also known as Eric the Eel

Equatoguinean swimmer

Key facts

Full name
Eric Moussambani Malonga
Born
( 1978-05-31 ) 31 May 1978 (age 48) , Malabo , Equatorial Guinea
Country
Equatorial Guinea
Sport
Swimming
Events
50 m freestyle 100 m freestyle
Personal bests
50 m freestyle : 27.9 Hand Timed</span>"}]]}'>s NR (2004) 100 m freestyle : 52.18 Hand Timed</span>"}]]}'>s NR (2006)

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Eric
Gender
male
Place of birth
Malabo
Occupation
swimmer
Languages spoken
French
Participant in
2000 Summer Olympics
Country for sport
Equatorial Guinea
Height
197
Show 2 more facts
date of birth
1978-05-31
name in native language
Éric Moussambani
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~5 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Eric Moussambani Malonga (born 31 May 1978) is an Equatoguinean swimmer. Nicknamed Eric the Eel by the media, Moussambani gained brief international fame at the 2000 Summer Olympics for an extremely unlikely victory. Moussambani, who had never seen an Olympic-sized (50-metre [160 ft]) swimming pool before, swam his heat of the 100 metre freestyle on 19 September in a time of 1:52.72. This was the slowest time in Olympic history by far, and Moussambani had trouble finishing the race, but he won his heat after both his competitors were disqualified due to false starts. Although Moussambani's time was still too slow to advance to the next round, he set a new personal best and an Equatoguinean national record. Moussambani eventually lowered his national record to 57 seconds , almost halving the time of his Olympic performance. He later became the coach of the national swimming squad of Equatorial Guinea.

In 2006, Moussambani achieved his personal best for the 100 metre of 52.18 at a meet in Germany, more than 60 seconds faster than his 2000 Olympic race and 5.78 seconds behind the current world record of 46.40, set by Pan Zhanle at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Eric Moussambani Malonga” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.