Suriname's Anthony Nesty Beats Matt Biondi To Butterfly Gold - Seoul 1988 Olympics

Known as the &from Suriname&Anthony Nesty defeats the golden boy of American swimming Matt Biondi to win the men&100m butterfly gold medal at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games. Anthony Nesty was brought up in a country whose population was a little over 350,000 and boasted just one 50-metre swimming pool. The lack of facilities and competition forced him to relocate to the United States where he trained at the University of Florida. He failed to qualify for the 100m butterfly final at Los Angeles in 1984 but he gradually started the improvement which moved him into the world class bracket. Nesty won the gold at his specialist event at the 1987 Pan-American Games but by the time the Seoul final came around he raced in the shadow of American Golden Boy Matt Biondi. Biondi would leave South Korea with five gold medals but a sixth had looked a certainty as he stormed into a sizeable lead in the closing stages of the 100m butterfly at the Jamsil swimming arena. Yet the American timed his surge for the wall poorly, choosing to glide rather than kick from some distance out, allowing Nesty to touch home first by one hundredth of a second. Neither swimmer could believe the scoreboard when they looked up, with Nesty having recorded a new Olympic record time of 53 seconds dead. Thousands lined the streets of Suriname to greet their conquering hero; a new set of coins and postage stamps commemorated his achievement, a plane was named after him and even a local sports stadium. His...