Word: meterable
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...first evening of the swimming program, the expectations of millions found perfection in 10 laps of the Olympic pool. Thorpe won two gold medals, broke his own world record for the 400-meter freestyle and shared another world best with three teammates when he anchored Australia's 4 x 100 freestyle relay team to victory over the U.S. - a country that had never failed to win that event at an Olympics. For Thorpe, it had been the "best minute, best hour, best day, best week" of his life. "To be able to dream and to fulfill it is the best...
...also the hardest-working athlete of a select breed. "I'm very fortunate to have what I have, and really it is a gift," Thorpe said. "And I'm very thankful for that." Thorpe's long, graceful stroke and explosive kick were on show in the 400-meter freestyle. He was a full second ahead at the first turn and swam the rest of the race in style for a new world record of 3:40.59. It gave him his first Olympic title - and, amid the country's wild celebrations, he thanked God, the crowd, the nation, his family...
...Australian swimming idol Dawn Fraser, three-time winner of the Olympic 100-meter freestyle and a teenage champion in 1956, said the relay was the best race she had seen. Most observers were wondering whether they had seen the best swimmer of all time. Australia's head coach, Don Talbot, once described Thorpe as possibly the "swimmer of the century." On Saturday night, the chatty coach was almost lost for words. "How can you enhance the opinion I've got of him?" said Talbot. "I don't have the superlatives." But it was the question that commentators were not going...
...reviving old rivalries and burying past failures. The Sydney Games' first session of track cycling was tipped as a tussle for gold between France and Australia: Arnaud Tournant and Shane Kelly in the men's 1-km time trial; Felicia Ballanger and Michelle Ferris in the women's 500-meter time trial. For Kelly the crowd wanted more than Olympic glory; after his tragically brief showing at Atlanta, where his foot slipped from the pedal, they wanted to cheer him to gold. After being placed on the track with his shoes already attached to the pedals, Kelly started smoothly...
There was no such upset in the women's 500-meter time trial. Ballanger, the event's five-time world champion, held Ferris to silver in the sprint at Atlanta and repeated the feat in the 500 meters at Sydney. Ferris was elated with her 34.696 seconds, but then had to watch as the French superstar, her face contorted with exertion, snatched the lead - and gold - by just over half a second...