Yesterday's Olympian of the day

Alexei Nemov

T he Olympics is about who can run faster, jump higher, lift more, yes. But that is merely on the surface.

There is another part to the Olympics -- the part that is not flashed on the IBM scoreboards, the part that we don't always see if we are not looking for it.

It is the best part of all. It is the part where the supreme athlete challenges not just his competitors, but himself.

One such athlete is Alexei Nemov. His fans call him 'Sexy Alexei'. His coaches, and the officials of the Russian gymnastics federation, call him other, less printable, names.

There is a history to that. In 1996, Nemov was a brash youngster who was possibly worth a medal or two to the Russians. As it turned out, he won five. As a result, he was elevated to the Messiah, the man who would spearhead Russia's bid to recover some of its fading glory.

There is nothing as precious as hope -- and for a while, hope for the Russians was spelt N-i-m-o-v.

But there is also nothing as dangerous as hope -- the person who arouses it then becomes fair game. His triumphs go largely unnoticed -- after all, he is expected to win, he is the champion for god's sake! But only let him lose, and he realises just how unforgiving man, in the mass, can be. To every fan of the sport, his defeat becomes a personal betrayal, to be avenged with blood.

It was not long before Nemov learnt that lesson. When he left Atlanta, it was as a rising star, of enormous promise. But in the championships that followed, the blank cheque Nemov wrote for fans of the sport came back with 'Insufficient Funds' stamped on it.

The last straw was piled on the back of Russia's gymnastics administration in May, when he single-handedly botched his country's chances at the European Championships in Germany.

The defeat was seen as the final straw. 'He won't win in Sydney,' Leonid Arkaev said at the time. Which was akin to a judge pronouncing sentence of death -- Arkaev heads the Russian gymnastics programme.

And then came Sydney. September 16, the Olympic team preliminaries, and Nemov was a man reborn. He anchored his uninspired team so brilliantly that almost single-handedly, he ensured for Russia a silver ahead of Ukraine, and behind China.

'That must have taken a lot out of him,' Arkaev said. 'He has a shoulder injury, he won't be able to repeat in the men's individual championships.'

That assessment would have been true of ordinary men. In the intensely charged field of Gymnastics, Superman would struggle for a bronze. To go in with a shoulder injury, against a field headed by double world champion Ivan Ivankov of Belarus, was pure folly.

Or so it seemed, until Nemov, leading off on the high bar, turned in an immaculate 9.797 and challenged the field to catch him. From then on, he simply got better, apparatus after apparatus. Ivankov was beaten back, Wei Yang of China ran him close, Blaine Wilson threatened briefly....

But when the dust cleared, there was just one man left standing, tall and proud. A man with an injured shoulder. Alexei Nemov, individual Olympic gymnastics champion.

He went through his events in pain -- but never, not once, did the smallest wince mar the impassivity of his features. His rivals winced often -- when they saw their own scores in each apparatus, and when they saw his.

For four years, as he sleepwalked through major competitions, they tried, but failed, to understand him. Here in Sydney, as the man with the indomitable spirit and inflexible will encased in a steel body bit back pain to subdue a class field, they still don't understand him. What, they are still asking themselves, gave Nemov the drive to do the unthinkable?

We will never know. But then, we are not meant to know.

Champions are not meant to be understood -- they are there to be admired.