One minute and three seconds are enough to make Paula Barila Bolopa famous. The media swarm the swimmer at the edge of the pool, a radio station is live via mobile, 17,000 fans celebrate her frenetically. Yet she has just set a negative record: Paula Barila Bolopa, the first woman to compete for Equatorial Guinea in Olympic swimming, swam the 50-meter freestyle in 1:03.97—the slowest time in Olympic history. And many people are there precisely for that reason.
Just a few days earlier, her compatriot Éric Moussambani, also a swimming novice, had become the Olympic icon as “Eric the Eel”. The audience has developed a taste for the narrative. Thus Paula Barila Bolopa’s bellyflops off the starting block and her agonizingly slow thrashing over 50 meters are celebrated like a medal. “It was further than I thought. I am very tired,” says the woman who has never swum 50 meters in one go, exhausted afterward. The media mockingly nicknamed her “Paula the Crawler,” the crawler.
There has always been a fascination in sport with the outclassed, last-placed competitors. Those imperfect, plucky figures who persevere and in whom the audience sees themselves. Suddenly genuine international solidarity becomes possible. At the same time, there is something paternalistic and exposing when hopeless last-place athletes—often people from precarious states—are co-opted as icons. A study in the Brazilian Revista Brasileira de Ciências do Esporte concludes that media in the cases of Barila Bolopa and Moussambani repeatedly used racist stereotypes or spread racially tinged false reports. For example, it said Barila Bolopa had to swim at home with crocodiles.
The cheerful losers are loved because they do not challenge hierarchies. When Black records tumble, for instance in running events, that is quickly met with suspicion. Also successes from geopolitically rival states like Russia, China or Iran are not regarded as heroic fairy tales. The rest of the world is celebrated best as brave dwarfs.
Serious Olympic Criticism
Yet Paula Barila Bolopa does indeed offer serious Olympic criticism. The 18-year-old, who is actually studying to become an accountant, plays soccer, and only began swimming training a few weeks before the tournament, must practice in a hotel pool or in the sea due to a lack of swimming facilities. She does not even own a high-quality swimsuit. “I know that I will never win, because I do not have the same prerequisites,” she says calmly. “Athletes like me are already at a disadvantage before the event starts.”
The time in Sydney could only be funded for the penniless Paula Barila Bolopa thanks to IOC financial support. For a few days, she was something like a social-media hit of the pre–Social Media era—and then quickly forgotten. Because for women like her there is still another rule: long-term cult heroes are almost always male losers. Like the British skier Michael Edwards, alias “Eddie the Eagle,” or the Jamaican bobsled team, both protagonists of popular film adaptations. Or Éric Moussambani alias “Eric the Eel.” He used his appearance in 2000 to build a successful media career and is today the national coach of Equatorial Guinea. The second pioneer Paula Barila Bolopa often disappears from the rest of the story. Even among the last, the men come first.
What happened to Barila Bolopa? World Aquatics lists no further competitions, and the internet and social media remain silent as well. And the federation currently has no female swimmers at all. Paula Barila Bolopa has vanished from the world stage after her minute of fame. Who knows whether she mourns it or is quite glad about it.
