A few months before the start of the Olympic Games, franceinfo: sport takes you into the little stories that make up the great history of the Games. In this episode, we return to the path of the cross of what is perhaps the weakest team of all time at the Olympics.
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This story of the Games could be the subject of a film Rasta Rocket. Except that here, no happy ending with a public that takes a liking to the Jamaican bobsleigh team. No triumphant morality to the glory of the sporting spirit dear to Baron de Coubertin, nor empathy for magnificent losers. Just disbelief and dismay. Even laughter as the adventures of three Nickel-plated Feet in Rome defy all the traditional values of Olympism.
The Olympic fiasco
Four years after celebrating its independence, Tunisia wants to do well at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. She sent some great champions, including the national boxing star Sadok Omrane, but, keen to be present in all disciplines, she also sent a pentathlon team to the Italian capital. With hindsight, one wonders if Lakdar Bouzid, Habib Ben Azzabi and Ahmed Ennachi, the three selected, had already heard of this discipline.
Totally improvised, absolutely unprepared, this trio will go through the five team events between grotesque farce and complete imposture, as recounted on the IOC website. If the three friends succeed rather well in running, the following four sports turn into a debacle. In swimming, the Tunisian representative almost drowned and had to be rescued, purely and simply. The shot is hardly a success since one of the three men is eliminated… for having shot too close to a judge!
From Zorro to zero
Next comes horse riding. The ordeal of Bouzid, Ben Azzabi and Ennachi continues after none of them managed to stay on their horse. But this upside down Dream Team has saved the best for last: discovering a certain talent for the sword, the last event of this pentathlon, one of the three Tunisian fighters tries to take the place of his two companions for the other duels hoping that his mask will deceive the vigilance of the judges. Missed. The deception was quickly spotted and the team was immediately disqualified after a zero score.
In the end, the Tunisian team will finish last in the pentathlon with 5,126 points. Very far from the 14,863 units of the Hungarian gold medalists. Researchers, intrigued by this historic “performance”, have established that, in a 100 m race, this gap would be equivalent to 75 m between the winner and the last! Fallen into oblivion, this team had the merit of pushing to its climax the adage that the important thing is to participate.