Net gains for Olympic stars

Swimming stars are high on the e-mail chart lists

By Paul Cohen, Sydney

The days of stooped postmen carrying sackfuls of fan-mail to the doors of Olympic champions are long gone.

These are the very-Modern Olympics and if you want to say 'well done Cathy' or 'Go Thorpey Go', send an e-mail.

Down at the IBM Surf Shack on Darling Harbour plenty of fans have been sending their good luck/well done/we love you messages over the internet.

By the end of the second week of the Games 70,000 people had lined up outside the IBM tent to mail their heroes through a special fan-mail site linked to the Olympic Village.

Thankful

The athletes are appreciative. A webcam trained on the internet café at the Village shows as much activity as there is at the Surf Shack.

Dutch swimmer Inge de Bruijn was delighted to receive 400 e-mails after winning her first gold medal of the Games while athletes have created more than 3,000 personal web pages of their own.

The number of e-mails coming into the Village approaches 350,000 when those sent from PCs around the world are accounted for.

"This is a great way of showing support," said Felicity Wever-Norris, spokeswoman for the fan-mail project.

"The athletes are so closeted at the Village and the messages give them great encouragement especially those from poorer nations who don't have big crowds cheering for them in the stadiums. Many have written back."

The Surf Shack is a young person's playground. Most of the e-mailers are in their young teens, most are young girls and most only have e-eyes for Ian Thorpe.

The Thorpedo is lengths ahead of his nearest rivals for attention and affection in a top ten dominated by Aussie swimmers.

Top ten

But also in the top ten is Romanian gymnast Andrea Raducan, who has won much sympathy after being stripped of her gold medal, the Equatorial Guinea swimmer Eric Moussambani, enjoying cult status after his devastatingly slow 100m freestyle swim, and in second place, separating Thorpe and Cathy Freeman, is the Italian Tae-Kwon-Do man Claudio Nolano.

Claudio who? "Claudio came down here with an Italian TV crew and made a plea for fan-mail," said Wever-Norris. "It seems to have done the trick."

Back on the terminals 14-year-old Sydneysiders Mary and Miriam were sending Thorpe his umpteenth mail while 13-year old Philip Kardoulias from Greece was showing some originality.

"I just told Maurice Greene he is my favourite runner and I wanted to be as fast as him one day," he said.

Philip had also wanted to congratulate the Greek 200m winner Konstantinos Kenteris but he could not find his name listed.

Cyberspace was obviously as surprised as anyone else about that victory.