How it unfolded
Matt Biondi was chasing seven medals at Seoul, and the 100m butterfly was considered his surest bet among them. In the lane beside him was Suriname's 20-year-old Anthony Nesty, who had grown up training at the Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, since his home country had only one 50-metre pool. Biondi led through the final 25 metres. But approaching the wall, Biondi chose to glide rather than take one more stroke, and Nesty snuck in an extra half-stroke to get his hand to the pad first. The board read Nesty 53.00, Biondi 53.01, a hundredth of a second, less than the length of a hand. Britain's Andy Jameson took bronze in 53.30. Nesty became the first Black swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal, and the medal was Suriname's first ever at the Olympics. Biondi went on to sweep seven medals overall, including five golds, in his remaining events, but the moment Seoul is remembered for most is the hundredth of a second he lost.
Why it still matters
This final is the clearest example of why finishing technique is treated as its own separate discipline in swimming. The judgment of whether to glide into the wall or squeeze in an extra half-stroke went into every coach's playbook afterward, and twenty years later in Beijing, Michael Phelps made exactly the opposite choice against Milorad Cavic and won the same hundredth of a second. Nesty later became head coach at the University of Florida and led the American men's team at Paris 2024.