She was close to Jesus Christ only in name. This one was not as good as the Biblical Mary Magdalene for Madeline de Jesus was a cheat who tried to deceive the world at the Los Angeles ’84 Olympic Games. She connived with her twin sister, Margaret, but was eventually caught and shamed by the Puerto Rican athletics coach.
Margaret Jesus represented Puerto Rico in Track and Field at the Olympics. In the Long Jump event, she fell to injury. Her sister, Madeline, was in Los Angeles to cheer and watch. The sisters struck a deal. Madeline was to stand in for Margaret in the 4×400 metres relay and she made it to the finals. Seven other teams, United States, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Jamaica and India, also qualified.
Moments before the blast of the starters gun for the final, the Puerto Rican coach discovered their trick. He stopped the country from taking part in the race. There is no record of sanctions by the International Olympic Committee after that startling observation. The event was won by the United States quartet of Valerie Brisco-Hooks, Llillie Leatherwood, Sherri Howard and Chandra Cheeseborough.
Brisco-Hooks thus won her third Los Angeles ’84 gold medal after winning the 200 and 400metres respectively. Cheeseborough set a record of being the first to win gold in both Olympic relays. She had earlier picked the top spot with the trio of Alice Brown, Jeannette Boldon and Evelyn Ashford.
Margaret and Madeline Jesus could not get away with their crooked ways thereby denying their team mates, Evelyn Mathieu, Angelita Lind and Marie Lande Mathieu a chance to run in an Olympic final. What a coincidence that a member of the silver winning team from Canada bore the name Charmain Crooks.
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Margaret and Madeline de Jesus had their namesakes running in the 4×400 metres at the Olympics, long before Los Angeles. Madeline Manning won silver for the United States at the Munich ’72 Games. Canada’s Margaret Stride finished in the last position at Montreal ’76.
Atlanta ’96 also presented something similar to what the de Jesus twins did in Los Angeles.
Dieudonne Kwizera of Burundi tried all he could to take part in the Olympics. In 1988 and 1992, his country had no Olympic committee.
Then in 1996, he could not qualify so his country made him a coach and flag bearer.
Two days to the 1,500 metres event, his friend, Venuste Niyongabo, who had won bronze at the World Championships, and was one of the favourites in Atlanta, decided to drop out and concentrate solely on the 5,000 metres. It was strange because Niyongabo had only raced twice in that event. It was indeed a gamble.
Niyongabo convinced Kwizera to take his place in the 1,500 metres. He did but was not so sure if officials would stop him. They did not and the coach turned athlete was able to run and finished in the sixth place which was not enough to take him to the semi finals. In the final, Noureddine Morceli, of Algeria won the gold medal.
“I was proud of myself. I was finally an Olympian”, Kwizera said excitedly after the race. Winning was not everything, that is the Olympic motto. Participation is as good as medals.
Niyongabo’s gamble paid off. The Tutsi Burundian, raced to the gold medal in the 5,000 metres. In this case, an athlete made a coach enter a competition in which he was not originally registered. In the de Jesus’ case, a coach stopped his country from taking part in an event because an athlete who was not registered actually took participated.
We have seen a number of Olympic medal winning twins after Margaret and Madeline de Jesus missed the Los Angeles final. Davidson and Osmond Ezinwa, represented Nigeria at the Barcelona ’92 Games while Americans, Calvin and Alvin Harrison, were at Sydney 2000.
The Ezinwas left Barcelona with a record. It was the first time Nigeria would win a medal in the men’s 4×100 metres relay. The silver winning quartet comprised Davidson Ezinwa, Olapade Adeniken, Kayode Oluyemi and Chidi Imoh. Osmond was a reserve.
The Harrisons set an Olympic record in Sydney by becoming the first twins to win Olympic gold together on the same relay team. It turned out to be a bad moment for them and their country.
In 2008, one of their American quartet, Antonio Pettigrew, admitted to having run under the influence of performance enhancing drugs.
The gold medal was withdrawn and awarded to silver medalists, Nigeria. Calvin Harrison did not quite recover from that misfortune. He lost his job, had no income and a some point was rendered homeless in San Jose.
Twins can also play some pranks. Okey Uche and his twin brother, Emeka, played soccer. Okey was more successful. Before he joined Iwuanyanwu Nationale, Owerii from Flash Flamingoes, Benin, club officials had to find a way of accommodating Uche in the Owerri team.
The twins moved together and Uche was not willing to leave his brother behind if he could use that to their advantage.
