Frank Lescas was thrilled about his far-fetched journey from Pennsylvania to Albania as the country's entire Olympic swimming team. Until he saw the practice pool.
There was no water in it."People sometimes don't have running water in the house," he said. "How can I expect them to put gallons and gallons of water in a 50-meter pool?"
Lescas, a sprint swimmer from suburban Philadelphia who never had been in Albania, will be a 21-year-old senior at La Salle.
He first thought about swimming for Albania last February after hearing on television that Americans of Italian descent made up most of that country's Olympic hockey team. Because his grandparents were born in Albania he was put on the team.
Lescas continued his swim training at home, then arrived in Albania on July 10 in preparation for his trip to Barcelona. He was told there were two 50-meter pools, a 25-meter pool and a 15-meter diving well to practice in.
"I said, `Cool.' So I got there. No water," Lescas said. "It was really a downer." He was forced to practice in the Adriatic Sea.
That was a minor inconvenience compared with the hardships of Albanian life he observed. Some parts of Tirana, the capital of Europe's poorest country, have been without water for two weeks.
He completed his Olympic races Thursday when he finished 50th out of 75 swimmers in the 50-meter freestyle preliminaries.