While watching a swimming competition one night, I came across an unbelievable sight. It was not a gold medal, or a world record broken, but a show of courage. The event started with only three men on the blocks. For one reason or another, two of them false started, so they were disqualified. That left only one to complete. In fact, it is difficult enough, not having anyone to race against. I watched the man dive off the block and knew right away that something was wrong. I'm not an expert swimmer, but I can tell a good dive from a poor one, and this was not exactly medal quality. When he resurfaced, it was obvious that the man was not out for gold -- his arms were waving in an attempt at freestyle. The crowd started to laugh. Clearly this man was not a medal competitor. I listened to the crowd beginning to laugh at this poor man who was clearly having a hard time. Finally he made his turn to start back. It was pitiful. He made a few desperate strokes   and you could tell he was exhausted. But in those few awful strokes, the crowd had changed. No longer were they laughing, but beginning to cheer. Some even began to stand and shout "Come on, you can do it!" and he did. This young man finally finished his race. The crowd went wild. Even though he recorded one of the slowest times in swimming history, this man gave more heart than any of the other competitors. Just a short year ago, he had never even swum, let alone race. His country had been invited to the competition. In a competition, we usually watch the brilliant athletes competing for medals, but _ . From the passage we learn that the young man   _  .
made his turn to start back pitifully was skillful at freestyle swimming swam faster than the average swimmer seemed unlikely to win a gold medal