If human cloning ever becomes more than science fiction,
there's little doubt that Olympians will be
near the top of the list.
Imagine a pool full of Spitz.
Or Bolt taking on Bolt.
It might seem like fantasy, but I have a surprise for you.
You've seen plenty of clones at the Olympics already.
In a cunning effort to defeat science,
nature gave us identical twins.
And what's better than one great athlete?
Two identical ones.
For example, let's have a look at New Zealand sisters Georgina
and Caroline Evers-Swindell.
That's Georgina at the back...
or front. Whichever one is Caroline, Georgina's the other.
They had won gold in Athens 2004
and were hot favourites to retain the title in Beijing.
But they would be pushed all the way in the final
by German pair Annekatrin Thiele
and Christiane Huth,
who aren't even related, let alone twins.
It was the tightest of races and, just like twins,
the boats were impossible to separate at the end.
And it looks like Germany has just a slight lead.
Don't be fooled by the camera angle.
This is desperately close. It's such a small margin.
New Zealand are right there with them.
You can't tell them apart.
This is going to be really tight at the end.
They're coming up to the finish,
and...who's got it?
This is going to be so close.
It depends on who gets
the stroke at the right time. Who is it?
They're really tight.
But after an agonising wait, the judges announced that...
the doppelgangers had done it,
which is confusing because
although doppelgangers is a German word,
it was the New Zealanders who had won.
After 2,000m, the boats were separated
by less than 5cm.
But if you think twins are dominant on the water,
wait until we get in it.
At Barcelona in 1992,
both gold and silver in the duet synchronised swimming
went to sets of identical twin sisters.
You might think that looking identical is probably
the biggest challenge in synchronised swimming.
But, like most Olympic sports,
it's a lot harder than it looks.
Hold tight, because at some point
they actually get in the water,
where these dance moves do become
a lot more complicated.
You know, wearing these things isn't so bad.
Yeah. Pinches a bit, though.
Competitors have to match each other's movements
while holding their breath for incredibly long periods
and remaining relatively stationary.
But American twins Karen and Sarah Josephson
had a habit of making it all look very easy indeed.
They were silver medallists
at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and hadn't lost
a single competition since, making them red hot favourites.
But the Canadians were not to be outdone
and they had their own set of twins -
Penny and Victoria Vilagos.
So it was America versus Canada, twins versus twins,
eight arms, eight legs,
four bodies, two faces.
Who would win?
The Josephson sisters went first
and delivered a superb display of synchronisation.
They blew the judges away,
earning a near perfect total score
of 99.600 points.
The Canadian pair followed.
It was a thing of beauty.
But beauty is always fleeting.
Their 99.040 was good enough to claim silver,
and create one of the most
bewildering podiums you'll ever see.
Believe it or not, pairs of twins
had taken gold and silver
at the same Olympic event before.
The other occasion was in Moscow in 1980.
This time, the twins were men in the coxless pairs rowing.
Defending champions were
the Landvoigt twins of East Germany,
who had taken gold in Montreal in 1976.
Their closest rivals at the Moscow Olympics
were Russia's Yuri and Nikola Pimenov - also twins!
The battle was an intense one
but on their home stage,
the Pimenovs' efforts were in vain
and the Landvoigt twins won again,
continuing a record so remarkable,
you have to look twice to believe it.
Twins seemed to be the official theme of the Moscow Olympics,
because...
It was hard to tell them apart in the Olympic village.
Anatoly is on the left and Sergei is on the right...
unless it's the other way around.
But generally speaking, it's not important.
Both the twin Bilohlazov brothers
made the finals in the freestyle wrestling tournament.
Anatoly is the older,
born a quarter of an hour earlier than Sergei.
Luckily for the judges,
they never faced off against each other,
differing weight categories keeping them from meeting.
The Bilohlazov brothers won both golds -
Sergei in the bantamweight division...
It's Anatoly's turn now.
..and Anatoly in the flyweight.
For the first time in freestyle wrestling history,
twins became Olympic champions.
Anatoly and Sergei, Sergei and Anatoly -
in general that isn't important.
They are the twin Bilohlazov brothers.
Also in Moscow, sisters Sonia Robertson and Sandy Chick
played a key part in taking Zimbabwe's field hockey team
to Olympic gold too.
It's not just Moscow, though. It seems twins have
a genetic predisposition to winning Olympic medals.
So it appears two is better than one
when going for Olympic glory.