Swimming : Strauss Picks Up Fourth Victory

Astrid Strauss of East Germany picked up her fourth victory in as many days as she won the women’s 400-meter freestyle Sunday in the final day of the 1985 U.S. Swimming International meet at the University of Arkansas.

Strauss, a 6-foot, 16-year-old who was ranked second in the world in the 400-freestyle last year, earlier won the 1,500, 200 and 800-meter freestyles. Her time in the 400 was 4:05.58. Strauss and teammate Sven Lodziewski each won four events--the first to do so in the in the five-year history of this meet.

East Germany dominated the four-day meet, winning a total 18 events, including three Sunday. The United States was second with 12 victories, followed by Czechoslovakia with three, the Soviet Union with two, and Sweden and Singapore with one each.

East Germany’s Cornelia Sirch, who holds the current world’s best in the women’s 200-meter backstroke, won that event with a time of 2:13.39, but was well over her world’s best mark of 2:07.74, set in 1983.

Uwe Dassler of East Germany won the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle with a time of 15:10.36. He was ranked fifth in the world in this event in 1984 and swam the third leg of East Germany’s world’s-best-setting 800-meter freestyle relay Saturday night. Their time was 7:13.99.

The United States got its first victory of the evening when Michelle Griglione of Alexandria, Va., won the women’s 200-meter individual medley. Griglione, who won in a time of 2:15.87, picked up her second victory in the meet, having won the 400-meter individual medley Friday night.

The United States took two of the top three spots in the women’s 100-meter butterfly as Mary T. Meagher of Louisville, Ky., won her second event of the meet with a time of 1:00.34. Jenna Johnson, a silver medalist in the event at the 1984 Summer Olympics, finished second in a time of 1:00.16.

The United States women finished one-two in the 400-meter freestyle relay as the A team of Griglione, Johnson, Kathy Coffin and Piage Zemina, both of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., won the event in 3:44.44. Meagher, Juliane Brossman of Fair Lawn, N.J., Betsy Mitchell of Marietta, Ohio, and Mary Wayte of Mercer Island, Wash., comprised the U.S. B team that finished second in a time of 3:47.06.

The University of Houston’s Peng-Siong Ang, swimming for his home country of Singapore, won the men’s 50-meter freestyle in 22.57. Ang, who was ranked third in the world in the 50 freestyle last year, edged the United States’ Matt Biondi.