National Short-Course Swimming Championships : A Mellow Carey Wins Backstroke With a Smile, Not a Pout

Remember how petty Rick Carey seemed to many people last summer at the Olympic Games after he won the gold medal in the 200-meter backstroke? Remember his pouting because he didn’t like his time? Well, forget it.

It was a very mellow Rick Carey who won the 200-yard backstroke title in the National Short-Course Swimming Championships at East Los Angeles College Wednesday night.

He swam well, seemingly on a good, strong pace sufficient to beat his own American mark, and then missed it by half a second with a time of 1 minute 44.93 seconds.

All smiles, Carey said: “I was happy with the swim. . . . I came here with nothing to lose, nothing to prove.”

That’s the difference between 1984 and 1985.

For Carey, this was just his third meet since the Olympic Games. He’s taking it much easier these days.

Carey, who is from Mt. Kisco, N.Y., has been spending his time at home, going to school at Iona, learning martial arts and coaching age-group swimming.

“All I wanted to do at this meet was place 16th or better, because that is the requisite for making the University Games,” Carey said. “If it hadn’t been for that, I probably would have skipped the whole thing.”

He is looking forward to both the Pan Pacific Games and the University Games, both in Japan in August.

But that’s not all he’s looking forward to. He has some big plans that he is not yet ready to announce. “There is something undone in me,” he said. “I’m going to do it eventually. . . . I’m not going to say what it is, because I got burned the last time I made a prediction (that he would break the world record in the Olympic final).”

In the meantime, he’s taking time to smell the roses. He picked up another bunch on the winner’s victory stand Wednesday night.

Olympian Matt Biondi, a sophomore at Cal who set American records in both the 100- and 200-yard freestyles last week at the NCAA meet, won the 100 Wednesday night in 42.32 seconds, not quite the 41.87 he swam last week to break the American record held by Rowdy Gaines.

Tom Genz, a freshman at SMU, pulled off an upset in winning the men’s 200-yard breaststroke in 1:58.97. Swimming for the Little Rock Racquet Club, Genz came on strong in the last 25 yards to pass both John Moffet and Stuart Smith. Smith touched out Moffet, his SoCal Aquatics teammate, for second place. Just last week, Moffet, a junior at Stanford, won the NCAA title in 1:55.96.

Genz said: “I didn’t expect anything like this. My best time before this morning was a 2:01.9 when I was a junior in high school. . . . I went out slow because I’m so afraid I’m going to die in the 200. I finished strong but I still expected to touch and then look up and see everybody already there, smiling at me.”

Anthony Mosse, a member of New Zealand’s Olympic team last summer and now a student at Stanford and swimming for Industry Hills, beat Jon Sieben in the men’s 200-yard butterfly in 1:45.06. Sieben, who made himself known last summer by upsetting West German’s Michael Gross, is now a student at the University of Alabama and is swimming for the Mission Viejo Nadadores.

Mary T. Meagher, who won three gold medals at the Olympics last summer, won the women’s 200-yard butterfly in 1:55.11, a time that pleased her. Two weeks ago, she won the same event at the NCAA meet in 1:55.13.

“I didn’t do much training after the NCAAs,” Meagher said. “I was coming here to swim for my hometown team (Lakeside Club of Louisville) and I was just trying to win the race.”

Meagher has not lost a national championship race since she won her first title in this same pool six yeirs ago.

Betsy Mitchell, another Olympian, won the women’s 200-yard backstroke in 1:58.58.

The anticipated showdown between Olympians Dara Torres of Mission Viejo and Jenna Johnson of Industry Hills was foiled in the morning preliminary heats when Johnson was disqualified for a false start. Torres won the women’s 100-yard freestyle in the evening session in 48.91 seconds.

Suki Brownsdon of Banbury, England, who is a freshman at the University of Calgary, won the women’s 200-yard breaststroke in 2:15.11, more than three seconds slower than the American mark set by Tracy Caulkins in 1980.