Crowd Helps Push Evans to Another World Record

When Janet Evans swims freestyle, she turns her head to the right to take a breath every time her right arm comes over the top. So, the announcer at the Phillips 66/U.S. Swimming National Long Course Championships came up with a plan for urging her on during the grueling 1,500-meter race that had the spectators in the section she could see standing and whooping and waving their entry sheets.

The result was the kind of wave common to football stadiums but not seen at swim meets. Evans would churn her way 50 meters north while, section by section, fans in the east stands would stand as she passed; and then she’d flip and churn her way 50 meters south while, section by section, fans in the west stands would stand as she passed.

The fans worked themselves into a frenzy as Evans swam a 16:00.73 to break the world record set by Kim Linehan at 16:04.49.

That’s nearly four seconds better than a world record that had stood almost eight years. And that’s on top of her Monday performance in which she set her first world record in the 800-meter freestyle, taking almost two seconds off a nine-year-old world record.

She also won the 400-meter individual medley Wednesday and the 400-meter freestyle Thursday to become the first woman to win four individual titles at this meet since Tracy Caulkins did it in 1981.

Janet Evans, who is 15-going-on-16, is now bound for the Pan Pacific Games as Brisbane, Australia, as the latest first lady of U.S. swimming.

This meet served as the selection meet for the teams that will compete in the Pan Pacific Games in Australia and the Pan American Games in Indianapolis. The U.S. Pan Am coach, Skip Kenney, said that with the exception of a few “key stars” the team are pretty even.

He said: “I think if we had the trials a week later we might interchange 50% of the team--expect for (Matt) Biondi and (Janet) Evans and (Pablo) Morales.”

There it is, Evans now ranking with the biggest names in U.S. swimming.

She’s putting the city of Placentia and the Fullerton Aquatics swim team on the map.

Taking it all very much in stride was her coach, Bud McAllister, who would simply wave his clipboard in a sweeping forward every time he came into her line of vision.

“I might have look calm, but that was because I was trying to write down splits for the two swimmers I had in that meet,” McAllister said. “My heart rate was up about 200.”

McAllister was not surprised that his young protege had shattered the longest-distance record. In fact, he had set 16 minutes flat at her record, reasoning that if she didn’t make that goal, she’d still break the world record.

Besides, he said, she trains with Bram Tester, a young man who had recorded a 16:03 in the morning. If she can beat Tester in training, why not beat his time to set a women’s world record?

Evans had been saying all week that the 1500 was her best event, and she said that after setting the world record in the 800, she expected to do the same in the 1500. “You’re always more nervous for your first even in a meet because you don’t know how you’ll feel or how your taper is or whether you’ll be ‘on.’ After the 800, I felt like I was ‘on.’ ”

Evans hasn’t even been training for the distance events, which come quite naturally for her. She has a natural freestyle stroke and natural endurance. She’s been training for the individual medleys.

For one thing, the 1,500 is not an Olympic event. But McAllister is more concerned with developing her as a swimmer.

He’s not too concerned that she’ll lose perspective now that she has established herself as a superstar.

“I don’t think it will effect her at all,” he said. “She’s aware of the European times and she knows the kind of competition that will be coming up to challenge her. We sometimes even enter her in off-events just to make her race. That makes her practice racing and it reminds her that she can lose. . . .

“She has tremendous potential, but sooner or later these dramatic drops are going to have to start leveling off.”

In the last two years, Evans’ 800-meter has improved by 26 seconds. Her 400-meter individual medley has improved 15 seconds. Her 400-meter freestyle has improved 14 seconds. And her 1500 has improved 39 seconds.

McAllister will not be making the trip to Australia with the Pan-Pacific team. He’ll send her with some written guidelines. McAllister said, “She’ll be with a good coaching staff. But the majority of my team will be at other meets, and some of those swimmers need me more. Janet did very well in Moscow by herself, and I’m sure she’ll do very well in Australia.”

Swimming Notes

This is the first national meet in which Mission Viejo did not win a national title since the short course meet in East L.A. 1979. . . . Mission Bay won the women’s title and the combined title. Concord-Pleasant Hill won the men’s title. . . . Sara Linke, 23, of Walnut Creek, Calif., and Rich Schroeder, 25, of Lindsay, Calif., were named Comeback of the Meet swimmers. Linke was sixth in the 200-meter freestyle and eighth in the 100-meter freestyle. Schroeder won the 100-meter breaststroke and was fourth in the 200-meter breaststroke. . . . LaDonnis Loury, 14, of Lincoln, Neb., was the surprise winner in a 100-meter butterfly field that included Jenna Johnson and Angel Myers. She earned a spot on the Pan Pacific team but she won’t be going. Her family thinks she’s too young. And because U.S. Swimming’s contract for the Pan Pacifics prohibits choosing the Pan Am Games over the Pan Pacifics, she won’t be going anywhere.