THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : POLL STARS IN POOL : Lanky Costa Rican Swimmer Wins Eight Medals, as Well as Friends, Fans

Into the workaday world of heat sheets and split times and personal bests and routine American victories and not-too-impressive Pan American Games records has, thankfully, stepped a great big bundle of surprises named Sylvia Poll.

Surprise! That 6-foot 2-inch (maybe 6-4?) blonde who looks like a Swedish basketball player is actually a Costa Rican swimmer.

Surprise! A year ago, her best finish at the Goodwill Games in Moscow was a sixth in the 200-meter freestyle. Now she’s the star of the Pan Am Games after dominating the swimming competition with three gold medals and two silvers in individual events, along with a silver and two bronze medals in relays for a total of eight medals, by far a best ever in Pan Am competition.

Tracy Caulkins made a super showing in the 1979 Games with golds in the 400- and 200-meter individual medleys, silvers in the 400-meter freestyle and 200-meter backstroke and a gold with the 400-meter freestyle relay team. That’s five medals, including two individual golds.

Frank Heckl picked up five golds and a silver in the 1971 Games at Cali, Colombia, but just two were individual gold medals.

Cynthia (Sippy) Woodhead was the latest to tie the record for individual gold medals at three in the 1979 Pan Am Games. Poll tied that record after three days and broke it Saturday.

Poll started on a pace of a gold medal a day, winning the 100-meter freestyle last Sunday, the 200-meter freestyle last Monday and the 100-meter backstroke last Tuesday. Meanwhile, she was helping Coasta Rica to a silver medal in the 800-meter freestyle relay, and bronze medals in the 400-meter freestyle relay and the 400-meter medley relay.

On Saturday, she added silver medals in the 50-meter freestyle and the 200-meter backstroke.

Surprise! She’s shrugging off all offers to come to the United States to train. She says she’s perfectly happy with the schooling and coaching and life style in Costa Rica, a country that manages to stay out of the strife affecting its neighbors.

Surprise! After acting like a flighty teen-ager in her celebrations, darting away from the official who was escorting her off the deck to make a dramatic whooping jump into the warmup lanes to hug her teammates, Poll was, minutes later, handling a press conference with all the ease and grace of a seasoned diplomat.

No need for an interpreter, she told the volunteer press aide, Tom Carnegie (who is known around here as the Voice of the Indianapolis Speedway). She would take questions in either English or Spanish, always remember to repeat the question in the other language for the benefit of the journalists who did not speak both languages, and then she would answer the question in both English and Spanish.

She also served as interpreter when some U.S.-speaking reporters wanted to ask some American reporters what local reaction to her success would be. Incidentally, she also speaks German.

And surprise, surprise, surprise! While the Americans are, as predicted, winning more gold medals at the Indiana University Natatorium than any other country, Poll single-handedly put to shame the theory that once the Games began, the U.S. swimmers here would make everyone forget that the top U.S. swimmers are in Brisbane, Australia, competing in the Pan Pacific Games.

Instead, every time Poll swam she raised the question--would she have won if Jenna Johnson had been here? Or Dara Torres? Or any of the others?

Well, she’d be holding her own.

Her time of 1 minute 2.18 seconds in the 100-meter backstroke was the best in the world this year--including the winning time at the Pan Pacific Games. And she led off the medley relay with a 1:01.6 on the backstroke leg. She’s well off the world record of 1:00.59 set by East German Ina Kleber in 1984, but she beat this year’s best of 1:02.49 by East German Kathrin Zimmermman.

Her times of 56.10 in the 100-meter freestyle and 2:00.02 would have won titles at the U.S. national meet at Clovis, Calif., a couple of weeks ago.

And she really piqued interest by telling reporters after every swim that she was only swimming as fast as her coach told her to swim. She had to think in terms of making it to the end of the week.

Her coach, Francisco Rivas, said after the third gold medal: “She is like a computer--I program her and she does it. For a trainer or coach, this is an impossible dream. Right now, she should be the best in the Americas. Hopefully, the goal is for her to compete at the world level.”

Swimmers will remember the Pan Am Games of 1987 as the coming of age of Sylvia Poll.

In the history of the Pan Am Games, Costa Rica had won only one medal until last Sunday, and that was a silver in soccer in 1951. Last Sunday, the country picked up its first silver, in the marathon, and its first gold--Sylvia’s.

“Ever since winning the gold medal, the pressure hasn’t been so much,” Poll said. “But I felt a lot of pressure to win the first gold medal for Costa Rica. Everybody in my country has been wanting me to do that.

“Since about five or six months ago, all the interviewers have been asking me if I can win the gold medal.

“Oh, it is much easier now. I can only win. I couldn’t lose after that.”

How excited are the folks back home about the gold medals? Poll said that, according to the phone calls she has received, people were actually dancing in the streets after seeing her win the gold medal on television.

The president of Costa Rica (for those U.S. journalists not up on current events, she spelled O-s-c-a-r A-r-i-a) sent his best. The call came from his wife, Margarita.

Poll’s mother, Thea, is here with her. But her father died four years ago while swimming. Sylvia thinks it was a heart attack.

Her parents, West Germans, moved to Nicaragua 25 years ago. When the trouble began in that country, they moved to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. Sylvia was 9 then. She began swimming at the local club, Cariari.

By all accounts, she wasn’t much of a swimmer in the beginning. But she has been brought along very carefully by her coach.

Poll did not take offense at being likened to a computer by her coach. In fact, she likened his coaching style to programming a computer in a “carefully thought-out, scientific manner.” And she said: “I define myself as a very responsible, very exacting person, with a very open mind. I try to be what he wants me to be, but I ask a lot of myself.”

She has absolute confidence in Rivas and reports that he was once swimmer of the year in Costa Rica, once finished seventh in the Olympics in the 100-meter butterfly and that he has 17 years of experience.

So there is no use trying to woo her to a U.S. college or swim team.

Or basketball team. “I don’t really jump very good,” Poll said. “I’m not very good at basketball or at volleyball.”

She’ll be sticking with swimming and with Rivas. “I have everything all planned for the next four years, swimming and school,” she said. “Each year my times are better, so it is only logical to stay with him.”

Her sister Claudia, 14, also swims for Rivas. And Daniel Ordonez, who is broadcasting the Pan Am Games back to Costa Rica, reports that Claudia, too, is going to be very, very good.

But, now, Claudia won’t be a surprise. Rivas said after Sylvia’s final event that Claudia was on a pace to be even better.

U.S. Coach Skip Kenney said that when he saw Poll warming up on the first day, he knew she was bound for a super showing. And, he added, “She’s no fluke.”

Katie Welch of the United States, who pulled off a stunning upset by taking almost two seconds off her best time to set a Games record and beat Poll in her final event, the 200-meter backstroke, cut right to the heart of the matter in explaining why Poll had seemed to fade on the last day: “She swam in eight events. She has to be dead.”

Indeed, Sylvia seemed to lack not only the speed in the pool but the effervescence in her personality at the end of the competition.

And she astounded the media by reporting: “My coach wanted me also to win the 800 free, 400 free, 200 medley and 400 medley, but I told him that four more events would be too much. He just wanted me to win as many medals as possible for Costa Rica.”

She admitted that she was very tired. But she seemed to think that the effort was worth it.

Poll repeatedly mentioned the honor that she was bringing to her country and, in a press conference not at the Natatorium but at the main press center, she answered a string of questions from Spanish-speaking journalists who were emphasizing the impact she would have for all South American and Central American countries.

In Spanish, she answered: “All my success has not only been for Costa Rica, but also on behalf of all Latin America. . . . I hope it helps South American and Central American swimmers get even better than I am and break all my records.”