Swimming / Tracy Dodds : Records Put Prep Star’s Ability in Perspective

Scheduled just a week after the women’s National Collegiate Athletic Assn. swimming meet and two weeks before the men’s NCAA meet, the Phillips 66/U.S. Swimming Indoor National meet that ended last weekend at the Justus Aquatic Center in Orlando, Fla., became a meet of the young and the old, but not the in-between.

Janet Evans, the high school phenom from Placentia, won four events and set world records in both the 800-meter freestyle and the 1,500-meter freestyle, and Tom Jager, a graduate of UCLA, lowered his world record in the 50-meter freestyle.

The only other world record went to Polish national team swimmer Artur Wojdat in the 400-meter freestyle. Wojdat, who has been training with Terry Stoddard for the last two years, swam for Mission Viejo and broke the record set by West Germany’s Michael Gross in 1985.

Evans holds three world records.

To put that into perspective: The last woman who held three world records simultaneously was East Germany’s Kornelia Ender, who did it when the East German women were shocking the world at the 1976 Olympic Games. At the indoor meet last week, Evans reclaimed the world record in the 800-meter freestyle and lowered her own world record in the 1,500-meter freestyle. She also won the 400-meter individual medley and the 400-meter freestyle, in which she also holds the world record.

Evans, at 5 feet 5 inches and 99 pounds, became the first woman to break 16 minutes in the 1,500, finishing in 15 minutes 52.10 seconds. Her nearest challenger, Debbie Babashoff, was 35 seconds slower.

Evans’ time would have placed her 14th in the men’s competition. In fact, her time was better than the 15:52.58 that Mike Burton swam to win the Olympic gold in 1972.

Unfortunately, the 1,500 is not an Olympic event for women.

But the 800 is. And so is the 400. Evans’ 800 time of 8:17.12 put the world record back in her name. When she swam the 800 in 8:22.44 last summer at the U.S. Long Course Championships in Clovis, Calif., she broke a record that had stood since 1978. But her record lasted just a month before Anke Mohring of East Germany went 8:19.53. Last week, Evans lowered the world mark to 8:17.12.

No wonder the U.S. coach, Richard Quick, who is also coach of the University of Texas’ NCAA women’s championship team, left the meet feeling encouraged about the potential he saw among the nation’s young swimmers.

And some of the older swimmers are still looking good, too.

Jager, 23, seems to be the man to beat in the 50 in September at Seoul, South Korea. He once held the world best in the 50 at 22.40. Matt Biondi lowered it to 22.33. And Jager took the record back at 22.32. A slight difference. But Friday night he went 22.23.

Ron Ballatore, Jager’s coach, was with Jager when he tied for second in the 100 Wednesday but had returned to work with this UCLA team before Jager’s world-record swim Friday.

The college swimmers are aiming for the NCAA meet.

The next major U.S. meet will be the Sundown “Swim to Seoul” international meet May 26-28 in Boca Raton, Fla. That will be the first in a series of meets to get U.S. swimmers ready for the important national long-course meet Aug. 8-13 in Austin, Tex., the meet that also serves as the U.S. Olympic trials.

Swimming Notes

USC is the favorite to win the men’s title at the NCAA meet April 7-9 in Indianapolis. UCLA, which finished seventh last year, has qualified 12 swimmers and a diver for the national meet and could realistically expect to finish in the top four or five. . . . Rick Carey, triple Olympic gold medalist in ‘84, finished second in the 200-meter backstroke last weekend and third in the 100.

The University of Texas women had the home-pool advantage when they won the NCAA title two weeks ago, repeating as champion by beating out Florida. Stanford, which was second last year, was third this time, followed by California in fourth place. The UCLA women were ninth. . . . It was a good finish for Cal, which lost a lot of points when Mary T. Meagher graduated. Meagher, who is training in Norfolk, Va., with her old Louisville coach, Bill Peak, holds the 100- and 200-meter butterfly world records. She won the 200-meter race last weekend but finished fourth in the 100. Meagher is hoping to become only the third U.S. woman to make three Olympic teams. Jill Sterkel made the Olympic team in 1976, ’80 and ‘84, and Eleanor Holm did it in ‘28, ’32 and ’36.

Michelle Griglione is taking a year off from Stanford to train for the Olympics. She finished second to Meagher in the 200-meter butterfly and second to Evans in the 400-meter individual medley. . . . One of the few college swimmers competing in Orlando was Dara Torres of Beverly Hills, a junior at the University of Florida. Swimming for the Holmes Lumber Gator team, Torres set a U.S. record of 25.59 in a preliminary heat of the 50-meter freestyle, and a U.S. record of 55.30 seconds in the leadoff split of the 400-meter freestyle relay.

The Mission Bay Makos, coached by former Mission Viejo Coach Mark Schubert, won the men’s, women’s and overall titles, sweeping a meet for the first time since the club began competing in the spring of 1986.