Mission Viejo Swim Meet of Champions : Schroeder, Back From Layoff, Wins at Age 26

Richard Schroeder was working as an accountant for Price Waterhouse in San Francisco a little over a year ago when it occurred to him that it might not be too late to win that Olympic medal he just missed in 1984.

Fourth place in the 200-meter breaststroke was nice. Very nice. After all, he had just wanted to make the team.

But the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that he had not reached his potential and the more he liked the idea of going back for a medal.

So he took a leave of absence from his job and went back to Santa Barbara, his college town, to work with the Santa Barbara Swim Club.

Within months he had made the Pan Pacific team and was ranked among the best in the world. That surprised him after a two-year layoff.

Saturday night, swimming in the Mission Viejo Swim Meet of Champions, Schroeder won the 200-meter breaststroke at the age of 26.

He wasn’t too surprised.

“It’s looking real good right now,” Schroeder said. “I’m swimming faster now than I did in ’84. The 100 (breaststroke) is really where my focus is, but I’m counting on the 200, too. If I’m on on the day of the trials, who knows? I think I’m physically stronger now than I was. Psychologically, I know I have an advantage over the younger guys who haven’t felt the pressure of the Olympic trials.

“I have a lot of confidence. I think you see that in the older swimmers.”

It’s becoming a very common theme.

Sandy Neilson-Bell won the 50-meter freestyle Saturday night at the age of 32. She had won three gold medals (100-meter freestyle, 400-meter freestyle relay and 400-meter medley relay) in 1972. Sixteen years ago. She started this comeback the week after the ’84 Olympics.

She’ll also be trying to make the team in the 100-meter freestyle, an event she finished second in at this meet Friday night.

“One of my purposes in continuing to swim is to show that we’re not over the hill,” Neilson-Bell said. “As I keep saying, the average age of the ’84 Olympic (women’s swim) team was 18.5. I think it means a lot to a lot of people that the oldies can still do this.”

Neilson-Bell is married to her coach, Kevin Bell.

Matt Biondi, a graduate of Cal but one of the youngest of the Olympic veterans still swimming at the age of 22, won the 50-meter freestyle for men at the Mission Viejo International Swim Complex, edging 23-year-old UCLA graduate Tom Jager.

Also in the championship heat of the 50 was Rowdy Gaines, 29, making his comeback bid a lot later than most after winning three gold medals in ’84 and then retiring. His amateur status is up in the air at the moment.

He did make some money as a result of his swimming fame, but he recently put that money into a trust fund and is petitioning for Olympic eligibility.

Gaines finished fifth in the 50 and is scheduled to swim the 100-meter freestyle today.

John Moffett, a 23-year-old graduate of Stanford and a veteran of the ’84 Olympic team, will swim the 100-meter breaststroke today. Moffett competed in the consolation final in the 200. He hasn’t been happy with his times in the 200, but that’s not really his key event, either.

Like Schroeder, Moffett is concentrating on the 100-meter breaststroke.

“In the breaststroke, there are a lot of us coming back,” Schroeder said. “Look at Dave Lundberg. He’s 27. I think people are realizing that swimmers usually quit swimming because their college eligibility is up, not because they can’t do it any more. Now that there is some training money available (for U.S. swimmers who are out of college but still ranked in the top 10 in the world) more swimmers are able to stay with it.”

Dennis Baker, 26, of the Click Tucson Swim Team, won the men’s 200-meter butterfly.

Swimming Notes

Janet Evans of the Fullerton Aquatics Sports Team, the world-record holder in the 400-meter freestyle, won the event Saturday night in 4:09.46--about 4 seconds away from her best, but still a very good time unrested and 10 seconds better than second-place Julie Martin, also of FAST. Evans also won the 200-meter backstroke. . . . Artur Wojdat of Poland, who swims for the Mission Viejo Nadadores, also won his world-record event when he won the 400-meter freestyle, beating defending champion Dan Jorgensen, formerly of the Nadadores, now of the Rancho Bernardo Swim Team.