WORLD FOCUS : Wojdat’s Record Success Plays Well in Mission Viejo and Poland

After Artur Wojdat had surprised everyone, including himself, by breaking the world record in the 400-meter freestyle at the U.S. indoor national swim meet in Orlando, Fla., last March, he made an overseas phone call to his parents with his exciting news.

It was 4 a.m. in Poznan, Poland, but he had to tell them about the world record, the first for a Polish swimmer.

“They did not believe me!” he said, back at his home base in Mission Viejo, back to the routine of workouts and workaday meets, but beaming as he relived the fun he had making the call. “I said to my father, ‘Really. I am serious. I set a world record!’

“And my father said, ‘That’s nice. What was your time?’ I told him 3 minutes 47.38 seconds. And he said, ‘Oh, it was your best, then?’ I said, ‘Yes! It was the best ever! It was a world record!’ ”

Wojdat laughed and explained: “I always tease with my parents. Every meet, when they ask how I did, I say, ‘Oh, I set a world record.’ And they say, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ So when I really did it, they didn’t know if I was teasing or not. I don’t think they knew for sure when our conversation ended. So I told them, ‘Well, listen to the radio tomorrow morning and you’ll see.’ ”

It was on the radio and television, in all the sports newspapers. It was the talk of the town. It was the talk of the country. Wojdat (pronounced VOY-dot) had broken the 3-year-old record of swimming superstar Michael Gross of West Germany.

Mieczyslaw Niewiadowski, the president of the Polish swimming and diving federation, had already heard about it from Polish journalists when he received a call from the United States, from Alex Kuryllo, president of the Polish-American Sports Foundation.

Niewiadowski, who was at the Mission Viejo Meet of Champions last month, lights up when he recalls hearing the news. Through an interpreter he said, “When I got the call from Alex, I answered by saying, ‘Congratulations’ before he could tell me the news and say congratulations to me.”

Why were these men congratulating themselves in a phone call from California to Poland over something a 19-year-old had done in Florida?

Because the two of them had pulled off something of a coup, teaming up to get that young man the clearance from a Communist government and the financial backing from Polish Americans to come to the United States and develop his skill to the point that he could set a world record.

Congratulations were also in order for Terry Stoddard, the Mission Viejo coach who has been working with Wojdat.

Interestingly enough, when Wojdat was offered the opportunity to train in Mission Viejo, all he knew about the place was that it was in California, that most of the top swimmers in the country trained there, and that the coach was Mark Schubert. But by the time Wojdat arrived, Schubert had left for Mission Bay in Florida, taking most of the top swimmers with him.

Then, as the swimmers who hadn’t made the move with Schubert were deciding whether to stay with Stoddard or find another club in the area, the club went through some upheaval.

That was of no concern to Wojdat, who was busy trying to lower his times. As Kuryllo said, “The Polish swimmers are motivated to do their best here, because if they don’t swim well, others will take their place.”

The Polish-American Sports Foundation paid training expenses for two swimmers to come here in 1985, for three the next year and three the year after that. For the first time, there are plans for sending a female here to train next year. The Polish swimming and diving federation and the Polish Olympic committee also share the expense.

Kuryllo had chosen Mission Viejo, specifically, as the training site for swimmers from his homeland because he has been living in the area for years. He has his business in Villa Park and was familiar with Mission Viejo’s reputation.

Once things were lined up in the United States, the only question was whether the Polish government would grant Wojdat, and his compatriot, Wojceich Wyzga, visas to come here.

Asked why he thought a government in the Communist bloc would allow athletes to live and train in the United States, Wojdat said, “I really don’t know why, so I shouldn’t talk about it. All I know is, I heard that they tried to put us in Moscow or Leningrad to train, but we were not wanted there.”

Stoddard added: “The government had to approve their visas. It surprised (Polish swimming officials). It surprised us all. But I think it’s simply that they saw an opportunity for their swimmers to train. The Polish swimming federation did ask the East Germans and the Soviets, but they were apparently busy enough with their own swimmers.”

The understanding was that the swimmers would come for one year and one year only, and then return to Poland and other swimmers would come over. Like a camp.

Also, when the East Germans and Soviets were being asked to train Wojdat, in 1985, he wasn’t a world record-holder.

Wojdat’s time in the 400-meter freestyle, for example, was a respectable, but not exciting, 3:58.1 then. It was almost 11 seconds slower than Gross’ world record.

So he has made marked improvement since starting with Stoddard. Without getting up on his soapbox to give a campaign speech, Stoddard couldn’t resist the opening to say: “I’ve had several American distance swimmers leave my program. Apparently, my program works.”

Stoddard didn’t know, when Wojdat came to him in November, 1985, that Wojdat would have the potential to set a world record. But he did know that the guy had potential.

He wasn’t so impressed with the 3:58 as he was that the 3:58 was coming from someone who was 6 feet 5 inches, strong, young and still improving.

“It was very evident, as soon as Artur swam his first length of the pool, that he had a tremendous feel for the water and that he had been coached very well,” Stoddard said.

“His technique was good. His stroke was good. I looked at him as being young and that it was just a matter of time before he took what he had already achieved in 12 years of swimming and added to it. I knew that our distance-based program was such that we could give him what he needed.”

Wojdat trains for the middle distances. At the national indoor meet last March, he also won the 800- and 200-meter freestyles. He can swim the 1,500 and the 100, as well.

“The good thing about Artur is that he has good range,” Stoddard said. “When he goes to college, a lot of those races will be shorter races. I’m sure that over the next quadrennial, if I have a chance to work with him, we would lean more toward the shorter distances.

“Artur is a 50.5 (second) 100 freestyler. That’s world-ranked. He can do them all. He’s a great distance freestyler because of his ability to hold an aerobic pace for a long time. But it depends on how he trains.”

Stoddard and Wojdat have not decided, for sure, which events Wojdat will swim at the Olympics.

Stoddard said: “I am sure he’ll swim the 200 and the 400. He’s entered in all freestyle events and the 800 free relay. Artur is set up and trained to swim the 100 through the 1,500. He’s probably one of the best 1,500 swimmers in the world. But is it best for his overall performance to swim the 1,500? We’ll have to look at the schedule and decide.”

That decision would, of course, ultimately involve Poland’s Olympic coach. He will be coming to Mission Viejo in August to work with Wojdat, who is scheduled to go directly from Mission Viejo to Seoul.

Stoddard could, actually, end up on Poland’s Olympic coaching staff. His first choice would be the United States’ Olympic staff, but that will depend upon how many of his swimmers make the team at the Olympic trials in early August. If he is not included as a U.S. coach, the opportunity is there for him to go with the Polish contingent.

After all, he has been grooming Wojdat for these Games for a couple of years, and U.S. coaches have long helped develop national teams in other countries, in any number of sports.

John Thompson, coach of the U.S. Olympic basketball team, has been quite adamant in his opinion that U.S. teams and coaches should not do that, because it helps the competition. Specifically, he spoke out against the Portland Trail Blazers’ efforts to rehabilitate Soviet basketball star Arvidas Sabonis. The pro team is looking out for its own interests, because it owns rights to Sabonis. But Thompson thinks it is wrong for them to do anything that will, also, help the Soviet effort.

Stoddard takes a different approach, citing the longtime precedent, especially in swimming. “I think we’ve always been real open about it because the Americans have been so clearly on top in swimming,” Stoddard said. “That attitude might change if we start to lose that edge. But I don’t think it should.

“I think our American swimmers should welcome the competition and rise to the occasion. As a swimming coach, my job is to get the best athletes into the sport of swimming and keep them in the sport of swimming.

“Here’s an example of how Poland has been able to keep an excellent athlete in the sport. We have Matt Biondi still in the sport. West Germany has Michael Gross. We all need to do what we can to keep the best athletes swimming.

“We need to keep the best Americans in, not keep foreigners out. If we get to the point where we are saying you can’t train here because you might beat us, we’ve already lost.”

Wojdat is nearing the end of his second stay in the United States. His was not just a quick visit, after all. And he’ll be back.

After his first 10 months in the United States, Wojdat went to the World Championships in Madrid in August, 1986, and then home, for his last year of high school.

He had wanted to go home to Poznan. He was homesick. He missed his family and his friends.

“Everybody keeps saying that I went back to finish school, but it was more to be with the people that I missed,” Wojdat said. “I could have finished school any time.”

Having him gone for so long was hard on his parents, too. Artur is an only child, and he was missed.

“I think the Polish federation wanted me to stay here and train that year, but they left me alone,” Wojdat said. “They knew I would come back this year to prepare for the Olympics. Maybe if last year had been an Olympic year, it would have been different.”

After a year at home, he went to the European Championships in France and from there returned to Mission Viejo last August. Since then, he has not been attending school or working or doing much of anything else except focusing on his Olympic training.

And after the Olympics?

He’ll be going to the University of Iowa on a swimming scholarship.

He was recruited by UCLA and the University of Arizona, where his friend, Wyzga will be a sophomore, but he felt more at home at Iowa. The farmlands there felt more like home.

Not that he’s from a rural community. Poznan is a city of 600,000. His mother works in a bank there. His father is a professor at an agricultural academy.

But most of the countryside is farmland.

If Wojdat had grown up on a farm, he probably wouldn’t be setting world records in the pool today. He might have ended up playing soccer, which he never liked much. Or basketball. Now that he’s 6-6 that doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Or skiing. He likes to ski.

As it was, there was a pool near his home in Poznan. He would get up at 5 a.m. and take the streetcar to the pool.

“People would look at me on the tram by myself at 5 in the morning and wonder, ‘Kid, what are you doing here?’ ” Wojdat said. “But I always liked to go to swim. I started when I was 7 and I did it because I enjoyed it. It was fun.”

And is he still, 13 years later, getting up at 5 a.m. to swim all those miles because it’s fun? Or is he swimming now for a greater cause?

Wojdat gave it some thought before answering: “I swim because I want to swim. Basically, I swim for myself.

“But in a meet like (the recent Mission Viejo meet) or the indoor nationals, I swim for the Mission Viejo club. I want to score as many points as I can for this coach (Stoddard) who has helped me so much.

“Of course, in an international meet, in the Olympics, I swim for my country. I swim for Poland.”