BEYOND HER YEARS : At Ripe Age of 15, Canada’s Allison Higson Holds the Women’s Breaststroke Record

Allison Higson was 12 years old the day Coach Paul Bergen told her to skip the age group workout and get into the pool with the real Etobicoke, Canada, team swimmers. She remembers the day vividly. She remembers crying.

Tears of joy?

“No!” she says with a dramatic look of disbelief. “No, I was crying because I was so scared. They did such hard workouts. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t want to do it.”

But Higson did as she was told that day. In fact, she has done what Bergen has told her to do every day for the last three years. And now she’s a world record-holder.

At Canada’s Olympic trials in Montreal in May, she swam the 200-meter breaststroke in 2 minutes 27.27 seconds, breaking the record of 2:27.40 that East Germany’s Silke Horner had held for two years.

Swimming World magazine noted that Higson, who is 15, split the first 100 meters faster than any U.S. woman except Tracy Caulkins has ever swum 100 meters of breaststroke. Higson swam the first 100 in 1:09.80. Caulkins’ U.S. record in the 100-meter breaststroke is 1:09.53.

That’s worthy of note because Caulkins, too, trained under Bergen when she swam for the Nashville Aquatics Club.

Bergen is a demanding coach. So much so that some swimmers have found him intolerable.

Higson said: “He is really tough on you, both your mind and physically. He’s known for his methods and his mental toughness. He can pull you out of the water and start pounding on you--verbally pounding on you--until he makes you feel like you’re nothing. So you get mad at him and you get mad at yourself for whatever stupid thing that you did, but you know that if he takes time to talk to you about something, it’s going to help you.

“When you’re up against the toughest people in the world, you know that you are well prepared, physically and mentally . . .

“Tracy Caulkins came to our club and talked to us. She’s helped me a lot. Not with motivational speeches or anything like that. Mostly just with trying to explain (Coach Bergen) to me, explaining how it will be worth it. She knows what we’re going through. She told us to believe in him, because he knows what he’s doing.”

A huge smile answers the question, “Was Caulkins right?”

There’s no arguing with results.

Higson, who is swimming at the USC Swim Stadium this weekend in the Los Angeles Invitational, is just 15 years old and already has her first world record. Why not look at it as the first of many? Caulkins held two outright and was tied for another in 1978. Why not collect them?

Higson doesn’t know how long she’ll continue to swim--especially because Bergen is leaving the Etobicoke club, which is outside of Toronto, after this year. But she’s sure that she’ll be around for a couple more years.

“I don’t know how long I’ll want to keep doing all this work,” she said. “I’ve been swimming for a lot of years, and some people think I might burn out . . . I don’t know how I’m going to feel later. Right now, I’m just thinking about now. I’m not even feeling too excited about the Olympics. That will probably happen when it gets closer. Right now, I have a lot of work to concentrate on.”

At the Olympics, she will compete in the 200-meter breaststroke, the 100-meter breaststroke and the 200-meter individual medley.

Higson is the first woman not from a Communist bloc country to break the world record in the 200-meter breaststroke since Katie Ball did it in 1968. In fact, the Communist bloc women have so dominated swimming in recent years that Higson is only the third woman not from the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe to break a world record since 1981. The other two are Betsy Mitchell, the backstroker from Texas, and Janet Evans, the freestyler/IMer from the Fullerton club.

Higson will also swim as the alternate on the 400-meter relay team. She’s a good freestyler, but there are a lot of good freestylers in the world. At this point, it’s much more special to be a breaststroker.

Besides being noted for his coaching methods, Bergen is known as one of the best at coaching the breaststroke. Bergen himself doesn’t want to overstate that. All he would say is, “You do have to develop an eye for it.”

The breaststroke is difficult because it not only requires leg and arm strength, but also finesse and technique. The timing has to be perfect.

So it would seem surprising that someone so young would be the best in the world. But Bergen explains that Higson is very strong and has, in fact, been physically mature beyond her age for quite some time. He says that he has to remind himself that, mentally and emotionally, she isn’t as old as she swims.

Higson says that people are always telling her that she seems older than her age, but she attributes that to the fact that she spends most of her time in the company of older swimmers. With a hint of a giggle she says: “I act different when I’m with girls my own age. I can act kind of crazy.”

Higson has been swimming since she was 6. She and her older brother, Gregg, started swimming at a club near their home in Brampton, Canada. They switched to the Etobicoke team a few years later. She made the Canadian national meet when she was 11 and even made the consolation finals. When she was 12, and had just started working with Bergen, she broke a Canadian Games record.

“I guess that was when I started breaking out,” Higson said. “People starting saying ‘Who is she? She’s only 12? Holy mackerel.’ So it has all happened in the last few years.”

It has happened since Bergen told her to change pools. That was her big break she was shedding those tears over.