Two More for the (Record) Book : Evans Surprises Herself, Breaking Her World Mark in 400 Freestyle

Little Janet Evans finished her frantic 400-meter freestyle swim Thursday night with two powerful East German women in hot pursuit.

The gold medal was hers, and she knew it before she touched. But when she looked at her time, she blinked in surprise. She looked again, blinked again, and flashed a gaping smile of amazement.

Evans had finished in 4 minutes 3.85 seconds. She had taken more than a second and a half off her own world record of 4:05.45 . . . without really trying.

What she had been trying to do was win the race.

When both Heike Friedrich and Anke Moehring stayed with her through a 59.99-second first 100 meters, and were still with her through her 62.15 second split, she knew she had to pick up the pace. She swam her third leg in 61.26 seconds, pulling away after making the turn at the far end.

Then, lest one of them catch her with a closing burst of energy, Evans stepped up the pace again and swam the last leg even faster, in 60.45 seconds.

It was an amazing performance. Her time would have won every Olympic men’s 400-meter freestyle gold medal before 1972.

Standing at the top of the awards stand, accepting her second gold medal of the Games, the 17-year-old high school senior from Placentia still looked small beside Friedrich, who was accepting the silver, and Moehring, who was receiving the bronze.

For the three years since Evans has been drawing international notice with her fast times, her tiny stature and her unorthodox straight-over-the-top flailing style, the question has been: How would she fare against the bigger, stronger, more experienced East Germans when they were at their peak?

She has answered that question with impressive victories in two races.

“I planned my race around the assumption that a 4:05 would win the gold medal,” said Friedrich, who finished in 4:05.94. “I can’t swim a 4:03.”

A good bet is that Evans will win gold No. 3 in the 800-meter freestyle Saturday.

And Evans is making as much of an impression out of the water as she is in.

She’s doing that without even trying, too. She is being, as she keeps saying, just Janet.

She doesn’t seem to understand why armies of photographers follow her every move, why reporters crowd and elbow each other and fight to hear one more word from her, or why everyone seems to think that she has some extraordinary trait or secret motivation that she should reveal to the world.

She keeps telling them that she’s like any other 17-year-old with wonderful parents in the stands, a boy she likes back home and schoolwork sitting on her desk--untouched.

“I’ve taken homework with me here because I have to go back to school the day after I get home,” she said. “I’m not going to do my homework and I’ll see what they say.”

They ask her why she smiles so much and she answers with a shrug--and a smile. For her, a smile is so natural, not something to be analyzed. (She apparently hasn’t noticed that the East Germans on either side of her are not smiling.)

They ask her if she draws energy by manifesting an anger against her East German opponents.

She looks really stunned at that suggestion. “No!” she says. “No, I don’t try to manifest anger. Why should I be angry? When I race, my opponents are my opponents. If it were my best friend, once we were in the water, it would be an opponent. I just swim to win.”

Evans just doesn’t want anyone to pass her.

She breathes in no certain pattern, but she breathes from either side so that she can keep track of where her challengers are. She assures her audience: “I always know exactly where I stand.”

The lowered world record was simply a byproduct of swimming to win.

Evans said: “I wasn’t worrying about my time. When I saw 4:03 I was really surprised. I knew I was going to have to bring it home really hard that last 100, but I felt really good. I felt really easy. I didn’t think I was going that fast.”

So, as officials dragged her by the arm away from the clamoring reporters, one last question was shouted in her direction: “Janet, if you went that fast and set that incredible time because these women were pushing you, could you have gone faster if they had pushed you harder?”

Evans gave that another wide-eyed look of surprise, another big smile, another big shrug and concluded: “I don’t know. I guess so. I don’t know!”

Kristin Otto led the East German women in a triumphant evening at the pool. Otto won the women’s 100-meter backstroke in 1:00.89, leaving the silver medal to Krisztina Egerszegi of Hungary and the bronze to East German teammate Cornelia Sirch.

That left Betsy Mitchell, of Marietta, Ohio, the defending world champion and the world record-holder in the 200-meter backstroke, in fourth place.

Otto also led off the women’s 400-meter freestyle relay, which the East Germans won in 3:40.63, just off their own world record. The East Germans had won six consecutive European Championships in the women’s 400-meter relay, but the Americans were the defending Olympic champions. The last Olympic Games in which the two countries met in this relay were in 1976, when it was the only event the U.S. women won.

Thursday night, the U.S. team of Mary Wayte, Mitzi Kremer, Laura Walker and Dara Torres had to settle for the bronze when Karin Brienesse of the Netherlands caught Torres on the anchor leg.

Soviet swimmer Igor Poliansky, the world record-holder in the men’s 200-meter backstroke, beat East German Frank Baltrusch for the gold, with Paul Kingsman of New Zealand coming up in an outside lane to win the bronze.

Jens Peter Berndt, who defected from East Germany, trained in the United States and received permission just last week to compete for the West German team, finished sixth. Dan Veatch of Rockville, Md., was seventh.