THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 8 : Swimming : Biondi and Friends Help U.S. Swimmers Through Dark Hour

Just as spirits were about to hit an all-time low, it was Matt Biondi & Co. to the rescue.

The much-heralded men’s 400-meter freestyle relay team came through for the United States Friday night with a gold-medal performance, setting the world record at 3 minutes 16.53 seconds. Every U.S. swimmer was under 50 seconds in the victory over the Soviet Union and East German swimmers.

Chris Jacobs led off with a 49.63-second swim, giving the United States a slight lead. Troy Dalbey lost some ground, despite his 49.75-second leg, then Tom Jager went 49.34 to hold off the fastest Soviet. And Biondi finished in an astounding 47.81 seconds, making up a tenth of a second and then pulling away from the field for the clear victory and the record.

The sight of Biondi once again outdistancing the best in the world with his long, easy, powerful stroke had Americans on their feet and waving their flags.

The gold medalists laughed their way through “The Star Spangled Banner.” Biondi later explained that their attempt to sing along was the joke. “We’re not a bunch of choir boys,” he said.

It gave the American team a moment to smile, a brief moment of glory on a night to forget.

For the first time anyone can remember, the United States was shut out in the individual events. Not one medal of any sort in the evening program--not in the women’s 100-meter butterfly nor the women’s 100-meter breaststroke nor the men’s 200-meter breaststroke nor the men’s 400-meter freestyle.

Kristin Otto of East Germany won her fourth gold medal of the Games in the women’s 100-meter butterfly, a race once dominated by Mary T. Meagher, the Americans’ Madame Butterfly. Meagher wasn’t even a factor Friday night as Otto broke Meagher’s Olympic record, swimming the race in 59 seconds to hold off East German teammate Birte Weigang. Joining the East Germans on the award stand was Qian Hong of China.

Meagher hasn’t been anywhere near the world-record time of 57.93 she set for the 100 butterfly in 1981, when she was 16. No one else has, either. And she didn’t even expect to win the gold here in the 100. But she certainly expected to finish better than a distant seventh in 1:00.97.

So she adjourned to the practice pool in another part of the building, where she swam warm-down laps and tried to pull herself together so that she would be ready to swim her better event, the 200-meter butterfly, on Sunday.

By finishing behind fifth-place Janel Jorgensen, the U.S. swimmer who replaced Angel Myers when Myers tested positive for a steroid after the U.S. trials, Meagher also lost her spot on the U.S. women’s medley relay team.

Therefore, Meagher, who won three gold medals in the 1984 Games, in both butterfly events and the medley relay, won’t be swimming Saturday night.

Meagher managed to hold back the tears until after she had talked with the reporters who tracked her down in the practice area. She said that she was sure Jorgensen would swim well for the relay team. She said she didn’t know why she was swimming so badly. She didn’t blame it on her age--almost 24.

“It just wasn’t there,” she said. “I was shocked at my time in the morning (qualifying heat). I knew then I didn’t have it.

“When I was walking back to the village this morning, I ran into Harvey Glance (a gold-medal sprinter on the U.S. track team at Montreal). He asked me how my swim went and I had to tell him the truth. He helped me a lot, telling me that I had to go out and give it the best I could so that years from now I wouldn’t look back and think that I could have done better.

“I did the best I could.”

She held up through all the tough questions, but the tears started as some of the reporters who had known her for years sent her on her way with words of encouragement.

When the night of swimming was over, U.S. Coach Richard Quick fielded question after question about why the Americans are falling short. And, especially, why most of them are swimming slower here than they did at the U.S. trials in Austin, 5 weeks ago.

The issues will warrant careful consideration once the competition ends.

The immediate impressions are that U.S. women need to work more in the weight room to catch up, physically, with the women who are dominating; that U.S. swimmers need more international competition; that, at least in Quick’s opinion, the system dictated by school-year competition needs to be adjusted, possibly converting all college competition from short-course to long-course and moving the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. meet back so that in Olympic years the trials can be held as much as 3 months before the Games.

The U.S. trials are so competitive, so demanding, that most swimmers have to peak just to make the team. In recent years, many swimmers have said the pressure at the trials is far greater than at the Olympics. There is an inevitable letdown, and it takes more than a few weeks to recover and peak again.

There were only a couple of swimmers who were dominant enough to stay in training the trials, knowing they could make the team without their best efforts, notably, Biondi and Janet Evans, of Placentia. And they are the ones winning gold medals.

“Our strength is our depth, but it hurts us when swimmers have to have the meet of their lives to make the team and then try to have another meet of their lives a couple of weeks later,” Quick said.

“It will probably sound bad for me to say this, but when I saw the results of the East German trials, I was surprised at their lack of depth. And yet what that means is that their swimmers could swim through their trials the way Janet swam through ours.”

Asked if he thought the Americans had their worst night here behind them, Quick said: “I sure hope so.”

Possibly the biggest disappointment of the day was the Americans’ showing in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke. Susan Johnson, of Boca Raton, Fla., failed to make the final and Tracey McFarlane, of Palm Springs, Calif., finished sixth as Bulgarian swimmers Tania Dangalakova and Antoaneta Frenkeva swept the gold and silver. Dangalakova broke the Olympic record with a 1:07.95. Silke Hoerner of East Germany won the bronze.

Matt Cetlinski finished a disappointing fourth in the men’s 400-meter freestyle. Cetlinski bettered his own personal best in the event by almost 1 1/2 seconds, finishing in 3:48.09, but the three medal winners all bettered the world record.

Artur Wojdat of Poland, who trained in Mission Viejo, went under his own world-record time of 3:47.38 and still ended up with the bronze. Uwe Dassler of East Germany won the gold in 3:46.95 and Duncan Armstrong of Australia won the silver in 3:47.15.

Wojdat called it “the race of the century.” After swimming a 3:47.34, Wojdat said: “Now three are faster than the previous world record. I am happy with the bronze because this was a race you could just as easily win as lose. It was so fast and many did not even qualify for the finals.”

In another close race, the men’s 200-meter breaststroke, the top U.S. finisher was Mike Barrowman, who was fourth. Jozsef Szabo of Hungary won the gold in 2:13.52, Nick Gillingham of Britain took the silver in 2:14.12 and Sergio Lopez of Spain took the bronze in 2:15.21. Barrowman went 2:15.45.

The United States simply isn’t dominating anymore.