THE SEOUL GAMES : SWIMMING : Biondi Bids Golden Adieu After Relay Team Sets Record

Matt Biondi was stunning in his final appearance at the Olympic Indoor Swimming Pool Sunday night, in what he said would be his last competition as a swimmer. Biondi finished his career and an impressive Olympic showing by swimming the butterfly leg for the U.S. 400-meter medley relay team, a relay that lowered the world record and gave him his seventh medal of the 1988 Olympic Games.

Kristin Otto of East Germany wrapped up an even more impressive Olympic performance by winning the women’s 50-meter freestyle. The victory gave Otto a total of six gold medals in these Olympic Games. No other woman has ever won six golds. This might have been the last performance for Otto, too, but she said that she would have to go home to Leipzig and give that some careful thought.

Mary T. Meagher announced her retirement with more sadness than joy. She is leaving with two world records still on the books, records that haven’t been touched in 8 years. She is leaving with all 10 of the top all-time performances in the women’s 200-meter butterfly still in her name. But she is leaving with a bronze medal, not a gold.

Meagher finished behind East Germans Kathleen Nord and Birte Weigang in the 200-meter race Sunday, failing in her attempt to repeat at least one of her three gold-medal performances of 1984.

Her time of 2 minutes 10.8 seconds broke the news of her retirement to her. She passed it on: “I prepared as best I could for this meet, but my times show that it’s time to move on to other things.”

Madame Butterfly is folding her wings. She’s almost 24 years old and, she says, “I guess it’s time to get on with the rest of my life.”

Meagher, who broke down and shed a lot of tears before pulling herself together to meet the press, brightened into a wide smile when she was told that Soviet distance swimmer Vladimir Salnikov, himself a 28-year-old world-record holder, had won the 1,500-meter freestyle. “Good for him!” she said.

Salnikov, an amazing survivor of the distance events who said that he probably would be retiring, too, won the gold medal with a time of 15:00.40--not threatening his own record of 14:54.76, set in 1983, but still better than his much younger challengers could manage.

Stefan Pfeiffer of West Germany won the silver in 15:02.69 and Uwe Dassler of East Germany won the bronze in 15:06.15. Matt Cetlinski of the United States was fourth, just .27 seconds behind Dassler.

Despite Biondi’s haul of five gold medals and two bronze, U.S. swimmers and coaches have spent a lot of time in the last week trying to explain why the United States is no longer dominant in swimming.

The United States finished the swimming competition with 21 medals (including 9 gold), second to East Germany, which picked up 36 (including 13 gold.) Hungary was a distant third with 8 medals, and the Soviet Union had 7.

A total of 22 nations won swimming medals, which backs up Biondi’s contention that no individual and no country can possibly dominate the way Mark Spitz did in 1972 and the way United States has in the past. The rest of the world is catching up. In 1972, for example, only 10 nations were represented in the medals count.

The U.S. men still have the lead in swimming, though. It is the East German women who are making the medal count so one-sided. East German women won 12 gold medals, 7 silver and 9 bronze for 28 of the country’s 36 medals.

The Americans were especially proud that the men had won the gold in all three relays, setting world records in all three. That’s an indication that the U.S. men still have a wealth of depth.

Several U.S. women just did not swim well here, turning in times below the times they swam to qualify for the team.

The notable exception was Jill Sterkel, not the retiring type, who came back from knee surgery earlier this year to make her fourth U.S. Olympic team at the age of 27. Actually, Sterkel was listed as an alternate after the trials last month, but when Angel Myers tested positive for a steroid, Sterkel moved up to become the second entry in the 50-meter freestyle.

Sunday night, Sterkel finished ahead of the top U.S. qualifier, Leigh Ann Fetter, and tied for the bronze medal in the 50. Sterkel, who won her first Olympic medal on the 400-meter relay team that beat the East Germans for the gold in 1976, now has won Olympic medals 12 years apart.

“It just seems like there’s someone looking out for me,” said Sterkel, an assistant women’s swim coach at the University of Texas. “Everything seemed to fall into place.”

Including the addition of the 50 for these Olympic Games. The 50 is the event that Sterkel dominated in the U.S. during the early 1980s but was not an Olympic event until this year.

The world record-holder in the event is China’s Yang Wenyi, who established the Olympic record in her qualifying heat (25.67). In winning the gold, Otto didn’t break Yang’s world record of 24.98 or her Olympic record, but she touched the wall first in 25.95. Yang went 25.67 and Sterkel tied for the bronze with Katrin Meissner of East Germany in 25.71.

So, on the last night of swimming competition, the United States picked up two bronze medals in women’s events and again dazzled with a men’s relay.

David Berkoff, the world record-holder in the men’s 100-meter backstroke, led off with a 54.56-second backstroke leg, swimming the first 35 meters underwater to pull ahead of Igor Polianski, who was leading off for the Soviets. Richard Schroeder swam the breaststroke leg in 1:01.64, losing some ground to Victor Davis of Canada but not losing the lead. The United States was ahead when Biondi hit the water to swim a 52.38-second butterfly leg that beat both the Canadians and the Soviets by a second. At that point the United States was up by 1.64 seconds. Chris Jacobs brought it home with a 48.35-second freestyle leg.

The U.S. relay time of 3:36.93 was 1.35 seconds faster than the world record set by the United States in 1985.

Canada took the silver with a time of 3:39.28 and the Soviet Union took the bronze in 3:39.96.

The medley relay, which tests a team’s all-around strength, became an Olympic event in 1960. The Americans have won the gold seven of eight times, missing only in 1980 when the United States boycotted the Moscow Games.

Tamas Darnyi of Hungary lowered his own world record by swimming the 200-meter individual medley in 2:00.17. Patrick Kuehl of East Germany took the silver in 2:01.61 and Vadim Iarochtchouk won the bronze in 2:02.40. Dave Wharton of USC, who had won the silver medal in the 400-meter individual medley, didn’t make the final. He won the consolation heat in 2:03.05, more than 2 seconds slower than the time he swam in the U.S. trials.

After Darnyi had set the record, his coach, Tamas Szechy, said: “We expected him to swim under 2 minutes. . . . We expected Wharton to be a serious competitor in this race, and if he had been in top form, he would have made the final and helped to push Tamas under 2 minutes.”

Krisztina Egerszegi, the 14-year-old from Hungary who won the silver medal in the women’s 100-meter backstroke, won the 200-meter backstroke in 2:09.29, ahead of two East German swimmers. Kathrin Zimmerman won the silver in 2:10.61 and Cornelia Sirch won the bronze in 2:11.45.

Beth Barr and Andrea Hayes, both of Pensacola, Fla., were fourth and sixth, respectively. Barr was almost one second behind Sirch in 2:12.39.