Wharton Breaks U.S. Record in 400 Medley

David Wharton, competing in his home pool, set the first record of the U.S. Swimming Long Course National Championships Wednesday night.

Wharton lowered his American record in the men’s 400-meter individual medley to 4 minutes 15.93 seconds in the University of Southern California pool.

The Trojan star is competing at this meet in the name of Team Foxcatcher, his club team back home in Pennsylvania. But he will be back at USC as a junior in the fall.

Eric Namesnik pushed Wharton to the record, staying with Wharton through the fastest butterfly leg Wharton has ever recorded. Namesnik took the lead on the backstroke leg, stayed close through the breaststroke and pushed Wharton to his fastest freestyle leg ever.

And that’s pretty fast, considering Wharton once held the world record in the 400 individual medley.

Wharton said that his first priority was to win the event and secure a berth on the Pan Pacific team that will be competing in Tokyo next month. “I was kind of nervous because I hadn’t made the team yet,” Wharton said. “Getting the record was an added bonus I’ll certainly take.

“I felt smooth tonight . . . Coming home I felt really strong.”

Wharton won the silver medal in this event in the 1988 Olympic Games, finishing behind Tamas Darnyi of Hungary. Darnyi set the world record of 4:14.75.

Asked if he will be taking special notice of Darnyi’s time in the upcoming European Championships in Bonn, Wharton smiled. “Of course,” he said. “What he’s done isn’t out of my ballpark yet. . . . My objective will be to go faster in Tokyo.”

Wharton holds the American records in both the 200-yard and the 400-yard individual medleys and has been voted National Collegiate Athletic Assn. swimmer of the year the last two years. He said that with the experience he has had in international swimming in the last few years, he is starting to feel more confident in that arena, too.

He will be swimming the 200-meter individual medley here Friday night. “I’ll be a lot more relaxed and confident for the 200, now that I’ve made the team,” he said.

Janet Evans of the Fullerton Aquatic Sports Team won her second national title of the meet, in the 400-meter freestyle. But her 4:06.73 was no threat to the world record--4:03.85--that she set in winning the gold medal in Seoul.

Heike Friedrich of East Germany chased her in Seoul. And no one chased her Wednesday. She is going to have to get used to that.

Olympians Betsy Mitchell and Dan Veatch both came out of retirement to win backstroke titles Wednesday night.

Mitchell won the women’s 100-meter backstroke in 1:02.37, and Veatch won the men’s 200-meter backstroke in 2:02.09.

Mitchell’s performance was especially impressive considering that her time, after only a few weeks of training, beat the 1:02.53 she swam here in ’84 to win the Olympic silver medal.

Mitchell at one time held world records in both the 100- and 200-meter backstrokes and still holds the record in the 200. She was about as burned out as a swimmer can get when she scratched from the 200 during the U.S. Olympic trials last summer in her own University of Texas pool and then, after finishing fourth in the 100 in Seoul, scratched from the medley relay.

“I had a feeling that would come up,” Mitchell said. “I thought that would probably look pretty bad. I wasn’t making a statement or anything with that scratch. I just felt like I wasn’t going to go faster than Beth (Barr) was going to go. She was going faster at the time.

“I was at the end of a really long rope . . .

“It wasn’t really horrible being at the Olympics, but things were really different for me once I was a world record-holder. To tell you the truth, it was probably me assuming that people were putting the pressure on me. . . . Tonight I had fun swimming for the first time in a long time.”

Mitchell, 23, had been coaching at her alma mater, the Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, when she decided in early July that she wanted to swim again. She drove to Stanford in her jeep to work out with her former college coach, Richard Quick.

Brent Lang of Club Wolverine, a member of the 1988 Olympic team as a relay swimmer, won the 100-meter freestyle in 50.17. Nichole Haislett won the women’s 100-meter freestyle in 56.15.

Swimming Notes

The last time Carrie Steinseifer competed in a championship final in the USC pool, she finished in a tie with Nancy Hogshead to win the 1984 Olympic gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle. Steinseifer finished in a tie for sixth place with Janel Jorgensen Wednesday. . . . Tom Jager tuned up for his 50-meter swim against Matt Biondi on Friday by swimming the 100-meter freestyle Wednesday. He finished third in 50.4, earning a spot on the Pan Pacific team. The top four finishers in the 100-meter freestyle make it in order to fill the 400-meter freestyle relay. . . . Longhorn Aquatics led the team competition after the third day, leading also in both the men’s competition and the women’s competition.