SWIMMING : Australian Had His Timing Down, but His Record Bid Is Up in the Air

After 100 meters in a preliminary heat of the 1,500-meter freestyle at the Australian Commonwealth Games trials last week, Glen Housman knew something special was happening.

“I knew I was in front of a world-record pace and thought, what the heck, let’s go for it,” Housman told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I just put my head down and kept swimming and swimming.”

When the race was over, Housman’s time was 14 minutes 53.59 seconds, which was 1.17 seconds under Soviet swimmer Vladimir Salnikov’s world record of 14:54.76. However, Housman’s finishing touch did not stop the electronic timing system, so his time was not recognized by FINA, the sport’s governing body.

Most timing systems at big meets are equipped with a backup electronic timing device that starts with the gun and is stopped by the timers at the end of the race; however, this meet had no electronic backup. Housman’s time was determined by taking the middle time of the three timers’ hand-held stopwatches. The times were 14:53.57, 14:53.59 and 14:53.60.

Because the times on the watches were so close and the time was considerably under the existing mark, the Australian Institute of Sport filed a petition with FINA to have the record allowed.

“We will undertake every possible action to see that the record is acknowledged by the world governing body,” Craig McLatchey, executive director of the Australian institute, told the Sydney newspaper.

A member of the FINA technical committee, Roger Smith, was the meet director, and he will endorse the petition. “I have been officiating swimming carnivals for the past 30 years and I have never struck this kind of thing before,” Smith said.

Housman, 18, became the second swimmer to go under 15 minutes in the 1,500. Salnikov, who won the 1,500 in the 1980 and 1988 Olympics, has been under 15 minutes four times. Several swimmers have been close, including George Dicarlo, who holds the American record of 15:01.51.

One of the highlights of this year’s U.S. Open, held earlier this month at the Justice Aquatic Center in Orlando Fla., was the return of Troy Dalbey. Swimming for the first time since last year’s Seoul Olympics, Dalbey won the 100-meter freestyle and was second in the 200-meter freestyle, with times close to what he swam to make the Olympic team.

Dalbey, a double gold-medalist in 1988, was banned from competing in United States Swimming-sanctioned meets for a year after he was caught taking a statue from a bar in Seoul.

Because he had been away from competitive swimming for so long, Dalbey was unsure of how he would perform in the meet.

“It was an important meet for me, as far as my confidence went,” Dalbey said. “If I didn’t do well there, I wasn’t sure I’d ever have enough confidence to win again.”

Dalbey has also returned to school.

In the 1987 NCAA meet, as a freshman at Florida, Dalbey was runner-up to Matt Biondi in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyles. His time in the 200 made him the second-fastest performer in that event.

Dalbey took the next year off to train for the Olympics. When he returned, he decided that he did not want to re-enroll at Florida. Instead, he enrolled at BYU. After living in Provo, Utah, for two months, he decided that the area was not to his liking. His next stop was Arizona State, where he is now.

He did little training initially but has been in the water regularly this semester. Ron Johnson, the Sun Devil coach, is glad to have Dalbey on the team.

“He is the type of swimmer who can make a program by himself,” Johnson said. “He can swim anything but is especially good in the middle-distance freestyles and on the relays.”

Under NCAA rules, Dalbey could not compete for ASU this semester. Starting with next semester, he has 1 1/2 years of eligibility left. Dalbey lost a year because Florida would not release him from his scholarship. ASU is petitioning the NCAA to have one year of eligibility restored on the basis of an NCAA rule that states if an athlete takes a year out of school to train for the Olympics and makes the team, the year does not count against him.

In any event, Dalbey is having fun swimming again. He plans to help ASU do as well as it can and keep swimming toward the next Olympics.

Last summer, Mark Spitz announced that he was returning to swimming and aiming for a spot on the 1992 Olympic team in the 100-meter butterfly. Because Spitz is interested in just the one event, and possibly a relay, he enlisted the help of UCLA men’s Coach Ron Ballatore, one of the top sprint coaches in America.

After five months, Spitz says he is progressing well, training five days a week at UCLA.

“I’m doing fine. The big thing is not to get into (training) too quickly,” Spitz said. “I’ve got a long way to go.”

Spitz last raced was in 1972 at the Montreal Olympics, where he won four individual events and was on three winning relay teams. Spitz chose the 100-meter butterfly because it was his best event. His world record in Montreal, 54.27 seconds, stood until 1977, when Joe Bottom swam 54.18.

Spitz expects to enter his first race sometime in the spring but won’t be concerned with how he does. “In swimming, you don’t really get your act together until the end of the season,” Spitz said, “and since I’m shooting for 1992, I’ve got a long way to go.”

Swimming Notes

Several Southland collegiate swimmers will compete in the Perth International Invitational meet at Perth, Australia, Jan. 5-7. Ray Looze and Brad Askins of USC, and Mark Dean of UCLA will represent the United States, and Erik Ran of USC will swim for the Netherlands. The American swimmers, 25 men and 18 women, will leave Dec. 27 and attend a training camp before the meet. A U.S. long-distance team will compete in a 25-kilometer race in the Swan River, which runs through Perth.

USC sophomore Gary Anderson won the 200-meter individual medley, was second in the 200-meter backstroke and qualified for the Canadian team that will compete in the Commonwealth Games at Auckland, New Zealand, Jan. 24-Feb. 8.

In the latest college swimming rankings, the Stanford women are first, just ahead of Texas. UCLA is ninth and USC eleventh. On the men’s side, Texas is first, with USC second and Stanford third. UCLA is 10th.