U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL: ORANGE COUNTY’S DAY : LOS ANGELES 1991 : Ladeda Takes a Leap Into Once-Hated Sport : Swimming: The 16-year old used to dread the long hours training, but now embraces the Nadadores’ work ethic.

Ali Ladeda’s idea of a good time is jumping off cliffs into the ocean near her home in Monarch Beach. She says it usually takes her about 45 minutes to build up the courage to take the plunge.

It also took her a while to make up her mind about competitive swimming, but now that she’s decided to dive headlong into training, she’s making quite a splash.

After less than eight months of serious training with the Mission Viejo Nadadores’ senior national team, the 16-year-old from Capistrano Valley Christian High School has trimmed 11 seconds off her best time in the 200-meter butterfly.

Today, in competition at the U.S. Olympic Festival, she hopes to qualify for the long-course nationals later this summer. Saturday, she finished eighth in the 200-meter freestyle (2:06.78), an event she didn’t know she was going to swim until Friday. She was in the lead after 100 meters but faded in the final 50.

“That was a good time for me,” she said. “I’m really happy with it. It’s not my best event. I went out too fast, but I never gave up . . . even if it looked a little like it.”

She had given up before, however.

Ladeda started swimming in Arizona when she was 9, then joined the Nadadores four years ago when her family moved to California. But 18 months ago, she decided to quit.

“I hated swimming,” she said. “I didn’t mind competitions, but I didn’t like practices. It was boring and it was too much work.”

Last year, during the Mission Viejo-hosted Swim Meet of Champions, the Ladeda family was host to five out-of-town swimmers. Ladeda watched them compete and decided she wanted to “be really good like them.”

“Before that, I couldn’t pay her to go to two practices a week,” said Nancy Ladeda, Ali’s mother. “But after she saw these five guys swim and saw that they were all going to college and they became friends, she realized swimmers weren’t nerds.”

Ladeda rejoined the Nadadores, but still wasn’t ready to put in the work that was necessary to become a member of the senior national team that trains with head Coach Terry Stoddard.

“She was going to about four to seven workouts a week, still trying to decide if swimming was something she really wanted to do,” Stoddard said. “Then she went to work and dropped four seconds off her time because she wanted to make Zones (a Southern California all-star meet).

“She was seeded second or third and was mad. Then she won the meet and was fast enough to qualify for the junior nationals. Everyone was congratulating her on making the junior national team and she wasn’t even aware that she had. She just wanted to win.”

In only a few months and one meet, Ladeda had proven her talent and shown potential. All of which came as no surprise to her mother.

“When we were in Phoenix, her coach was Monica Schloder, a former German Olympic swimmer,” Nancy Ladeda said. “She told us when Ali was 9 that she had the potential to be an Olympic swimmer. It was all a matter of her mental approach.”

Ladeda was physically ready to move up to the Nadadores’ elite group if she was ready to make the commitment.

“I really wanted to move up and be in Terry’s group, but, at the same time, I was really scared of the workouts,” she said. “You hear so much about how hard they are and you have to work out 11 times a week.”

She approached this step forward as a swimmer as if it was the step off a cliff. She took her time, made up her mind and then moved ahead, knowing there was no turning back.

Now, she’s enjoying the free fall. She made her senior national qualifying time at the junior nationals in Milwaukee during the last week of March. At the senior nationals in Seattle the next week, she made the Olympic Festival team.

“Her training has been simply fantastic,” Stoddard said.

Once fearful of the workload, Ladeda has embraced the Nadadores’ work ethic in a way that would make Shirley Babashoff and Brian Goodell--former Olympians and charter members of the Mission Viejo “Animal Lane” elite--very proud.

“I love workouts now,” Ladeda said. “I never miss one. Heck, I don’t even like tapering (resting before competitions).”

With her new-found love for training and plenty of room for technical improvement, Ladeda seems to be facing a future with unlimited potential. There is, Stoddard says, room for incredible growth. Her hopes of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 200-meter butterfly might not be far-fetched.

“I hope to go 2:16 (the Trials qualifying time is 2:16.89),” she said. “I want to leave a little breathing room.”

There is, however, one drawback to her rise in the pool. It could put a damper on her plunges into the ocean. Somehow, the risk seems greater when there’s so much to lose.

“My uncle and I were down at Salt Creek one day and saw people doing it and it just looked like fun,” she said. “I never dive, it’s all jumping with me, and really the most dangerous part is climbing back up through all the barnacles. I’ve got the scars to prove that.”

It’s not a new problem for Stoddard, who has dealt with other swimmers with a similar case of Acapulco-itis.

“For years and years, the kids have been talking about that spot,” he said. “I’ve never seen the cliff and I’ve never seen one jump off. From what I’ve heard, I guess it’s sort of within reason. I don’t overtly discourage it, but I sure wouldn’t encourage it.”

In the meantime, he can only hope that Ladeda is so occupied with her climb up the rankings in the 200-meter butterfly that she won’t have time to climb any cliffs. Maybe, she’ll settle for her place in swimming’s new wave rather than slamming into ones headed for the rocks of Monarch Beach.