SWIMMING / THERESA MUNOZ : Early Olympic Trials Reflect Harsh Lesson Learned in Seoul

After years of preparation, hundreds of swimmers will converge on Indianapolis March 1-6 for the chance to earn a berth on the U.S. Olympic team.

Based on recent performances, particularly at collegiate conference championship meets, the U.S. Olympic trials will be as fast as ever.

“There’s been some terrific swimming going on around the country,” said Mark Schubert, who will coach the U.S. women’s team next summer in Barcelona, Spain.

“I’m excited. We’re going to have a fabulous team. One of the best in years. It seems to be building in intensity.”

The key for the United States is making sure its swimmers go as fast or faster in the Olympic Games as they do in the trials. It is not easy because so much is invested, physically and emotionally, into making the team.

No other nation has the depth the United States does in swimming. Yet at the 1988 Olympic Games at Seoul, the United States won only 16 of the 93 medals in swimming and Janet Evans of Placentia and Matt Biondi of Castro Valley, Calif., were the only Americans to win gold medals in individual events. Several members of the U.S. team swam slower in the Games than in the trials.

Mike Barrowman’s performance was typical. He set an American record of 2 minutes 13.74 seconds in the 200-meter breaststroke during the trials, but had a 2:15.45 six weeks later in the Games and finished fourth.

Since then, Barrowman has not lost a 200 breaststroke race. After breaking the world record in 1989 in Los Angeles, he has lowered it four times, including a 2:10.60 at the U.S. Nationals in August.

Reactions such as Barrowman’s to the disappointment of the ’88 Games is the reason Schubert believes the 1992 U.S. team will be exceptional.

“I think some of the disappointment of ’88 served as motivation for ‘92,” Schubert said.

Melvin Stewart, David Berkoff, former USC All-American David Wharton, Leigh Ann Fetter, former Mission Viejo Nadadore Dara Torres, Troy Dalbey, Whitney Hedgepeth, Tracey McFarlane of Palm Springs, Mark Dean, Dan and Lars Jorgensen of San Diego, Dan Veatch and Beth Barr are all competing in the trials partly because of their dissatisfaction with their times in Seoul.

Subsequently, Stewart became a world record-holder with a 1:55.69 in the 200 butterfly. Berkoff, Torres, and McFarlane retired, then came out of retirement.

Angel Martino (formerly Myers) and Pablo Morales, who also retired four years ago and made comebacks, were excluded from the ’88 team.

Martino was stripped of her berth on the squad after testing positive for anabolic steroids.

And Morales, the world record-holder in the 100 butterfly and the American record-holder in the 200 butterfly, missed the cut when he finished third in both events at the trials. Each nation is limited to two swimmers per Olympic event.

Morales’ experience is the most dramatic example of the difficulty of making the American team.

Summer Sanders, the butterflyer/individual medleyist from Roseville, Calif., could become a star of the ’92 Games, but she won’t get the chance unless she has the times that earned her triple gold medals in the 1990 Goodwill Games and 1991 Pan Pacific Championships.

American record-holders Fetter, Wharton, Janie Wagstaff, Anita Nall, Nicole Haislett and Eric Namesnik also are not ensured of making the team, nor are world record-holders Biondi, Barrowman, Stewart, Jeff Rouse of Stanford and former UCLA All-American Tom Jager.

“Nobody in this country better go in thinking it’s a lock or it could be a big mistake,” Schubert said. “They might be dominant going in but in the trials, traditionally, there are a lot of great breakthroughs. There are always surprises and people are always upset.”

The exception is Evans; there are simply no American women who can challenge her in the events in which she owns world records, the 400 and 800 freestyles.

The biggest change since 1988 is the timing of the trials, 4 1/2 months before the Olympics instead of six weeks before the Games.

The change was made in response to the U.S. team’s dismal performance at Seoul.

At the time, Richard Quick, the 1988 U.S. Olympic coach, was quoted as saying that U.S. swimmers had to “swim the race of their lives to make the team and then the race of their lives six weeks later.”

In contrast, others could generally cruise through their nations’ Olympic trials and save themselves for Seoul because they had little competition.

The early trials remain controversial, however, because they have disrupted the NCAA season.

“It’s an overreaction to the team not swimming well in Seoul,” said Skip Kenney, coach of Stanford, the No. 1-ranked men’s team.

“You have to look at swimming from the top to the bottom. You have to have a carrot because it’s so difficult to train day after day, year after year. So what are your carrots? No. 1 the Olympic team. No. 2 a college scholarship.

“Putting the trials in without any respect to the college athlete I think is wrong. In fact, I think it’s nuts.”

The average age of the 1988 U.S. Olympic team was 22 for the men and 18 for the women. The ’92 men’s team could be slightly older because several top candidates are in their late 20s, including Jager, 27, and Biondi, 26. Of course, some of these college graduates could be balanced by teen-agers such as Joey Hudepohl, 18, Eric Diehl of Mission Viejo, 18, and Royce Sharp, 19.

The women’s team probably will stay young if teen-agers such as Anita Nall, 15, and Janie Wagstaff, 17, repeat their best performances. Wagstaff broke Betsy Mitchell’s American record in the 100-yard backstroke with a 53.68 on Feb. 1.

One reason Biondi has been able to make a run at his third Olympics is his ability to get by on smaller amounts of training.

“I don’t need 15,000 yards a day any more,” Biondi said. “I don’t swim for yards, I swim for quality and stroke technique. I’ve been swimming long enough that I don’t need the hell weeks. I did that. I put in the time and I developed my stroke.”

Biondi and Jager became the first American swimmers to earn a living off their sport. In 1991 alone, they earned $54,970 and $32,041, respectively, from the U.S. Swimming Athletes Assistance program. They have also earned money from exhibitions and endorsements.

In contrast, Steve Crocker, their rival in the 50 freestyle, makes ends meet through the Olympic Job Opportunity program.

“Swimming is a career for Matt and Tom,” Crocker said. “Every bit of effort in their day goes to the sport. I don’t think it would help me, but it makes them great. I’ve found if I have nothing but swimming, it doesn’t help me.”

The program enabled Crocker to quit his full-time job and work four hours per day.

Notes

Because the gap between the trials and the Games is so long, swimmers who finish third in the trials will be asked to continue training in case a member of the team is hampered by illness or injury.

Unlike the 1988 team, which had one head coach, Richard Quick, the 1992 team will be divided into men’s and women’s teams with Mark Schubert coaching the women and Eddie Reese coaching the men. Both are from the University of Texas.

Schubert has mixed feelings about the no-hand-touch backstroke rule that has led to several records, including world marks in men’s and women’s 100 and 200 backstroke. “It’s exciting, but I feel bad for the backstrokers of the past, their records are being erased without an asterisk,” Schubert said. “None of these (new) times are Betsy Mitchell (former 200 backstroke world record-holder) times.”

Upcoming: March 1-6: U.S. Olympic Trials at Indianapolis; March 19-21: NCAA women’s championships at Austin, Tex.; March 26-28: NCAA men’s championships at Indianapolis.