SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING / U.S. OLYMPIC TRIALS : Babb-Sprague: How the West Was Won

Kristen Babb-Sprague has portrayed Carmen. She has been a firebird, and she almost choreographed a new synchronized swim routine that would have made her seem wicked.

But upon advice from a friend, Babb-Sprague topped all those previous routines at Saturday’s U.S. Olympic Trials by introducing a new character.

This time, she played herself.

“A friend of mine said that if I am going to change my routine, I should change it to be something that’s me,” Babb-Sprague said. “And I told her, ‘I’m just a cowboy at heart.’ ”

Babb-Sprague, of Pleasanton, Calif., was emotionally shaken after she performed a playful, athletic, western-themed routine at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, and won the right to represent the United States in the solo competition at Barcelona. The duet finals will be held at 2 p.m. today.

“It’s been a long road here,” Babb-Sprague said, referring to several obstacles, including a serious back injury that forced to miss almost an entire season in 1989.

Only one soloist from each country advances to the Olympics, which is unfortunate for Becky Dyroen, who was on the heels of Babb-Sprague throughout the three-day competition. Dyroen, 21, of San Jose, needed to make up 0.8 of a point--a significant amount in synchronized swimming scoring--in her final routine. But she was unable to make up the difference.

It was the first time that Babb-Sprague was completely comfortable with a routine, which began with her pretending to be shot before she fell into the pool, and concluded 3 1/2 minutes later. She performed to music from Leonard Bernstein’s ballet, “Rodeo,” and to John Williams’ “Cowboys,” with an interlude to a flute solo of “Amazing Grace.”

It was a risk for Babb-Sprague to change to a routine that is such a departure from the classical tradition of the sport. But for the first time, she received all perfect marks for her artistic style and scored higher in the artistic than the technical portion.

Notes

Heather Simmons of Santa Clara, who finished third, passed out in the pool Friday during the figures competition, which is a set of singular skills performed before a panel of judges. She was underwater doing a move and when she finished and started to swim to the side of the pool, she blacked out. “I was dehydrated and then had been in the Jacuzzi,” she said. During figures Saturday, Simmons nearly blacked out again.