He Steps Up to Next Level by Getting Down to Business : Swimming: With medical school on hold, Ron Karnaugh is thinking only about the 200-meter individual medley in Barcelona.

If anyone asks Ron Karnaugh what he did over the summer, he’ll never once mention the word vacation .

Sure, he’ll be spending more time in a bathing suit than a 16-year-old surfer with no summer job, but by the time fall rolls around, Karnaugh will have been through a crash course in stress management.

On July 31, he will attempt to win an Olympic gold medal in the 200-meter individual medley in Barcelona. Less than a month later, he will be competing in the classrooms and laboratories of medical school.

“My first priority is the Olympics, then I’ll worry about relocating and getting prepared for med school,” said Karnaugh, who has trained with the Mission Viejo Nadadores since graduating from Cal in 1989. “Academics have always been a priority in my life, but at this point in time, training, competing and bringing back the gold to the United States is my focus. The rest of my life is on hold.”

Karnaugh turns 26 on July 19. On the U.S. team, only Pablo Morales, Tom Jaeger and Matt Biondi are older, and all three are hanging on in the twilight of their careers. Morales, who just missed making the U.S. team in 1988, won a silver and a gold in the 1984 Games. Jaeger won relay golds in ’84 and ’88 and Biondi won five gold medals in Seoul.

“I’ve been improving every year since I started concentrating on the individual medley at 14,” Karnaugh said. “There aren’t too many athletes in this sport who can say their best times are still improving at age 26.

“A lot of the credit for the fact I’m a so-called late bloomer goes to my dad (Peter). He knew that when I went into college, the practice workload would increase, so he didn’t want me to go overboard in high school. He didn’t want me to go through either physical or mental burnout.”

The strategy is paying dividends now, but Karnaugh’s sluggish rise through the ranks has caused considerable frustration over the years. He ended last year ranked No. 2 in the world--behind Hungarian world-record holder Tamas Darnyi--but there was a long period where he couldn’t get past nemesis Dave Wharton in the U.S. rankings.

Before this year’s Olympic trials, Karnaugh and Wharton had met 12 times in the finals of the 200 individual medley over a six-year span. Wharton won 11 times and Karnaugh finished second six times.

During the 13th meeting at the trials, Karnaugh finally hit the wall ahead of Wharton, winning the 200 IM in 2:01.56, more than a second slower than his best time.

“Let’s just say revenge is sweet,” Karnaugh said. “Sure, it was frustrating losing to him on such a consistent basis by a few tenths or hundredths here and there. For a long time, I didn’t feel I could beat him.

“Then, when I decided to come down here to Mission, (Nadadores Coach) Terry Stoddard pulled me aside and said, ‘There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t beat this guy.’ The positive influence he’s had on me has really made the difference. And he’s also gotten me in better shape, both aerobically and anaerobically, than I’ve ever been.”

Stoddard says it was just a matter of getting Karnaugh to accept the fact that he wasn’t finishing his races like a winner, a problem compounded by improper physical and mental preparation.

“We were at a meet in Texas and Ron was on a world-record pace through 150 meters, but he ended up losing,” Stoddard said. “I told him he needed to train to go 200 meters, not 150. And he needed to be like the top punt returner who breaks away and never takes his eye off the goal line. Ron was the type who’s always looking over his shoulder and those guys get tackled.”

A new mental outlook and an intense training program designed to increase endurance and strength helped Karnaugh step up to a new level. He proved that this spring. While working on a biokinetic swim bench in dry-land testing at the U.S. Swimming’s International Center for Aquatic Research at Colorado Springs, Colo., he pulled so hard on the hand paddles used to measure stroke power, he snapped one off the machine.

“I try to develop only the muscles that are beneficial to swimming,” he said. “We do a lot of peak-lactate sets, almost at race speed. As much as I don’t like doing it, I’ve got a lot of trust in Terry because I’ve improved so much.”

Karnaugh will need all the confidence, power and stamina he can muster to have any hope of beating Darnyi, who was the 1988 gold medalist and holds the world record in the 200 and 400 IM events. He also is the only person to break the mystical two-minute mark in the 200 IM (1:59.36).

“I don’t see (Darnyi) getting much faster,” Karnaugh said. “Terry and I wanted to do so well at the trials that we worked in every possible element of training to prepare. We trained so hard, maybe I overdid it a bit. But all that work is like money in the bank now.”

Despite Darnyi’s dominance of the event, Stoddard believes Karnaugh has a chance to come home with the gold. Darnyi has never lost a 200 individual medley in international competition, but he has lost twice to Karnaugh--in a dual meet in 1986 and in the 200-yard IM during the 1990 U.S. short-course nationals.

“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure Tamas remembers that,” Stoddard said.

At least, they might be able to get Darnyi looking over his shoulder.