SWIMMING / U.S. CHAMPIONSHIPS : Quance Puts Illness, Field Behind Her

For Mike Barrowman, Angel Martino and Angie Wester-Krieg, the U.S. Swimming National Championships represent a post-Olympic victory tour. For Kristine Quance, it is her personal Olympics.

With perhaps the most to prove, Quance was the most dominant national champion Tuesday at Mission Viejo.

Quance, 17, from Northridge, blitzed the field in the 200-meter breaststroke by 5.3 seconds, churning to the wall in a pool record 2 minutes 27.84 seconds. The only swimmers who have gone faster in the past 12 months are the three Barcelona medalists.

Stricken by mononucleosis, Quance did not race in Spain because she finished third at the Olympic trials last March, one place shy of a berth on the U.S. team.

“This shows I’m the kind of person who won’t let something like that get me down,” Quance said, shortly after criticizing herself for not going even faster.

Unlike Quance, Barrowman, the Olympic gold medalist, paid no mind to the clock.

Uncharacteristically, the man who has lowered the world record in the 200 breaststroke six times in the past three years, allowed himself to play with the field. Then, in the last 100 meters, he zoomed from third to the lead and a 2.9-second triumph.

As expected, his pool record time of 2:13.52 was much slower than his world-record setting swim of 2:10.16 in Barcelona.

Steve West turned in the sixth-fastest time by an American this year with a third-place finish. West’s time of 2:16.53 seconds was a personal best by 0.80.

West, 20, from Huntington Beach, trailed Barrowman and Seth Van Neerden, who touched in 2:16.46.

West, a sophomore-to-be at Michigan, took the lead in the first 50 meters, fell 0.03 behind Van Neerden at the halfway point and was passed at the 110 mark by Barrowman.

“It was obvious Barrowman would win it,” said West’s coach, John Woodling of Golden West Swim Club. “Seth was the one we were hoping to beat.”

Martino, an Olympic bronze medalist, was also on an emotional high--for different reasons--after winning the 100 freestyle in a pool record 56.06.

Since returning from Spain, she has been embraced by a public that scorned her after she was removed from the ’88 Olympic team for testing positive for steroids.

“People are telling me now they believed in me all along,” said Martino, who has maintained her innocence. “They never verbalized it before. It was nice to hear.”

After 18 years in the sport, Wester-Krieg, 27, won her first national title in the 200 butterfly. Her time was 2:11.92, 2.4 seconds ahead of the field.

Derek Weatherford, 20, of Swim Florida, broke Rick Carey’s 1985 pool record of 2:00.72 in the 200 backstroke with a 2:00.17.

Two other Orange County swimmers made the finals on the second of five days of competition.

Eric Diehl, 19, of the host Mission Viejo Nadadores, placed seventh in the 100 freestyle in 51.83 seconds. His time was more than one second behind the winner, Alyn Towne of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., who finished in 50.60.

It was a solid finish for Diehl, a 200 freestyle specialist, who swam slightly faster in the morning preliminaries (51.41).

Teammate Scott Wester finished 15th in 52.05. Like Diehl, Wester, 18, swam faster in the preliminaries (51.61).