Quance Flies Into Lead, Then Sinks to Second : Swimming: She leads after two legs of individual medley but fades badly and loses again to Wagner.

Her opening salvo, a blistering 63-second butterfly leg, said it all.

There was no way Kristine Quance would lose her 400-meter individual medley national title to Allison Wagner, a 15-year-old from Florida who upset Quance at the Janet Evans Invitational earlier this month.

With a swift backstroke leg, Quance backed up her first 100, gaining a lead of 0.40 seconds on Wagner.

Then, the wheels fell off. Quance’s kick abandoned her on her strongest stroke, the breaststroke, and her split, 1:22.00, was her slowest in almost three years. Wagner, who also excels in breaststroke, took advantage, churning away from Quance with incredible ease.

At the start of the final stroke, freestyle, Quance made a valiant effort, but Wagner continued to pull away, and over the last 40 meters Quance was flailing.

In a daze, she leaned her face into the wall and wept, Wagner’s 4:41.93 on the scoreboard above her, outclassing her time of 4:45.21. Long after the seven other finalists emerged from the Texas Swim Center pool, Quance lingered.

Twenty minutes later, a silver medal draped around her neck, she could not explain finishing three seconds slower than her best time. She called it the most distressing race in her career, a career so hot at this time last year that she became the fifth swimmer in U.S. history to win four national titles.

“I don’t even know what to think,” Quance said. “That’s the fastest I’ve ever been out on the butterfly and the backstroke. It felt pretty easy. And then I was really tired on breaststroke. I mean it just wouldn’t go.”

Alexis Larsen, Quance’s CLASS Aquatics teammate, showed great improvement in the same event, finishing 11th in 4:54.65, a three-second improvement. Larsen fell from 12th to 15th on the breaststroke leg, but passed four swimmers with a furious freestyle rally.

Fourth place in the 200 freestyle would have given Valery Calkins of Conejo-Simi Aquatics a berth on the United States 800 freestyle relay team that will compete in the Pan Pacific Championships next month in Kobe, Japan.

But Calkins, 18, finished fifth, missing the opportunity to compete with the national team by .06.

“I’m a little disappointed, but it’s still my best time,” Calkins said of her 2:02.75, a full second faster than her career best.