Despite Hectic Schedule, Larsen Shows She Still Is Driven : Swimming: Distance specialist retains enthusiasm for important meets, such as this week’s Janet Evans Invitational.

Alexis Larsen finally has room to breathe. Since she graduated from Harvard-Westlake High last month, the swimmer’s schedule has gratefully slackened.

During the spring, she rose at 3:45 a.m. on weekdays to drive to Huntington Beach for workouts at Golden West Swim Club.

Then she returned home to Pacific Palisades, showered and drove to school in Studio City.

In the afternoon, it was back to Huntington Beach for a workout that lasted until 7 p.m.

Exhausting even for a 17-year-old.

“The driving is really what burns me out because I love the swimming,” Larsen said. “There’s always a big meet to keep me going.”

Larsen, one of the nation’s top distance freestylers who is headed to USC on scholarship, will compete in the Janet Evans Invitational swim meet beginning today at USC but will not be in top competitive form. Evans is the world record-holder in the 800 and a four-time Olympic gold medalist.

Like most of the country’s world-class swimmers, Larsen is training for next month’s U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis and will not shave for this meet or taper her training.

This week she will compete in the 200- and 400-meter freestyle, the mile, 200 and 400 individual medley and 100 and 200 butterfly.

Larsen ranks fourth in the world and second in the U.S. in the 1,500 freestyle. She won a gold medal at the 1991 Olympic Sports Festival in the 800 freestyle, was the ’92 U.S. national champion in the 1,500 free and a ’93 bronze medalist in that event at the Pan Pacific Games.

“She is arguably the best distance swimmer out of high school this year,” USC Coach Mark Schubert said. “She is second only to Janet Evans in the 800. She is one of the top candidates to make the World Championships in the 800.”

Larsen led Harvard-Westlake to the Southern Section Division III championship title this season. She won the 500 and 200 individual medley titles and competed on the Wolverines’ championship 400 relay team.

“She’s definitely world class,” Harvard-Westlake Coach Darlene Bible said. “She came to the majority of the high school meets even though it broke into her training schedule. You rarely find a kid that wants to do things for her team like that.”

Larsen was just a face in the crowd as a seventh-grader when Bible first coached her. There was little evidence of the ability that has propelled her to world-class status, Bible said.

“She just got better and better and better,” Bible said. “By 10th grade she was really up there. It was real exciting to watch her progress through the years.”

Larsen trained at CLASS Aquatics in Calabasas for three years, but last August she followed Bud McAllister, her coach at CLASS, to Golden West.

She says training is better than ever since doctors removed a hyperactive thyroid. A hormone medication Larsen must take for the rest of her life initially caused fatigue and sluggishness while doctors experimented with the dosage.

“I haven’t had any problems in the last nine months,” Larsen said. “That’s why my training is going so well. I feel great.”

Another area swimmer scheduled to compete at the Evans meet is Kristine Quance, a Granada Hills High graduate, who is the world record-holder in the 200 breaststroke (2:28.75).

Quance set national high school marks in the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke in 1993. As a freshman at USC last season she set an NCAA record in the 200 breaststroke (2:10.69) and school records in four other events.

Other Valley swimmers include John Jenkins, a Crescenta Valley High graduate who recently competed in the Olympic Sports Festival, and Buena High standouts Abby Gustafson and Mandy Walz.

Gustafson is the Southern Section’s 50 freestyle champion and Walz won the Southern Section title in the 100 backstroke.

Lindsay Gassner, an All-American as a junior at Hart High in 1993, is expected to do well in the sprints. Gassner, who completed high school in Santa Barbara this year, will swim at Stanford next season.

Valery Calkins and Sarah Nichols, qualifiers for last year’s U.S. National championships, will represent Conejo Simi Aquatics.