She’ll Try to Make It an Olympic Summer

Summer Sanders soon will learn whether her year-long experiment--a.k.a. the Great Comeback--is an artistic success.

Sanders, who won two gold medals, a silver and a bronze at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, is heading into the U.S. Olympic swim trials starting Wednesday in Indianapolis with some trepidation, but no hesitation.

“This time around, I’m honestly saying I want to be there,” Sanders said at the U.S. spring nationals in Orlando last month. “I really think I can do it. I just don’t know what is going to happen.”

The same could have been said about Sanders’ sudden return last year.

“When she came back, she was the most out-of-shape person I’ve seen,” said Tripp Schwenk, America’s top backstroke swimmer, who trained with Sanders as a member of the U.S. resident team in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Upon hearing that, Sanders, 24, giggled.

“For a year and a half, I didn’t step one foot into a pool,” she said.

With one exception: Olympian Rowdy Gaines coaxed Sanders into swimming with him when she was in Hawaii.

“After one lap, I thought I was going to die,” she said.

Sprinter Amy Van Dyken scoffed at that.

“It was like she never left the pool when she joined us,” said Van Dyken, also on the resident team.

Sanders said she is enjoying life more than ever, although competitors she never took seriously are beating her.

She has dropped from the world’s top-ranked 200-meter butterfly swimmer in 1992 to No. 22 in ’95. She fell from second in the 200 individual medley in 1992 to ninth last year.

Her best chance to make the ’96 Olympic team is the 200 butterfly--her strongest event--because the U.S. women lack depth in the race. The top two finishers in each event will earn a berth to the Olympics, plus some extra sprinters for the relay teams.

If she fails to make the ’96 team, Sanders said, she will be disappointed, but not devastated.

“I don’t think I’ll be sad,” she said. “When I retire, I’m going to have such a better feeling about swimming.”

Sanders, who worked in broadcasting before launching the comeback, said she has learned valuable lessons about herself in the last year. Losing to youngsters who then shyly ask for her autograph has been a reality check.

“I’ve learned so much beyond the swimming end of it,” said Sanders, of Roseville, Calif. “Just a happiness I kind of had lost.”

After retiring and working for MTV, Sanders said she became frustrated with herself and her expectations.

“I had to be perfect in everything,” she said. “I stressed myself out. I just didn’t have a sense of direction. I wanted some challenge.”

Swimming gave that back to her.