Evans Is Grand Yet Again

Amid the Olympic trials’ swirling schizophrenia of emotions, grand old champion Janet Evans produced the big “Eureka” Friday night with a solid comeback victory in the women’s 400-meter freestyle.

Just as dramatically, Jessica Foschi, 15 and in the eye of a seven-month steroid controversy, may have discovered enough self-assurance with her charging fifth-place finish to make her a reasonable threat to make the Olympic team in the 800 freestyle.

Evans won the 400, billed as her first trials showdown with the so-called “Next Janet Evans,” 15-year-old Floridian Brooke Bennett, in 4:10.97, while Bennett faded from second to third to a struggling fourth. Evans’ steady, building come-from-behind pace finally caught 17-year-old New York high-schooler Cristina Teuscher on the last turn. After Teuscher, second in 4:11.59, came 19-year-old Floridian Trina Jackson in 4:13.46 and Bennett in 4:13.81.

But it was Foschi who swam the fastest final 100-meter split in the field, 1:02.63; her 4:13.84 left her only .03 of a second out of fourth place and less than .4 of a second out of third. “I didn’t feel the same nerves and butterflies this time,” said the Long Island teenager who was ninth in the 200 free Thursday. “I thought it felt great.”

Since the same cast, with the exception of the sprinter Teuscher, is expected to show up in the 800 finals Sunday, a new dynamic could be at work. Especially since the 800 is Foschi’s best event.

“This took a lot of pressure off me for the 800,” Evans said. Conversely, Bennett now is down to her last chance to make the Olympic team in the 800. “I’m forgetting about the 400 and I’m going for the 800,” Bennett said “I’ll be there.”

Foschi’s mood figured to be closer to Evans’, since she exceeded the expectations of both herself and her coach, Dave Ferris.

“The goal is to try to get in the final and, when you’re there, try and do a best time, which she did,” Ferris said. “How many people can do that? You hope it’s good enough to make the team, but she’s not there right now.”

Evans warned, “There is no pecking order at the trials.”

Sure enough: Mel Stewart, the 1992 gold medalist in the 200-meter butterfly, was barely kept off this year’s team in that event when he finished third.

Meanwhile, in the women’s 100-meter backstroke, Whitney Hedgepeth, 24 and back from a brief retirement, made her second Olympic team with a 1:01.52 victory; 14-year-old Beth Botsford of Baltimore was second (1:01.59). In the men’s 100 freestyle, Gary Hall Jr., son of 1972-76 Olympian Gary Hall, was second in 49.53 behind Arkansas native Jon Olsen (49.46).

The chaos of Foschi’s ongoing eligibility fight over last summer’s contested positive steroid test, added spice to the women’s 400, the most anticipated race of this seven-day meet.

It was Evans, earlier in the week, who strongly condemned U.S. Swimming’s waffling on Foschi, currently on two-year probation after briefly being banned, and Evans again called the back-and-forth rulings “silly.” But Evans softened by saying she “feels sorry” for Foschi “because perhaps she was sabotaged.”

Last spring, Bennett fanned the fires for this duel at the Pan American Games, when she wondered if Evans was starting to worry about Bennett stealing her thunder. Then Bennett added another log with a classic stroke-for-stroke, three-hundredths-of-a-second victory over Evans in the 400 at last summer’s national championships.

But Evans noted that she was slowed by injury and illness last year. On the eve of this meet, she fired back at Bennett, saying: “People say, ‘You were like Brooke.’ No. When I was 15, I had two world records.”

Friday night, Evans said, “I wasn’t trying to psych her out or anything. This was going on for a long time and people are used to me saying, ‘Well, OK, whatever, everything is fine.’ I think it needed to be said now.”