Quance-Julian Taking Baby Steps

The ear-splitting noise, the hot sticky pool area and the smelly chlorine didn’t stop the baby from sleeping while his mother, Kristine Quance-Julian, went to work in the water Friday night. Trenton, who will turn one next week, settled in under the watch of his father, Jeff Julian.

“He loves the water,” Quance-Julian reported.

And why not? After all, his parents are swimmers.

“He started sleeping through the night at 12 weeks,” she said. “I kept saying he knew I had to get up and go to practice in the morning.”

From afar, it looked so simple. Quance, 24, resumed training in January, won the 200-meter individual medley at the U.S. nationals in August and, in the midst of heavy training, finished seventh in the 400 IM in 4 minutes 51.75 seconds at the U.S. Open on Friday.

In reality, the road back has hardly been easy. Quance put on 55 pounds in her pregnancy and joked about swimming during that time, saying: “I floated.”

Her husband was the behind-the-scenes catalyst.

“I don’t know if I would have kept going if it wasn’t for him,” said Quance-Julian, an Olympic gold medalist in 1996 in a relay. “There were many days when I cried on the way home from practice. I can laugh about it now. But it was awful at the time.”

Her coach, Mark Schubert of USC, was supportive. But Quance, who grew up in Northridge, had her doubts.

“I didn’t know if I could ever come back,” she said. “I wanted to, but I remember the first day coming back. Oh my God, the last thing you want to do is put on a bathing suit. All these people at practice, and here I am, I just roll out.

“I was so slow. I could only swim for 15 minutes. It was so traumatic. It took me a couple of weeks to even swim in the slow lane. I had a hard time. Everybody said, ‘Oh yeah, it [the weight] will just drop off you.’ I don’t know, but I’m just really different.”

Olympic coach Richard Quick wandered by at Palo Alto College and offered encouragement. She was disappointed by the seventh-place result Friday, even if it did come during heavy training. Cristina Teuscher of New York won the 400 IM in 4:45.16, and Kaitlin Sandeno, 16, of Lake Forest finished third in 4:47.31.

“Like Richard was saying, it doesn’t matter,” Quance-Julian said. “But it’s nice to swim fast.”

Sandeno has had an excellent season, including two gold medals at the Pan American Games during the summer.

“When I made the Pan Am team, I realized I could swim with the big girls,” she said. “Before, I always felt smaller. It was like, ‘Oh God, there’s Jenny Thompson.’ Now I feel like I belong here.”

There were four meet records on the second day of the meet, two of them, naturally, from Lenny and Jenny. Lenny Krayzelburg of Los Angeles set his second meet record in two days, winning the 100 backstroke in 54.62 seconds. Thompson won the 100 butterfly in 58.36, the fourth-fastest time in history. The other records were by Australian Michael Klim in the 100 butterfly (52.90) and Australian Grant McGregor (4:19.52) in the 400 IM.

“I didn’t come into this meet expecting a world record, but this was my best-ever unrested time, so I feel good about it,” Thompson said. “I feel people expect it and to a certain extent, I expect it of myself.”

Thompson, the world-record holder in the 100 butterfly, always seems to do something on special occasions, and this was yet another example. USA Swimming brought in swimming legend Mary T. Meagher Plant for a special presentation to Thompson before Friday’s finals. Meagher held the world record for 18 years until Thompson broke it in August at the Pan Pacific Championships in Sydney.