Quann Leaves Her Mark

So, the world record will have to wait.

Sixteen-year-old Megan Quann of nearby Puyallup settled for breaking her U.S. record twice Friday, once in the morning preliminaries and later at night in the finals before her family and friends at the King County Aquatic Center in the National Swimming Championships.

She won the 100-meter breaststroke in 1 minute 7.54 seconds, defeating 1998 World Champion Kristy Kowal of Athens, Ga., who had a personal best of 1:07.85. Esperanza High sophomore Erin Sieper finished fourth at 1:10.94.

“Seeing that time up on the board really lifted my heart,” Quann said. “And seeing two 1:07s up there is just amazing. I know Kristy has been at a 1:08 for a couple of years.

“The first thing she [Kowal] said to me was, ‘Thank you for racing against me. I love to race against you.’ ”

Other notable local finishes included Chad Carvin of Laguna Hills, who was second in the 400 freestyle (3:50.39) behind Tom Dolan’s 3:49.59. Newport Harbor sophomore Aaron Peirsol of the Irvine Novaquatics took second in the 100 backstroke (55.63), a personal best. Neil Walker of Texas Aquatics won in 54.58. The Novaquatics 800 freestyle women’s relay team of Jessica Hayes, Courtney Cashion, Lindsey Buck and Jerri Moss took fourth in 8:26.41.

Quann has broken the U.S. record three times in four months, and is having a blast taking out names and numbers. She has a list of rankings in her bedroom and crosses out the vanquished with blue ink. Dismissed on Friday were two more big names, Silke Horner of East Germany (1:07.91 in 1988) and Samantha Riley of Australia (1:07.66 in 1997).

“It’s on my closet door,” Quann said. “And I just updated it with the ’99 rankings this weekend. Now I get to go home and cross a couple more names off.”

She giggled. Brash predictions and statements don’t sound too cocky coming from Quann for some reason. This week she predicted she would break the world record of Penny Heyns of South Africa, which is 1:06.52.

“Megan has an innate knack of speaking without being arrogant,” said her coach Rick Benner of the Puyallup Aquatic Club. “I don’t know how she does it.”