A Magic Monday for Beard

Goose bumps and excitement reached out and found Amanda Beard in the last 50 meters of the 200 breaststroke final, about thirty-something seconds before they hit everyone else in the building.

Well, Beard has always been ahead of her time but never more so on this magic Monday at the U.S. Olympic swim trials when the 18-year-old from Irvine defied conventional wisdom and finished second in the 200 breaststroke in 2 minutes 26.79 seconds, earning an unexpected trip to Sydney.

Her thrilled reaction was memorable. Beard put her hand over her mouth in disbelief, shaking so hard with emotion she clung to the lane marker. Her close friend, Staciana Stitts, who finished sixth, immediately cut over a couple of lanes and hugged Beard, who said she was so excited she couldn’t breathe. Kristy Kowal, who was first in a U.S. record of 2:24.75, joined the celebration.

It took time before Beard summoned the courage to check the scoreboard at Indiana University’s Natatorium.

“I was really scared,” she said. “After a while, I looked up there. I saw the ‘2’ by my name. I couldn’t explain how I felt. Just take ’96 and just times it by 100 and that’s how I was feeling.”

Joining Beard in Sydney will be another Orange County teenager, 17-year-old Aaron Peirsol of the Irvine Novaquatics and Newport Harbor High. Peirsol managed to get rid of his pre-race jitters on the deck just in time to finish second to Lenny Krayzelburg of Studio City in the 200 backstroke. Krayzelburg, who also won the 100 backstroke, established an Olympic trials record in 1:57.31. Peirsol went 1:57.98, slightly off his semifinal time.

There was one more U.S. record on the sixth day of the trials. Jenny Thompson won the 100 freestyle in 54.07 seconds, breaking her mark set last month in Los Angeles. Dara Torres of Beverly Hills was second in 54.62 and suffered from leg cramps afterward.

Thompson won their two head-to-head matchups, and there will not be a third in the 50. Officials said late Monday night that Thompson was withdrawing from the event because of a busy Olympic schedule.

Peirsol and Krayzelburg watched the Thompson-Torres showdown in the interview room after their race. Moving closer to the television set to watch, Peirsol held the microphone and jokingly provided play-by-play, imitating an announcer: “They’re on world-record pace.”

Krayzelburg, 24, had hoped for a world record but found himself discouraged by his form in the 200. Still, he was one of the few favorites here to meet and beat the hype, winning both backstroke events with little trouble.

“I’m forcing it. I can’t find that ideal stroke rate. I used to be able to go 1:57.3, pretty smooth, but it gives me a lot of confidence, knowing that I’m struggling but still winning the races,” he said. “There’s room to improve and that’s what is so encouraging the next five weeks.”

Peirsol had something of a career epiphany on the deck. The blank feeling and the fear had hit him once before at a meet last year in Clovis, Calif.

“I’m in the water, I almost went off someplace. I didn’t know where I was. I just looked up, ‘Why am I here?’ ” he said of that meet.

And he fought those feelings in Indianapolis.

“I did gather myself before I pushed off the wall,” he said. “I made sure I did that. Because [of what happened] in Clovis, that almost helped me [here].

“I almost wanted to look up and go, ‘My God, these past two years. Where the hell have they gone?’ It’s all about hard work. If you have any doubts in your mind, it makes it that much harder to swim the race.”

Peirsol is one of several teenagers to qualify for the team, not exactly typical on the men’s side. He seems like a veteran compared with 15-year-old Michael Phelps.

“The sport is getting younger,” he said. “It’s the return of the young guns.”

Beard was once that person. The crowd was reminded of that every night before the sessions when organizers ran a clip of the shy 14-year-old in 1996. She was asked how she would get ready for the Olympics. Beard stammered and finally said, “I have no idea.”

The crowd cheered that night in 1996 and kept doing it during these trials. Finally, there was the chance to watch and celebrate the Beard of 2000. The youngster had problems dealing with the expectations and pressure after she won two individual silvers and a gold medal in the relay and took a three-month break from the sport in 1997.

Still, her coach from those days, Dave Salo, was predicting as far back as December that she would make the Olympic team in the 2000. By that time, Beard was in her freshman year at Arizona, prospering away from home in the desert.

“You guys know her. She’s so special,” Salo said. “You hope you have someone like her to coach once in your lifetime.”

Salo may have had uncanny insight, but Beard didn’t really think it could happen until the last 50 when she held off 16-year-old Megan Quann.

“I thought I was a longshot. I tried to focus on keeping myself positive about it. I thought, ‘I can do it, I can do it,’ ” she said. “But in the back of my mind, I thought, ‘This is really going to be hard for me.’ I’ve just got to go. I can’t hold anything back.”

And her emotions down the stretch?

“I started getting goose bumps on the last 50,” she said, smiling. I don’t know if that’s good.”

Beard was still shaking with excitement well after her race. For her, the accomplishment was so brand new, the fit not quite right, that she was still running the gamut of emotions.

“It won’t sink in probably for a couple of years,” she said.

Notes

Jason Lezak, 24, of the Irvine Novaquatics qualified to swim on the 400-meter freestyle relay team by finishing fourth in the 100 freestyle final.