FUELING THE FIRE

The Japanese women’s 800-meter relay team relieved the Olympian intensity of the swimming ready room at the 1996 Games in Atlanta when it sauntered through, wearing Ronald McDonald fright wigs.

Australians Susie O’Neill and Nicole Stevenson sat in a corner and laughed at the sight, feeling pretty relaxed, despite the task ahead--swimming against a U.S. relay team anchored by Jenny Thompson. Stevenson, in fact, got up and started doing the hokey-pokey.

Never mind that the American women were drop-dead serious, forming a tight circle to psych themselves up. Stevenson danced around the circle, putting her right foot in and her left foot out, turning herself all around.

“The American girls kept shushing me, saying, ‘Go away! Go away!’ ” said Stevenson, who is now a TV commentator, chuckling at the memory.

“It just shows the difference in cultures.”

Yeah, and it has almost served as a metaphor--on that day, the U.S. won the gold, the Australians the bronze--for a budding Australian-American swimming rivalry. The Aussies have been around the pool for years, grabbing at the Americans’ heels, causing a moment or two of consternation but never mounting a serious, lasting threat.

All it took was one teenager with huge feet and a spree of world records to turn that concept upside down. Seventeen-year-old Ian Thorpe, along with O’Neill, another world-record holder, and the home-pool advantage, have an entire nation eagerly awaiting Olympic swimming in Sydney, almost like kids on the night before Christmas.

For three weeks, Australia will have the rest of the world’s attention. Australian pride runs deep--the hosts are desperate to impress--but most of what the Aussies do best did not make the Olympic sports menu. No cricket, no scuba diving, no Aussie Rules Football, no boomerang toss.

But there is swimming. Swimming is big in Australia, as big as baseball is in the States, which carries a certain amount of logic. What, after all, is Australia if not an oversized island?

And now the Aussies have a swim team to match the public passion, featuring a roster that includes four world-record holders--Thorpe, O’Neill, Michael Klim and Kieren Perkins.

“We respected them for being so knowledgeable about swimming, but we never really respected them as a major powerhouse in the world of team swimming,” U.S. freestyler Josh Davis says. “After last year, that all changed. Now they’re a major team, vying for the title of the world’s great team.”

To become that, the Aussies will have to gun down the world’s greatest team, and Down Under, they spell thatU-S-and-A.

Already, the first salvos have been fired.

American sprinter Gary Hall Jr. said in his CNN/SI.com diary that the the Americans would smash the Australians “like guitars.”

Perkins shot back by saying he didn’t “take notice of drug cheats,” a reference to Hall’s 1998 three-month suspension after testing positive for marijuana.

O’Neill dismissed Hall’s remark as so much hazy smoke.

“Nothing they say will motivate us more than we already are,” she said.

“They are still the No. 1 swim nation, but have all the pressure at the moment. That’s probably their reaction to it. Hopefully, they are a bit worried.”

Aussie freestyler Grant Hackett said, “It’s good for a bit of a laugh, I guess, but at this stage, talk’s talk. Let’s see what happens when we got in the water.”

And when that happens, you can already predict the rest. Every heat, every race will be analyzed, dissected and second-guessed in the local media. The papers will print Australia-versus-USA tales of the tape, the television news will keep track of the medal standings, scoreboard-watching will become a national obsession.

“I don’t know what kind of point system or medal total they’ll use to determine [No. 1],” Davis says. “But I guarantee, they’ll be keeping track of it.

“We kind of joked around that they weren’t too worried about keeping track of it before. Now that they’ve got a shot, they’ll put down every number, every medal they can think of.

“It means a great deal to them. If you wrap the NFL, baseball and basketball all into one, that’s swimming there right now.”

Also, the home team needs a foil. Unless it’s Tiger Woods in golf, a rivalry helps propel and sell a sport--Cowboys-Redskins, Dodgers-Giants, Lakers-Trail Blazers, Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi.

The U.S. swimmers have been appointed official antagonists of the Sydney Olympics.

“The Olympic Games always benefits when you have somebody to root for and somebody to root against,” said TV commentator John Naber, who won four gold medals for the United States at the 1976 Games. “This rivalry is clearly designed to feed that frenzy. Historically speaking, the Aussies have been very good at the sport of swimming and so has the U.S.

“In my personal experience, whenever the Australians were good, they weren’t afraid to tell you. That bluster has fed some of the rivalry in past Olympics. In this instance, they definitely have the horses to back up the boast. And so, clearly, they are the team to beat.”

And just in time.

By 1996, the Americans were plumb out of proper swimming rivals. The Russian thing--except for Hall versus Alexander Popov--no longer works, what with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Same with the former East Germans. The Chinese, hoping to get the 2008 Games, seem to be heading incognito into Sydney, maintaining a low profile in swimming.

The last time the United States lost the overall medals race in swimming was in 1988 at Seoul, when the East Germans outdistanced the Americans, 28 medals to 18, with the East German women accounting for 22 of the medals. Eight years later, that threat had disappeared. At Atlanta, the United States won 26 medals to 12 each for Australia and the reunified Germany.

Since then, Australian swimmers have been breaking records and closing the gap. The Americans couldn’t help but notice.

“It’s a pretty real thing, especially with the men,” says NBC’s Rowdy Gaines, who won three gold medals for the United States in 1984. “It’s a rivalry that’s been brewing now for a couple of years. They’ve got their studs. The Americans have their studs. Who’s going to be more studly?

“I think it’s a rivalry that swimming has kind of been aching for too. When I swam, it was the Russians--everyone hated the Russians, the evil empire. Since the fall [of the Soviet Union], there hasn’t been that. Not only the media, but the swimming world has been aching for a rivalry. It makes you swim faster. I certainly swam faster.”

From the other side of the Pacific, Daniel Kowalski concurred. Kowalski, winner of a silver and two bronzes in 1996, will be on Australia’s 800 relay team. He also has worked from the media end of it, commentating at the Pan Pacific meet last year.

“Our goal is to be the best swim nation in the world,” Kowalski says. “In order to do that we have to beat the Americans.

“[The rivalry] is great for the profile of the sport. We need swimmers to be household names all around the world on a consistent basis, rather than once every four years.”

The rivalry has been dubbed “the Wet War,” but that’s largely because of the media’s need to hype and love of alliteration. At this point, the Aussie-Yank swim-off is little more than a skirmish.

The rivalry is still in its infancy, and the best events for the Australians are not the best for the Americans--and vice versa.

Thorpe is a prohibitive favorite in the 200 and 400 freestyles, with no American capable of seriously challenging him. Similarly, the United States’ Lenny Krayzelburg holds the world record in his two individual events, the 100 and 200 backstroke, and figures to leave all Aussie swim caps bobbing in his wake.

O’Neill, the world-record holder in the 200 butterfly, probably will get tougher competition from her teammate, Petria Thomas, who was second to O’Neill in Atlanta, than anyone wearing red, white and blue.

Yet, there are some potentially fascinating matchups: Americans Neil Walker and Hall against Klim in the 100 freestyle, and Australian Matt Welsh against Krayzelburg in the 100 backstroke. Though Welsh has the second-fastest time in the world in the 200, 54.15 seconds, it is well off Krayzelburg’s leading time of 53.67, in the semifinals at the Olympic trials.

Animosity between the Aussies and the Americans hasn’t hit the Cold War level yet, though Hall and Perkins have opened the starter kit. That’s largely because the key figures are, well, so low key.

Thorpe and O’Neill on one side, and Krayzelburg on the other, aren’t prone to excessive behavior, let alone trash-talking. Krayzelburg, in fact, looked almost amazed at the U.S. trials as he listened to 16-year-old Megan Quann declare that South African double world-record holder Penny Heyns was “going down” in Sydney.

“This rivalry is a little bit different because there is not a hatred,” Gaines says. “Everybody hated the East Germans because there was so much suspicion [about performance-enhancing drugs]. Which turned out to be true.

“We had to hold people back from fighting. Girls. I remember the ’78 World Championships and holding girls back from wanting to just kill them. It was a deep hatred. I hate using that word. [But] there was a lot of animosity--a better use of words there.”

Naber remembers one instance when the Australians and Americans put their money on the table. In Montreal in 1976, the American men won 12 gold medals, taking every event except one. There was much speculation as to whether Australian Steve Holland would win the 1,500 freestyle, and his countryman, backstroker Mark Tonelli, visited the American athletes’ dorms in the village.

According to Naber, Tonelli “started collecting money, taking bets. ‘Oh, you Yanks, you think you guys are going to win everything. But we’ve got Steve Holland and we bet Steve Holland against the field in the 1,500 freestyle.’ It was the only time in my life I have ever seen swimmers reach into their pockets and put money on the table.

“I think we collected $200. The 1,500 race was deemed by many to be the greatest 1,500 freestyle of all time.”

The top three finishers all broke the world record. Americans Brian Goodell and Bobby Hackett won the gold and silver. Holland finished third.

The Australians have ruled the 1,500 since 1992. When Erik Vendt became the first American to break the 15-minute barrier, setting a national record, the Australians were immediately aware of his accomplishment and commented on his time.

Kowalski says he watched the Omega scoreboard “religiously” on the Internet during the U.S. trials.

“Personally, I always check out the Internet and what is going on around the world,” he says. “I know a few others do as well. At the end of the day, though, you can only control your own swim, not the others, so a name on a piece of paper or screen is simply that, a name.”

For Davis, the piece of paper on his wall keeps changing--though the name remains the same--because he swims in the same event as Thorpe, the 200 freestyle. Davis keeps Thorpe’s world-record splits on the paper.

“It’s funny,” Davis says. “[The record] used to be 1:46.6 by Georgio Lamberti until a year ago, when Ian went 1:46.00. I’m like, ‘Well, shoot, I have to lower my ultimate goal time a little more.’ Then at trials, he went 1:45.5. I’m like, ‘Dang, I’ll lower it again.’

“So, on my wall, I have the dream splits of the dream race of breaking the world record.”

Thorpe is one thing. The Australians as a team are something else.

“As a team, there’s no doubt in our mind, we’re going to win,” Davis said. ‘That’s our goal. We’re going to battle tooth and nail.”