Peirsol Not Yet Ready for Record

Aaron Peirsol has a request for Lenny Krayzelburg.

“Come back Lenny,” Peirsol said. “But I think Lenny’s too fat to talk, much less swim.”

Peirsol is kidding. Isn’t he? “Um, I guess so,” Peirsol said. Peirsol was smiling. Wasn’t he?

“Yeah, I’m smiling,” he said.

Peirsol, a 17-year-old Newport Harbor High junior from Irvine, won the 200-meter backstroke Saturday night in the finals of the Phillips 66 Spring Nationals at the University of Texas Aquatic Center. This meet, besides crowning national champions, also is being used to select the U.S. team for the World Championships.

Already last week three world records had been set--Ed Moses in the 100- and 50-meter breaststroke, and 15-year-old Michael Phelps in the 200-meter butterfly--and for 170 meters Peirsol was on pace to break Krayzelburg’s world record of 1 minute 55.87 seconds.

Peirsol’s coach, Dave Salo of the Irvine Novaquatics, was whistling in high-pitched triple time, trying to let Peirsol know he had a chance. Peirsol wasn’t quite up to it, finishing in 1:56.56.

This wasn’t a world record but it was nearly three seconds faster than the runner-up, Marc Lindsay, a 20-year-old from the Athens (Ga.) Bulldogs Swim Club.

For Peirsol, it was his second victory of the meet--he won the 100-meter backstroke earlier in the week--in the same events in which Krayzelburg won Olympic gold last year. For now Krayzelburg is taking time off, though word is the former USC star is back in training.

“I wish Lenny were swimming,” Peirsol said. “I want someone to race. I want someone to push me. But, you know, Lenny’s got other things to do. Dinners, appearances, vacation. Stuff like that. It makes you fat. That’s what I heard.”

So take that Lenny. That’s Aaron’s message.

It was also a big night for other local swimmers as well. Valencia’s Anthony Ervin, who is a 19-year-old sophomore at Cal and who, in winning Olympic gold in the 50 meters and silver in the 400 freestyle relay became the first African American swimmer to win Olympic medals, won the 50-meter freestyle Saturday night in 22.18.

Just a few strokes behind in second, and getting his second world team berth, was Jason Lezak, 25, of Irvine, who finished in 22.35.

Two of the other winners Saturday night were also 2000 Olympians.

Kristy Kowal of Reading, Pa., won the 200 breaststroke in 2:26.57 while Irvine’s Amanda Beard, an Arizona sophomore and two-time Olympian, finished second in 2:27.90. Beard, 19, barely out-touched Megan Quann, 17, of Puyallup, Wash., who had won the 100 and 200 breaststroke at last year’s Olympic trials. Beard finished in 2:27.90, Quann in 2:27.94. But Beard declined her world team spot, so Quann will go to Japan.

And Tom Wilkens, a 25-year-old Stanford graduate, won the 200 individual medley in 2:01.58, with Robert Margalis, 19, of St. Petersburg, Fla., getting the second world team spot.

Also winning a national title was Colleen Lanne, 21, of Tucson, who finished first in the women’s 100-meter freestyle. Maritza Correia of Bradenton, Fla., and former USC star Lindsay Benko tied for second but Benko won a swim-off with Correia to take the second spot on the world team.

For all the swimmers it has been “a roller coaster ride of emotions,” Kowal said, since the Olympics.

Peirsol participated in a parade in his honor down Pacific Coast Highway. And he only won a silver medal. Ervin said he came home to Valencia and was asked to hand out medals for other sporting events such as marathons. “My town honored me a lot,” Ervin said, “which I didn’t really expect.”

“The Olympics were such an emotional high,” Wilkens said. “I don’t even think I realized how much until I got home.”

Wilkens said he took seven weeks off training. Ervin said he took off two months. “A well-deserved vacation,” he said.

Kowal has suffered two bouts of pneumonia since coming back from Australia and came to Texas “without a clue how I’d do,” she said.

Peirsol’s time was a U.S. open record and it also makes him the second-fastest man in history--behind Krayzelburg, of course.

“I thought he had a chance at the [world] record,” Salo said. “But Aaron’s not in top shape yet either. He has a summer of getting ready and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got the record this year.”

Moses set his second world record of the week, finishing the 50-meter breaststroke in 27.39 seconds Saturday morning. Moses was swimming in a 100-meter time trial and broke the record of 27.49, which had been set by Anthony Robinson on Thursday in a time trial. Moses won the 100 breaststroke Wednesday in a world-record time of 1:00.29.