Olympians’ Work Is Never Done

Kaitlin Sandeno, with two little earrings in each ear, with her fingernails painted two-tone, with her squeaky voice and her fascination with a pencil decorated in neon-colored feathers, has qualified for four events at the 2001 FINA Swimming World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan in July.

As the 2001 Phillips 66 U.S. Spring National Championships ended here Sunday night, Sandeno, 18, of Lake Forest, celebrated her second-place finish in the women’s 800-meter freestyle and pondered the immensity of her accomplishment.

Over the last six days Sandeno won national titles in the 400-meter individual medley and 200-meter butterfly and finished second in the 800 and 400 freestyle.

Only five other U.S. women--Janet Evans, Sippy Woodhead, Tracy Caulkins, Shirley Babashoff and Kristine Quance--have managed such a quadruple. But none of them had to do what Sandeno will do on Day 1 of the event. Swim three events.

Dennis Pursley, U.S. national team director, is pretty sure no U.S. swimmer has done what Sandeno will do on Day 1. Sandeno will swim the preliminaries and finals of the 400 individual medley; swim the prelims of the 800 freestyle; swim the prelims and semifinals of the 200 butterfly. If Sandeno makes it through each level, she’ll swim 40 laps under high pressure.

“The coaches keep telling me if anybody can do it I can,” Sandeno said. “The other swimmers keep telling me, ‘You’re totally nuts.’ ”

Olympic letdown? Who has time?

Sandeno, now an 18-year-old El Toro High senior and class vice president, and Aaron Peirsol, now a 17-year-old junior at Newport Harbor High, had the most extraordinary, exhilarating, unbelievably fun, immensely satisfying 2000 possible.

Both teenagers, Sandeno and Peirsol, from Irvine, won Olympic medals (Sandeno bronze, Peirsol silver). At the start of the year neither was sure of qualifying for the Olympics.

And then they had to come home. To steal an old saying, how do you keep them down in geometry class after they’ve been to Sydney, Australia and won a medal?

How do you tell an 18-year-old that the next four years will speed by? “It seems like I’ll be so old in four years,” Sandeno says. “I’ll be almost a senior in college. How old is that?”

“I can’t even think that far ahead,” Peirsol says. “Four years? Hey, four hours is a long time for me.”

How do you account for possible burnout? How does a 17-year-old who has his Olympic medal keep getting in the pool every morning and every night, swimming lap after lap? What could be better than last year?

“Well,” Peirsol said, “winning.”

Peirsol played second fiddle to Lenny Krayzelburg last year. Krayzelburg was the backstroke king, the winner of two golds. Peirsol was the 6-foot-2, 160-pound goofy kid with big, floppy hands and big, floppy feet and the fearlessness that goes with being sometimes clueless and always pressure-free.

Krayzelburg didn’t swim at these nationals, which served as the qualifier for the world championships. The 100- and 200-meter backstroke events belonged to Peirsol. He took them, he won them, he threatened Krayzelburg’s world record for 170 meters of the 200 and now he’s going home to work on that. Work on those world records and work on taking a couple of world championships.

“We’ve all had a hard time mentally adjusting to coming home from Sydney,” Dave Salo said. Salo is Peirsol’s coach at the Irvine Novaquatics and was in Sydney with Peirsol, Jason Lezak and Stacianna Stitts, other Novaquatics Olympians.

“It was such a real high, such a great meet and so much pressure,” Salo said. “Then we all had to come back and into the throes of daily workouts or going to school. Because the Olympics were in September, the kids got back, went right to high school or college. There was no time to reflect.

“The kids, some of them, call me and tell me they still don’t think it was real.”

“I thought it was just me,” Sandeno said. “I thought something was wrong with me. I love school and my friends and stuff, but it was so hard to come home. I can’t put into words what last year was like, all of it. The Olympic trials, going to the Olympics, winning a medal. The whole atmosphere of Australia. There’s no way I can talk about it with my friends at school and have them understand.

“Then I came here to nationals and started talking to the other guys who had been in Sydney and it’s the same for a lot of them. What happened in Sydney was so special and for awhile, it was hard to get back into the pool.”

Peirsol and Sandeno both took time off after Sydney. Peirsol was the honoree in a parade down the Pacific Coast Highway. “There were, like, 15 cars, cool ones, old ones, and I got to sit in the head car and they closed down the PCH and everything,” Peirsol said.

“I got a tattoo of the Olympic rings,” Sandeno said. “I stayed for an extra week in Sydney and stuff. Then I came home and everybody’s been real nice. But, yeah, it was hard to put my mind on this year and not on last year.”

There is a line that the coaches don’t want to cross. Renee Riggs, one of Sandeno’s coaches at the Nellie Gail Gators, said that she is careful. She doesn’t want to push Sandeno too hard. She doesn’t want to start talking about Athens 2004 or even Worlds 2001. “You want her not to do too much but not to do too little,” Riggs said.

But there is no time to take off. Not really. Not if you want to win gold medals in Athens. Not if you want to swim four events at Worlds. Not if you want to set world records. Now.

“And, you know,” Salo said, “two years ago Aaron was this kid from nowhere chasing Lenny. I’ve told Aaron, come 2003 some 15-year-old is going to come from nowhere chasing him. So he’d better be ready.”

The life of an Olympian. No time to rest.

*

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.