Training Partners Watch Over Each Other’s Interests

Jessica Hardy has her eyes trained on the Olympic Games. Staciana Winfield already has been there, done that, and wants to do it again after calling a halt to an eight-month retirement.

Swimming in adjacent lanes for four or five hours during daily practices nearly a year after each narrowly missed making the 2004 U.S. Olympic team, the pair do their best to push each other toward Beijing in 2008.

The Speedo Grand Challenge that ended Sunday at the William Woollett Jr. Aquatics Complex in Irvine marked one small step in the new quadrennial for both swimmers, even if the next Olympics are three years away.

“It’s totally motivated me. It’s made me love swimming that much more,” said Hardy, who placed fifth in the 2004 Olympic trials in her hometown of Long Beach.

“I’m not looking at it as the year after the Olympics. I’m looking at it as my first year for 2008.”

Hardy, a senior at Long Beach Wilson, led in the last lap of the 100-meter breaststroke during the trials before fading in the stretch and finishing with a time of 1:08.29.

“I was hoping to make the Olympic team, but at the same time, I was so young and I was so new to the elite swimming level. I kind of was just there to swim,” she said.

Winfield, known as Staciana Stitts before her marriage to Brett Winfield in September, finished fourth. The top two swimmers in each event at the trials qualified for the Olympics.

The two Irvine Novaquatics club teammates are hoping for more in 2008.

Winfield, 23, won a gold medal as a member of the United States’ 400-meter medley relay team at the 2000 Olympics, where she swam in preliminaries. She returned to the pool two months ago because she wanted another chance to swim on the international stage.

“It’s a lifestyle and I love it. I think taking the break really helped me appreciate how much I love it because I missed it so much,” Winfield said.

In the Grand Challenge meet, Winfield and Hardy recorded 100-breaststroke final times Saturday that were fast enough to qualify for the U.S. National Championships, Aug. 3-7 in Irvine. Hardy was seeded second with a 1:07.83 posted in a second-place finish at the World Championships trials in April, and finished second Saturday in 1:09.60. Winfield, top-seeded with a time of 1:07.20 from the Olympic trials prelims, finished third in 1:09.84. Kate Haywood of Britain won in 1:08.26.

Winfield fared better than Hardy in the 200-meter breaststroke on Sunday, posting the second-best preliminary mark of 2:34.41 -- another nationals qualifying time -- in the morning session and going 2:32.42 for second place in the finals.

Hardy reached the consolation finals with a sixth-place prelim time of 2:39.27, good enough for junior nationals but not up to the level she’d like to be in an event she dislikes. She went 2:41.86 for ninth place.

The first high school girl ever to swim the 100-yard breaststroke in under a minute, Hardy has a best 200-meter breaststroke time of 2:34.87, but Irvine Novaquatics Coach Dave Salo would like her to improve to under 2:30.00, a mark that would place the 18-year-old among the top 15 in the country.

“If she can get her 200 down to a more international level, all those girls that swim the 100 against her are going to respect her 100 all the more,” he said. “And if she can go that fast in her 200, her 100 is just going to be really incredible.”

Hardy, an excellent racer, is still learning to manage her energy over the course of 200 meters. Winfield, more experienced and a better distance swimmer, is happy to help.

“We’re so lucky we have each other,” she said. “She’s great with speed and I’m better with experience and endurance, so I’m helping her with mental toughness, and she’s helping me with my speed. It’s the best situation possible. It’s very friendly competition, but we’re pushing each other to be better.”

How much better remains to be seen, perhaps in 2008. Or maybe sooner. The World Championships are July 24-31 in Montreal.

“The sky’s the limit,” Hardy said. “I just want to do the best that I can at worlds. I’d love to medal, but I don’t know.”