Life Is as Good as Gold for Her

Two of Janet Evans’ world records are still with us, after all this time. Better yet, so is she.

One of the top swimmers in U.S. Olympic history, Evans is 34 and married now. Her wedding ceremony, when she exchanged vows with businessman Billy Wilson in 2004, was held at the Long Beach Aquarium. So fitting. She still keeps many of her finest moments close to water.

In October, Evans and Wilson will have their first child, a girl.

She is in demand as a speaker, and is a spokesperson for several sports-related products, including Speedo swimwear. All in all, life after the bright lights of the Olympics is good.

But she tends not to take things for granted, especially right now, when the reminders are so frequent of that dreadful moment in Olympic Centennial Park. It was 10 years ago this week that Eric Rudolph’s bomb went off, killing one and injuring more than 100 at the Atlanta Summer Games.

Evans, the tiny Orange County phenom with a windmill swim stroke as big as her smile, had finished her Olympic career on July 25, a Thursday that year. She was sixth in the 800-meter freestyle, out of the medals but with no regrets. In addition to her records, she had four Olympic gold medals and one silver, won at the previous Games in Seoul in 1988 and at Barcelona in ’92.

Her legacy in U.S. Olympic lore was further secured when she was chosen to be the next-to-last torch bearer at Atlanta’s opening ceremonies. Few will ever forget her passing the torch to the ailing Muhammad Ali, who took it with shaking hands and, while we all held our breath and prayed, touched off the Olympic flame to officially open the Games.

“I won no medals in Atlanta,” Evans says, “and it still has my fondest memories.”

Also, her scariest.

The Friday night after her last race, surrounded by family and friends, she went to Olympic Centennial Park for her retirement party, held in the Swatch Pavilion. Outside in the park, bands played, people danced and the warm Southern night oozed with Olympic spirit. It was nights like this that Billy Payne, Atlanta organizing committee chief executive, had envisioned when he planned the park and ordered it left open and relatively free of a big security presence.

Evans and her friends were planning to go for hours more, maybe all night. Her parents had headed back to their hotel, just up the street from the park. But before the party moved on, Evans had a commitment to a German TV station to do an interview.

And there she was, at 1:20 a.m. Saturday, July 27, standing on the second floor of the Swatch Pavilion, facing a full-length glass window that looked out over the merriment still in full swing.

The German reporter asked a question and, as Evans began to answer, the bomb went off. The cameras kept running and chaos began. Evans flinched and stepped away, hands over her head. People ran, sounds of screams echoed. As television gathered itself in the next several hours to send images of the scene around the world, Evans, who was almost knocked off her feet, became a symbol of the moment.

Much later, when details of Rudolph’s bomb were revealed, it became evident how much danger Evans had faced. Several compartments of the bomb, which was designed to send shrapnel everywhere, failed to go off. One of the failed compartments was pointed at the Swatch Pavilion’s big glass window some 200-300 yards away.

“I am very aware of that. I’ve been told how lucky I was,” Evans says. “It is still hard for me to forget, especially now, when it comes up a lot. I keep reliving it.

“I remember thinking it was an earthquake. I’m from California, after all. I also remember thinking that this isn’t really happening. There was a band playing and we kind of hoped maybe one of their speakers had exploded or something.”

Quickly, police ushered everybody out and closed the park. One of Evans’ friends, U.S. swimmer Brad Bridgewater, had just won a gold medal that day in the 200 backstroke and his gold medal was in a gym bag in the Swatch Pavilion. He didn’t get his gold medal back for three days.

“He was really worried,” Evans says. “That first Olympic medal, you want to put it under your pillow.”

As for Evans, her place in history is rarely challenged, her world-record times as untouchable now as they were years ago. Her 1,500 record of 15 minutes 52.10 seconds set in Orlando in March 1988 has barely been approached. Closest is 16:00.18 by German Hanna Stockbauer in 2003.

Evans’ 800 record of 8:16.22, set in August 1989 in Tokyo, also has stood the test of time. The next closest is Anke Mohring’s 8:19.53, and the East German did that two years before Evans’ best.

Last week, Evans was among a group of celebrity athletes invited back to Atlanta for an anniversary celebration.

“I walked around, looked at the memorial they have there,” Evans says. “They have a copy there of a letter Eric Rudolph wrote to the police. It was chilling to read. I even walked back to where the Swatch Pavilion had been.

“Being there was very sweet. And a little sad.”

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Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.