Different strokes

The eternal pursuit of the spotless swim has taken Natalie Coughlin to explore unconventional training methods, incorporating Pilates and yoga into her regime, consulting with a famed stroke guru in Australia, and next month, taking on an ambitious open-water, awareness-raising swim off Fiji.

It’s a mouthful. Literally.

“I don’t have the technique down at all, I swallow so much water. Last time, there were tons of waves,” Coughlin said in June at Santa Clara, Calif. “In the pool, you try to hide your breath. In the ocean, you have to lift your head up. So I’m not used to that. I just wanted to do something different this summer.

“I’ve already gone to worlds, and next year is such a big year with Olympic trials.”

Call it a lull before the Olympic storm.

The five-time Olympic medalist in 2004, who won two golds in Athens, is the headliner of the Janet Evans Invitational at USC, which started Thursday night.

Coughlin’s success continued through the world championships in the spring at Melbourne, Australia, with two golds, two silvers and a bronze medal.

Though Coughlin holds the world record in the 100 backstroke (her first gold medal in Athens, the other was in a relay), she won’t be swimming the 100 backstroke at USC, or any of her other signature events.

The title of her meet could be: Now for something completely different.

Coughlin is taking experimentation to new levels at USC. She’ll swim the 400 freestyle tonight, and two other off-events, the 100 and 200 breaststrokes.

In keeping with that theme, instead of going to Nationals at Indianapolis in a couple of weeks, Coughlin will head to Fiji to participate in a charity open-water event held by Aussie swimming legend Shane Gould, who won three golds, a silver and a bronze at the 1972 Munich Olympics, all in individual events.

Indianapolis or Fiji?

Not exactly the toughest call.

Gould is the partner of Milt Nelms, who has worked with Coughlin periodically for nearly eight years. Nelms also received significant international attention when he worked with Ian Thorpe briefly last summer before Thorpe retired.

There’s the considerable influence of Coughlin’s longtime mentor, Teri McKeever, who coached Coughlin during her college career at California and continues to do so. McKeever brought Nelms in for a week or so during Coughlin’s freshman year in 2000.

“I only see him in little chunks of time throughout the year,” Coughlin said in November. “He makes such a big impact on my motivation, the way I look at swimming. He’s a very artistic person.

“He has a way of looking at movement -- whether it’s swimming, running, the way a horse moves. Kind of how an artist looks at the light in a landscape. To you or I, we could look at it, ‘Yeah it’s great. But I don’t see it.’ But he can see those little nuances in my stroke.”

Coughlin is noticeably more relaxed on the pool deck and off it, a clear difference from the swimmer of 2003 and 2004, when she was friendly but sometimes wary about a certain line of questioning. Of course, age could be one factor: She turns 25 in August.

But Coughlin might have explained the difference best herself in the November interview, which was just before USA Swimming’s Golden Goggle Awards in Los Angeles.

The question: How will Athens end up helping her in Beijing in 2008?

“I experienced it,” Coughlin said. “I have that gold medal. I am an Olympian for life. Once you’re an Olympian, you can’t ever be a former Olympian.

“Now I can just kind of sit back and enjoy the ride. Work really hard. Have these high goals. And I don’t have to worry about getting validated. I already have that gold medal.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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The schedule

Daily schedule for the Janet Evans Invitational at USC (preliminaries begin at 9 a.m., finals at 5 p.m.):

* Today: 100 freestyle, 200 butterfly, 200 backstroke, 400 freestyle, 400 freestyle relay.

* Saturday: 200 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 50 freestyle, 400 individual medley, 800 freestyle relay.

* Sunday: 100 butterfly, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke, 200 individual medley, 1,500 freestyle, 400 medley relay.

* THURSDAY’S RESULTS, D8