Wildman-Tobriner passes swim test with ease

He owned the 100-meter butterfly, at least on Sunday at the Janet Evans Invitational, but Ben Wildman-Tobriner wasn’t quite sure about possession of the most important test of his life, which was Friday in San Jose.

The MCATs.

That would be the Medical College Admission Test. It only seemed to last an eternity -- five hours -- and it will take about a month to get his results. Yes, another lifetime for the recent Stanford graduate.

“It was hard. I don’t think that’s the kind of test you walk out of, and say, ‘I own that test,’ ” he said, smiling.

Not exactly the usual preparation for racing the best sprinters in the world. He flew down to the low-key meet at USC after the test, and placed second in the 50 freestyle Saturday and won the 100 butterfly in 53.47 seconds Sunday.

Interestingly, Wildman-Tobriner was in the final only because Roland Schoeman scratched. Wildman-Tobriner thought Schoeman might have been having a shoulder problem.

“The first thing I have to do is thank Roland,” Wildman-Tobriner said.

He and Schoeman were joking about splitting the grand prize for winning -- a $25 gift certificate from Speedo, which had to be used before the end of the meet. Reporters teased him about hurrying up to make a purchase because this was the final day of competition.

Wildman-Tobriner, of San Francisco, is the reigning world champion in the 50 freestyle, and he is part of an intriguing class of U.S. sprinters, all gearing up for the Olympic trials next summer in Omaha. The Stanford grad wrote about swimming for his school newspaper, and he has the gift of giving a good quote.

“I’m definitely the biggest nerd of them all,” he said.

The evidence, Wildman-Tobriner said, came when he was at the 2005 world championships in Montreal, waiting at the Metro stop. He said the parents of Jason Lezak approached him to say hello.

“ ‘You must be Ben because you’re the one reading,’ ” he said, recalling the incident.

His reading interests run the gamut, including the Harry Potter books and author Atul Gawande, an endocrine surgeon. Wildman-Tobriner’s mother is a law professor at Santa Clara, and his father specializes in family law. Apparently, there was no family push toward the legal field.

“If you ask them, they say they wished me a better life,” he said, smiling again.

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Three more meet records were broken Sunday: Dana Vollmer of California Aquatics in the women’s 100 butterfly (58.40) (the previous mark of 58.48 had been set by Jenny Thompson in 2000); Helen Norfolk of New Zealand in the women’s 200 individual medley (2:15.04); and Tamas Kerekjarto of the Trojan Swim Club in the men’s 200 individual medley (2:02.37).

Other notable performances came from two other members of the Trojan Swim Club: Larsen Jensen and Rebecca Soni.

Jensen wasn’t thrilled by his time in the 1,500 freestyle (15:16.08), but it was his third victory in three races here. “It was a lot slower than I thought it would be,” Jensen said.

Soni won the 100 breaststroke in 1:07.84, not far off her personal best of 1:07.81, which came at Sydney in the Duel in the Pool against Australia in April. That field included U.S. Olympian Tara Kirk and world champion Leisel Jones. Kirk had been scheduled to swim the Evans meet but pulled out last week because of an injured leg.

lisa.dillman@latimes.com