The Konrads Kids

In Australia, where limber-limbed youngsters have a habit of cracking world records, swimming fans had guessed that some day a 15-year-old Latvian immigrant named Jon Konrads would be a champion. But no one knew much about his kid sister, 13-year-old Ilsa, except that she had never won a major race.

Last week when Jon entered the prestigious state championships at North Sydney, few noticed his leggy kid sister tagging along. Then Ilsa made a splash of her own. Swimming in the 440-yd. freestyle, she finished second by only .6 sec. to Australia's great Lorraine Crapp, holder of two Olympic Gold Medals, four world records. This was enough to make square-faced, broad-grinning Ilsa the darling of the galleries.

And a darling she proved to be. Two days later, before the 880-yd. swim, Ilsa stoked up on steak, digested some Spartan advice from Family Coach Don Talbot ("Treat the second 440 as a new race, and go for your life"), and set out for glory with deep, slow strokes and a gentle-seeming six-beat kick. While fans in the stands whooped and whistled, she flashed through the second 440 in 5:12.2, sprinted the last 55-yd. lap in 35.7 and touched out in 10:17.7. The astounding announcement: Ilsa had knocked 16.9 sec. off Lorraine's world record for the 880, en route had clipped 13.2 sec. off her world record for the 800 meters.

While Australia was still blinking at Ilsa's tremendous race, brother Jon got up on the starting block for the men's 880-yd. freestyle, gazed calmly at his opponents (who included three Olympic swimmers), and hit the water as if fired from the starting pistol. Flat out, he thrashed home in 9:17.7, 1.5 sec. faster than the old world record held by the U.S.'s George Breen, who set the mark when he was 21. Konrads' furious freestyling also smashed Breen's world record for the 800 meters.

Great as it was, Jon's feat did not come up to Ilsa's for impact on the swimming world. Barrel-chested Jon had been a reserve on the mighty Australian Olympic team, so his time was not altogether a surprise. But Ilsa had never raced the 880 before she set the record. In fact, for a while it had seemed that she would never become a first-rate swimmer. Dogged by colds and flu, she tried hard but won no state titles in 1956. Last year she was troubled by swollen knees, spent twelve weeks with both legs encased in splints.

This season, a healthy Ilsa began a furious training regimen, got up at 5 a.m. every weekday, bicycled two miles from her home in Bankstown to a pool to swim up to 3 1/2 miles. After school she swam another two miles. So much time in the pool's chlorinated water gave her blond hair a mermaidish green tint.

Jon and Ilsa Konrads, the children of a Latvian dental mechanic who emigrated to Australia in 1949, may already be the finest freestylers in the world--a fact to make swimming experts boggle at what the pair might do in the next few years, as they grow to adult swimmers' estate. Said Coach Talbot: "We're only in second gear. Just wait till we get into high."

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