A Tidal Wave off Winners

By John Skow

U.S. swimmers, men and women, left opponents in their wake

The shape of a swimming race, when form holds, begins as a shallow V, swept back from Lane 4, where the fastest qualifier starts, to the humble wing positions of Lanes 1 and 8. The V sharpens until, if No. 4's lead is great enough, it looks like the prow of a ship. When this fails to happen--when the V does not take form, or when its point is unbalanced to one side or the other--the spectator high in the stands comprehends the surprise first not as an aberration of numbers, of hundredths of a second, but as a jarring visual distortion; and here in the women's 100-meter freestyle, the first race of the '84 Olympic Games, there was no V.

Nancy Hogshead of the U.S. had qualified fastest on the first day of competition, but only marginally. She is 22, a prelaw student at Duke and old for a swimmer, like many of the other veterans on a squad that regards itself as covered by vines and lichen. Of 43 team members, 36 are 18 or older. Hogshead was on the 1980 Olympic team, then slogged through the emotional swamp caused by the U.S. boycott. The next year, worn by a practice routine that had her up at 4:45 every morning from seventh grade through high school, she quit swimming, "I could eat cookies for lunch," she recalled last week. But after a year and a half in dry dock, she returned. "I hadn't finished my career the way I wanted to," she said. She had been a butterfly and individual-medley specialist, but she turned herself into a freestyle sprinter. Hogshead was prepared for this race: all 20 nails were painted red.

But she did not dominate from her Lane 4 position, and was second at the turn. In Lane 3 was the third-fastest qualifier, Hogshead's teammate Carrie Steinseifer, 16, a high school junior from Saratoga, Calif., who was also her Olympic Village bunkmate (Nancy upper, Carrie lower). Steinseifer, a happy camper whose blond hair had just been whacked off in Olympic punk style by Hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, had been only vaguely concerned with the 1980 boycott because "I wasn't really into swimming then." Last year she won a gold at the Pan American Games. Now here she was, wearing out the water with her thrashing crawl. Then, on the other side, in Lane 5, Annemarie Verstappen of The Netherlands, a lanky and apparently boneless 19-year-old, pulled to the slightest of leads. But 25 meters from the finish, Hogshead caught Verstappen, and Steinseifer was catching Hogshead, chopping through a communal bow wave. The Dutch racer faltered, and the two Americans surged on. The Scoreboard at first registered Steinseifer as the winner, then corrected itself: the first two times were identical, 55.92 sec. For the first time ever, two gold medals were awarded in an Olympic swimming race. Verstappen got the bronze.

That was the splashy beginning of a week of competition that had both swimmers and sinkers in the audience awash in noisy enthusiasm. And on the point of drowning in home-grown chauvinism, it should be said. When it was over, the U.S. had won 20 firsts in 29 events (counting the unprecedented double as one). Raw-meat roars of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"--part innocent glee and part boorish excess--greeted the appearance of each U.S. swimmer and the bemedaling of each new national hero.

This baying, to be sure, did not noticeably discourage the guest athletes. The Canadians, who had not won a gold medal in Olympic swim competition since 1912, collected four golds, three silvers and three bronzes. Their heroes, two-time gold Medleyist Alex Baumann and Breaststroker Victor Davis, who have maple leaves tattooed on their chests, and Breaststroker Anne Ottenbrite, who does not, cheerfully threw Frisbees into the crowd on their way to get their medals. The Dutch women may have deserved an award for the most medals from the smallest country: a total of six, including Petra Van Staveren's gold in the 100-meter breaststroke. The Australians took a host of silvers and bronzes and seemed ready for better things. Finally, an unknown 17-year-old Aussie named Jon Sieben came out of deepest anonymity in Lane 6 to win the 200-meter butterfly over a singular West German named Michael Gross, beating Gross's world record by one-hundredth of a second.

Gross, never mind upstart antipodeans, was the dominant swimmer of the meet. He is a very tall, haunted-looking fellow whose nickname is the Albatross, and he soared above everyone else on air currents only he was able to find. He is 6 ft. 7 1/2 in. tall and so thin he looks frail. His arm span, which on average should equal roughly his height, is an astonishing 7 ft. 4 in. He is the only male swimmer since Mark Spitz to hold world records in two strokes at the same time, and the combination of his success and his unusual architecture has swimming experts muttering in awe. His close-set eyes and long, beaked nose give him an expression of alert irritability. He is said to be arrogant, but before his first race a private kindness showed a different side of his nature.

The story began at the U.S. swim trials a month before, where John Moffet, accustomed to trailing home behind Veteran Steve Lundquist in the 100-meter breaststroke, not only beat the blond, gorgeously muscled Lunk, as Lundquist is called, but set a world record of 1:02.13. At the prelims on the first morning of Olympic competition, Moffet qualified fastest, in Olympic-record time. But four strokes into the second 50, he felt a muscle let go in his right thigh. Hours later, after a shot of Xylocaine, he swam the final in pain and managed a fifth place on arm power and guts. Lundquist finished in new world-record time and then comforted Moffet. That was to be expected; Lundquist, who has had his own ups and downs since 1980, is an openhearted fellow and a teammate. But after Moffet left the pool on crutches, the foreigner who took the trouble to come over and offer sympathy was Michael Gross, not even a close acquaintance. "It was a class act," said Moffet, whose own act had been just that.

Gross went on to win medals--two gold and two silver. One of the silvers, for the 4-by-200-meter relay, missed being gold by the diameter of the medallion. Earlier that day Gross had qualified for the 100-meter butterfly, then won the final with a world record of 53:08. The U.S. 4-by-200-meter relay team, knowing Gross awaited them at the anchor leg, went at their business quickly. Six other teams were in the water, but not really in the race.

Mike Heath, at 19 one of the bright new hopes of the U.S. team, swam his 200 meters in front of the pack and beat his West German opponent by a body length. David Larson gave almost a second body length to Jeff Float, another boycott veteran, swimming his last race for the team. Float gave back a little, but when Bruce Hayes hit the water for the final leg, he had a length and a half on the Albatross. Remarkably, Gross had made up almost all of it by the end of the first 50 meters. Hayes kept a fingernail lead at the 100-meter turn. But the West German hit the last turn ahead. He held a lead through most of the closing 50 meters. Then Hayes, his arms seeming to revolve twice for every slow beat of Gross's great wings, began to claw it back. He was well behind at ten meters, still behind at five, not yet even at two. He hit the electric touchpad on the pool end-wall four-hundredths of a second ahead of Gross. Both men sagged in the water as the rest of the field finished. Then Gross, who had just swum the fastest 200 split in history, congratulated Hayes, and added one word: "Unbelievable."

This was the meet's highest drama, although U.S. men's relay teams also won their remaining races in world-record times. Swimmers continued to file in, full of resolve or resignation, and to fill the panic time before their races by ritualistically kneeling to splash water on their faces, and then slowly peeling off many layers of sweat clothes. Most of the men were powerfully built and conventionally handsome, and most of the women were spectacularly graceful. A brass band played busily for their entrances and exits, and the sun shone on them through a sky that was clear and blue overhead.

The sun was not to the liking of backstrokers, because the new Olympic pool was laid out east-west instead of north-south, and the glare got in their eyes on every turn, so they said. One backstroker, the best in the world by nearly a second, sulked on the victory stand after winning a gold in the 200 meters. This was Rick Carey of the U.S., who had cockily promised a world record, and then failed to swim it by almost a second and a half, which is to say by a ton or so. On the way out of the stadium he did not wave at the crowd or acknowledge the cheers of his teammates. He got booed. Carey later issued a written apology to fans. A few days later he got another gold, in the 100 meters, and though this too was no record, he managed a smile.

In one race, the 100-meter freestyle, a fast-gun start left everyone except U.S. Veteran Rowdy Gaines flatfooted, and Gaines, who is retiring, set an Olympic record. West German Thomas Fahrner got so angry at himself for failing to qualify for the 400-meter freestyle that in the consolation he broke the brand-new Olympic record just set by George DiCarlo of the U.S. He got an Olympic record, a big hand, but no medal.

Talk of boycotts recurred through the week, to the vexation of U.S. Head Coach Don Gambril, a positive thinker. The missing male swimmers probably would not have made much difference, give or take Soviet Distance Man Vladimir Salnikov. The East German women would have changed some results. But it was the 1980 boycott that had the most powerful effect on these '84 Games. Sixteen members of the present team had been set to swim in Moscow, and most of them would not still be around had they done so. Tracy Caulkins was a team star as long ago as the world championships of 1978, when she won five golds; now it was grand to see her, at 21, glide majestically through the 400-meter individual medley to a gold, and then repeat her performance with a powerful Olympic-record victory in the 200-meter medley. Cynthia Woodhead was a threat to win six golds at Moscow; she has won twelve national titles. Like most of the veterans, she has survived a low period in which training and competition made no sense. Now, entered in a single race, the 200-meter freestyle, she finished second behind Teammate Mary Wayte, 19, only a year younger but a generation fresher, since she is a postboycott team member. Afterward Woodhead was radiant, satisfied. Mary T. Meagher, an elderly 19, is satisfied too, and she should be. As a 15-year-old she was favored to win both butterflies at Moscow. Instead she hit her peak a year later, setting a 100-meter mark that neither she nor anyone else has touched since. Last week Madame Butterfly, as the press has dubbed her, had no trouble whining the 100 fly, and the 200 fly to top it off.

Nineteen-year-old veterans are not the wave of the future, however. The mind of the swimming buff turns, in a pleasurable way, to the woman--no, let's say it, girl--who beat Meagher in the Olympic trials. She is Jenna Johnson, 16, a willowy, 6-ft. 1/2-in. redhead who is a junior from La Habra, Calif. Here in the 100 fly she charged out ahead of world-record pace--Meagher's record--and turned ahead of Mary T. "Oh please, oh please," said Meagher aloud as she ground away with 25 meters to go. "Oh no, here she comes," thought Johnson. As she admitted later, "I didn't have anything left." Not true; she had enough to win the silver, which contrasted nicely with the gold she had won two days before in the 400-meter freestyle relay. Properly viewed, however, her 50-meter charge was a wait-till-next-year statement. Johnson will be stronger next year, maybe bigger. Wait till then. And just wait, the swim buff thinks, till 1988! --ByJohnSkow. Reported by Melissa Ludtke/Los Angeles

With reporting by Melissa Ludtke