Swim Shorts

One might think the world's greatest all-around swimmer must hail from one of the shrines of the chlorinated In crowd -- Leipzig, Mission Viejo or Moscow. Not so. Tamas Darnyi, 21, lives in Buda, the historic section of Budapest. The Hungarian's specialty is the demanding individual medley, in which he holds the world record for both 400-meter and 200-meter events. Darnyi has won every major meet he has entered since 1985. The medley requires phenomenal skill in backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle. The shy bachelor, who was named Hungary's Athlete of the Year in '87, will try for three gold medals in Seoul. In addition to the two medleys, he will enter the 200-meter backstroke, which is his strongest discipline.

Unlike many other athletes, Darnyi prefers to race not against the clock but against the competition on a given day. In Seoul he will be pacing himself against California's David Wharton, 19, whose mark of 4:16.12 in the 400-meter medley is just a fraction of a second behind Darnyi's record of 4:15.42. Oddly, each man suffers from a sensory disability. Wharton is partially deaf and wears a hearing aid when on dry land. Darnyi has had only partial sight in his left eye since 1983. "We were fooling around in the snow when a snowball hit me in the eye," explains the swimmer. "It caused a detached retina." Despite four eye operations, and against the advice of his doctors, Darnyi , returned to competition in 1984. Between his typical eleven-mile-a-day training sessions, Darnyi, a science-fiction fan, builds model spaceships and muses on his future. The big question: Should he accept one of the many offers from U.S. universities or prepare to enter Hungary's hotel-and-catering college? His decision will have to wait until he dries off after the Games.