Evans Wins Gold.

Evans Wins Gold. By the time American swimmer Janet Evans retired in 1996, she had captured five Olympic medals, including four gold medals, and 45 national titles. Although Evans was often the smallest swimmer in a race, her high level of endurance and ability to save energy for a final burst of speed enabled her to win against larger opponents. . Evans Bubbles to Gold Competing against swimmers bigger, stronger, and older, Janet Evans became the second female swimmer from the United States--following Deborah Meyer in 1968--to win three gold medals at a single Olympics. Although Evans wasn't the most decorated swimmer at the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea, her furious style, gleaming smile, and bubbly teenage demeanor amazed and charmed the public. "Kristin Otto of East Germany and Matt Biondi of the U.S. would win more medals at this Olympics," Sports Illustrated wrote after the Games, "but no one would win more hearts than the affable Evans." Evans competed in three Olympic festivals, earning five medals overall and becoming the first American woman to win four Olympic gold medals in individual events. By the time of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, she was the grande dame of the U.S. team. When she retired in 1996 she owned 45 national titles, ranking her second in U.S. swimming only to Tracy Caulkins. Often the smallest swimmer throughout her competitive career, Evans possessed natural abilities that more than made up for her diminutive size. Her arms moved faster than most swimmers in a style that was often described as "windmill." Plus, Evans never allowed her size to be a factor. "I never saw myself as being small," she told Sports Illustrated. "Size doesn't matter as long as you can get to the end of the pool faster than everybody else." Evans also had remarkable anaerobic ability. "Janet is the most energy-efficient machine in the water today, male or female," Dr. John Troupe, director of sports medicine and science for U.S. Swimming, told Sports Illustrated in 1988. "In the past four years I've tested more than a thousand swimmers, beginners to Olympians, and Janet uses less oxygen, or less energy, to swim at a faster pace than anybody I've ever seen. I'll stop short of saying Janet's a fish, but physiologically she's very similar. Both have muscles with a high anaerobic capacity, which means great endurance as well as big bursts of speed at the end of a swim." By age 15 Evans was nationally ranked, and the next year, 1987, she emerged as one of the world's top swimmers. She won three U.S. national titles that spring, and at the Phillips 66 United States Swimming Long Course National Championships in Clovis, California, she broke the 1500-meter freestyle and 800-meter freestyle world records. In December she established a world record in the 400-meter freestyle. Evans was the first woman in 11 years to hold the world record simultaneously in three events. Those performances marked Evans as a favorite at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. At 1.67 m (5 ft 6 in) and weighing 47.6 kg (105 lb), she was still dwarfed by many of the other competitors. In the 800-meter freestyle, for example, she was positioned on the blocks between two formidably sized swimmers from East Germany: Astrid Strauss, 1.94 m (6 ft 1.5 in) and 82.1 kg (181 lb) and Anke Mohring, 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) and 68.9 kg (152 lb). Sports Illustrated said Evans looked like "an age-group swimmer who had somehow stumbled into the wrong race." Evans won the first of her three gold medals in the 400-meter individual medley. She secured the lead in the backstroke leg and held on for the win, finishing 1.7 seconds ahead of Noemi Lung of Romania with a time of 4 minutes 37.76 seconds. In the 400-meter freestyle Evans was pushed by Heike Friedrich of East Germany. With only 100 meters remaining, Evans held the lead by 30 cm (1 ft). In the last two laps, however, Evans kicked into overdrive and won by more than 2 seconds, setting a world record with a time of 4 minutes 3.85 seconds. "I didn't think I was going that fast," Evans said later, according to Women's Sports and Fitness. Friedrich was also shocked. "That wasn't a world record," she told Women's Sports and Fitness. "It was a universal record." Evans's third gold medal came in the 800-meter freestyle. She finished more than 3 m (10 ft) ahead of Strauss to set an Olympic record with a time of 8 minutes 20.20 seconds. Evans's performance was particularly significant for the U.S. team because she was the only woman on the team to win an individual event in the face of the powerful East German team, which won 10 of the 15 events. With each win, Evans bounded out of the pool beaming with joy. "I'm smiling because I'm having fun," she told Sports Illustrated. "That's what this is all about, to have fun." Although she acted like a bubbly teenager, she undoubtedly possessed a competitive fire. As her coach Bud McAllister told Women's Sports and Fitness, "It's like death for her to lose." Swimmer and television analyst John Naber added, "Janet doesn't swim a race, she attacks a race," according to the magazine. "And that tells you a lot about what is going on upstairs." Meanwhile, television viewers in the United States admired the teenager who almost single-handedly salvaged the U.S. women's effort against the muscular East German squad. Evans came home to California a celebrity. At the airport a mass of reporters waited for her. A police escort led her home, where hundreds of people had gathered for a party that lasted well into the night. Reporters followed her to school that week, and she fielded dozens of requests for appearances--from "The Tonight Show" to the White House. Evans and her parents had worked for years to maintain a balance between her being a world-class swimmer and a normal teenager. But the onslaught of media attention threw that balance out of whack. "Every time I say I want to be like everybody else, somebody says, 'Well, you're not going to be,'" she told Sports Illustrated in 1988. "It finally hit me. I just won't." The attention eventually died down, allowing Evans to continue her life as a competitive swimmer, albeit a more famous one. At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, she won the gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle. In the 400-meter freestyle, however, she finished second to Dagmar Hase of Germany. Evans, whose time in the 400-meter was 3.6 seconds slower than it had been in the 1988 Olympics, suffered her first loss in the event since 1986; she had won 18 straight victories in major competition. Evans entered the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta still in possession of three world records, but she failed to qualify for the 400-meter final and finished sixth in the 800-meter freestyle. Even in defeat Evans displayed the charm that had endeared her to so many. "It's been great, and I can leave here with a smile on my face and no regrets," said Evans after the 1996 Games, according to Sports Illustrated. "I haven't won any gold medals, and I haven't had my best performances, but this is probably my favorite Olympics. I wouldn't have traded this experience for anything in the world." Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.