(7 of 8)
What they do is not well understood. "Oh, did you paddle today?" asks a passerby. Every day (except Thursday afternoon and Sunday) is the same when they train together, as they did for five weeks this spring at Lake Placid: up at 6:45 for a two-mile run, breakfast, an hour and a half on the water, lunch, rest, a speed hike or a weight-lifting session, an additional hour of paddling, and dinner. "We've all grown really close," says Conover of the team, and that should help with the four-person competition, new to the Olympics this year. But singles and doubles races remain the traditional events, and the four spend most of their time apart, training for those. Singles training—long days and months of gutting it out alone without teammates or coach—is the reality for all of the women. "Sometimes it bothers me when I see my friends who have homes and babies," says Turner. Klein too accepts that she is different from her friends: "I'm not really sure they understand why I do what I do."
So there still are amateur athletes, high on purity and protein and low on funds, like the splendidly mixed group just encountered. Carl Lewis, who drives a BMW he earned by running and jumping, is not an amateur by any sane definition, but Ann Turner, carless and couldn't-care-less, really is one. Whimsical market forces have replaced most of the snobbish old social exclusion. Lewis gets the BMW, and Turner walks to practice because track and field is more popular than kayaking.
The disparity prompts notice, discussion, opinions. Should the U.S.O.C., or some indulgent megacorp, buy Turner and the other kayakers a car? Well, no, that is not the point. "The whole Olympic idea is in danger of losing the support of the people," argues U.S.O.C. President William Simon. He has bombarded the International Olympic Committee with his strong views on easing restrictions, and, he says, he has been "summarily ignored. Nothing has happened. There's so much hypocrisy. Take tennis, a demonstration sport this year. Eligibility is by age. That means Jimmy Arias, who made more than $1 million playing tennis last year, qualifies because he's under 21, while a true amateur by N.C.A.A. standards could be excluded simply because he's too old. It's ridiculous." No less ridiculous, Wide Receivers Willie Gault and Renaldo Nehemiah, world-class trackmen who unsuccessfully sued to be allowed to compete in the Games, are considered somehow contaminated for foot races against the amateur Lewises because they earn their livings playing football.