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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. ½-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