At the Seoul Olympics there were two U.S. women's swim teams: Janet Evans, who won three individual gold medals, and everybody else, who won none. While the East German women swept to 10 golds and a total of 21 medals, the non- Evans Americans scraped by with a silver and three bronzes.
In no other Olympic sport has the competitive picture been so transformed. East Germany doesn't exist anymore; neither does the steroid program that artificially enhanced its athletes. Meanwhile, so much American talent has ripened that Evans didn't qualify for this year's team in the 400-m individual medley, an event in which she won gold four years ago. Overall, U.S. women stand a good chance of winning a record-tying 11 of 15 events, and eight team members rank as at least co-favorites in one or more individual races. For the first time in decades, the U.S. women are more formidable than the U.S. men, who have long dominated the sport. Says freestyler Jenny Thompson, who may win five medals: "It's O.K. if people expect a lot of us. We expect more."
The resurgence of American women is not precisely a triumph of carefree amateurism over the grim professionalism of the hulking East Germans. While the U.S. athletes are from a land of backyard swimming pools and neighborly recreation rather than national regimens, they too are obsessive athletes. Several were immersed in the sport while still in diapers by eager relatives. Evans, not atypically, swam her first competitive race at age 5. As a child, Janie Wagstaff had to be counseled not to reach into the next lane and grab an opponent's foot. Even now, she admits, "when I'm swimming against someone, I want her to drown."
Most U.S. team members are dedicated to training and resent new NCAA rules restricting collegiate athletes to 20 hours of practice a week. Thompson is so fitness conscious that she "relaxes" from swimming with an aerobics workout. Nicole Haislett idolizes Arnold Schwarzenegger and often poses flexing her considerable biceps. There are even rumors of steroid use among U.S. women. One, Angel Martino, was banned for 16 months after testing positive for nandrolone at the 1988 U.S. team trials. Now she is back in the 50-m freestyle and maybe a relay.
The American women's real secret formula is what it has always been: talent cultivated through hard work. Evans, for example, looked barely pubescent in Seoul. Her small, flat body, coupled with the startling turnover rate of her stroke, yielded textbook efficiency underwater. Now 20 and womanly, 2 in. taller and 15 lbs. heavier, she says, "I really have to be aware of getting my speed up, so I train even longer." Evans probably ranks as the safest bet for gold on this gilded squad. She is returning in the 400-m and 800-m freestyle, not having lost at either distance in five years. True, she isn't close to her best times, but neither is anyone else. As the world's most famous woman swimmer, she has cashed in. After spurning commercial offers in order to maintain eligibility while she swam at Stanford, Evans now endorses Speedo swimsuits, Fuji film, Ray-Ban sunglasses and other products.