Fab TwoTom Dolan won the 400 individual medley at the expense of—who else?—Michigan rival Eric Namesnikby Gerry Callahan
Tom Dolan admitted he was having trouble breathing last night, but this time it wasn't just the asthma and the hot, heavy Atlanta air that were contributing to his problem. This time there was also the relentless pressure from an old Ann Arbor, Mich., rival who refused to concede the top prize in the 400-meter individual medley to the cover boy for American swimming.
Eric Namesnik had spent countless hours in the University of Michigan practice pool, working his way toward the Olympics and measuring himself against the long, skinny kid in the next lane. In the months leading up to the Summer Games, Namesnik stepped around the TV cameras and dodged the reporters who clung to Dolan like barnacles. He saw all the Dolan stories and all the Dolan headlines, but somehow he never got the message that Dolan was supposed to have a free pass to the gold medal.
Dolan (top) and Namesnik were rarely more than an arm's distance apart.
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Take last night. Namesnik pushed Dolan to the wall and turned in a courageous effort, but in the end it was also a frustrating one. In the last race of his swimming career, Namesnik was the bridesmaid again to the young superstar next door. Dolan's time of 4:14.90 was only .35 of a second better than Namesnik's. At Namesnik's expense Dolan, who won the first gold medal for the U.S. in these Games, proved why he is the best in the world in the 400 IM and why in at least one event he is every bit the champion he was built up to be.
As they looked up at their times at the end of the race, Dolan pumped a fist, as much in relief as in celebration, while Namesnik flung his head into the water in frustration.
"My goal was to win gold because people are always telling me I'm second fiddle," Namesnik said later. "I just tried to swim as hard as I could. I was seeded first going into the finals, but I knew the competition would come from Tom. I just hoped it would come down to the two of us."
Heyns got a world record and a gold medal.
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The two of them. As always. For three years Michigan's Fab Two went at it on a daily basis in Ann Arbor, and while they have never been good friends, they know they have made each other better. Sometimes Dolan won in practice. Sometimes Namesnik won. Sometimes it was too close to call. "We push each other hard," said Namesnik. "Hopefully I've made him better."
Dolan, at 20, is five years younger than Namesnik, who also won a silver in the 400 IM in Barcelona in '92. They were never teammates at Michigan, but they couldn't help but become fierce rivals. During grueling training sessions at the Michigan pool, they have been known to shout at each other. After last night's race the two didn't even shake hands until they stood on the medal stand, a striking difference from the aftermath of other races when total strangers routinely embrace like old friends.
"I don't think either of us would be in the place we are today if we didn't have each other in the pool every day," said Dolan. "I learned a lot from Eric, and I was lucky to have him pushing me. Anytime you go through the kind of training we do, you're going to have rough edges. But with all the pressure we've been under, we were able to work together and get along."
Namesnik got yet another shock.
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Aside from the Blue and Maize in their blood and a passion for the pool, Dolan and Namesnik have little in common. Namesnik is a clean-cut, soft-spoken former kinesiology major who has to buy his own sneakers. Even before his first Olympics, Dolan had landed an endorsement deal from Nike worth more than $100,000 a year. He is a cocky rap-music fan who, while he shaved his goatee for the occasion, didn't remove his earring for his Olympic debut. "When you get two of the top guys in the world in the pool together, you're bound to have a little stress," said Namesnik. "But now our relationship will be a little better because I'll be standing on the deck telling him what to do instead of having someone tell me what to do."
Together for the last time, Dolan and Namesnik waged a stirring battle in the marquee event of last night's show, swimming in adjacent lanes and exchanging the lead throughout while sending an electric charge through the crowd at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center. As usual, Dolan was simply too strong at the end, although he came up almost three seconds short of his own world record, which he set in Rome in '94. For a man who had received so much pre-Games attention, the victory was finally a chance to relax and take a breath, or at least try to.
"I was definitely hurting when I hit the wall," said Dolan, who will also compete this week in the 400 free and the 200 IM. "But when you come to the Olympics, you're just thinking of winning medals. Regardless of how I felt or what my time was, I won a gold medal, and that was my goal."
Berube got
high fives from his relay mates.
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Fellow U.S. swimmer Amanda Beard had the same goal, but at only 14, she was not at all disappointed to take home the silver in the women's 100 breaststroke. With a time of 1:08.09 Beard set an American record, although she was overshadowed by South Africa's Penelope Heyns, who set a world record (1:07.02) in the morning preliminaries and returned last night to take the gold. As you would expect from barely a teenager in her Olympic debut, Beard was ecstatic just to step on to the medal stand. "I wasn't sorry at all," she said. "It was a fun race."
The team of Josh Davis, Joe Hudepohl, Bradley Schumacher and Ryan Berube grabbed the U.S.'s second gold medal in the final event of the evening, the men's 4¥200 freestyle relay. In the women's 200 free Claudia Poll of Costa Rica upset world-record holder Franziska van Almsick of Germany.
Long after the events were over and the Aquatic Center was dark, Namesnik stood near the pool and looked back with conflicting emotions on the last race in a lifetime full of races. He was the second best in the world but still only the second best in Ann Arbor.
"Everybody says it's cutthroat between Tom and me, and it was a difficult situation," said Namesnik. "I had the American record for four years and then Tom took it. Then he got the world record. We trained against each other every day, and you don't do that without hard feelings. Hopefully it will be different now that I'm retired."
Hopefully for Dolan, this was only
the beginning, now that he is an Olympic
champion.
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