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Mission accomplished for Dolan
INDIANAPOLIS -- Tom Dolan spent a year training for a very specific 100 meters -- maybe only 50 meters -- the last leg of a race he hoped to swim this week. Last December at the short-course nationals in College Park, Md., where Dolan, the country's greatest all-around swimmer, was trying to convince people he wasn't through after suffering a career-threatening knee injury in a pickup basketball game in May 1999. He was beaten by Jani Sievinen in the 400 individual medley by four seconds and thrashed by Chad Carvin in the 400 free by nine seconds. How was he doing? "This is the best I've ever felt," Dolan said then. To come back from his injury, Dolan had returned to his old coach in Virginia, Rick Curl. He had just put in a 130,000-meter week and wasn't making any concession for the nationals. His mileage topped out at 160,000 meters, or more than 100 miles. "My first taper will be before the trials," Dolan said at the time, thinking way ahead. "Maybe not much of a taper, 'cause it's so close to the Games. That's when I need my last hundred. That's what this is for." Flash forward to Thursday night and the finals of the 400 IM. Dolan, the top-ranked American, had skipped the 400 free to swim in the IM, an event in which he has won an Olympic gold medal and two world championships, and held the world record for six years. There was Dolan coming off a sloppy breaststroke leg, the one that had given him the most trouble after the surgery. He was in third place behind Tom Wilkens, who had him by a body length, and Erik Vendt, whose freestyle leg is almost as strong as Dolan's. To make matters worse, Dolan had had a 102-degree fever on Monday and was full of antibiotics that had sapped the sharpness from his muscles. "Going into [the last hundred]," Dolan said, "I was pretty light-headed, but it was that or don't go to the Olympics again. I pulled that kick from a place I didn't know I had." The kick resulted in a superb freestyle leg, with a split of 28.08 for the last 50 meters. Dolan touched the wall in 4:13.72, followed by Vendt in 4:13.89. Dolan punched the water in elation over the victory. "When I retire, I'll know that when the money was on the line, to be able to come through the way I did, I'll remember that for the rest of my life," he said. "You can put anyone you want into that race in the final hundred and they better pray that I'm not going to reel him in. ... If I can just be in the same area code, I can reel him in. I know nobody's trained harder than I have this year." Thompson, Torres triumph through tensionThe first Jenny Thompson-Dara Torres confrontation ended in a hug. Thompson (57.78) and Torres (57.86) went 1-2 in the 100 butterfly, as expected, giving Torres her fourth Olympic berth and allowing Thompson some peace of mind after a pair of third-place finishes at the '96 trials. Their long embrace in the pool, however, wasn't nearly as expected. "When it comes down to it, Dara and I are friends," Thompson said. "After the race was over I was so excited that I just wanted a hug." She and Torres had known each other a long time when Torres first told Thompson she was thinking about making a comeback with Richard Quick and the Stanford team. Thompson was genuinely thrilled at the idea. Someone to push her in practice, she figured. Someone to pal around with, too. Thompson even found Torres an apartment near hers. It worked for about five months. Word spread that a serious rift developed between the two, and that's partially true. Every morning swim, every workout in the weight room was becoming an Olympic final in which neither wanted to finish second. But the rift was as much between Torres and the rest of the team as it was with Thompson, who simply fit in better with the group as an older swimmer. In December Quick split them up. He works with Torres early in the morning and most everyone else later. The move has benefited both. Torres has changed her diet, substituting proteins for carbs, and altered her technique, keeping her head down in the water rather than focusing straight ahead as she had earlier in her career. Quick remembered telling her in her first day back in the pool, "Dara, we don't swim like that anymore." She did keep the '80s tinted goggles which the Stanford teammates had razzed her about when she arrived. It has been a whirlwind two decades for Torres. She overcame an eating disorder late in her first career and became a fashion model and a spokeswoman for Billy Blanks' Tae Bo workouts. She ran into skeptics when she announced her comeback after a seven-year layoff, even breaking it to her 80-year-old father in a lengthy, heartfelt letter. She found another father figure in her life in former New York Senator Al D'Amato, whom she insisted for the zillionth time this week is just a friend. Twenty pounds heavier yet leaner than ever, Torres is swimming her best times. Thompson, on the other hand, is forever waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was so shocked when she finished second to Zhuang Yong of China in the 100 free final at the '92 Barcelona Games that she floated almost motionless in the pool for the better part of a minute before climbing out. Despite her five gold medals in Olympic relays, she has never won the individual gold she craves. Torres' emergence was almost a cruel twist. Instead of waiting for a meet, Thompson watched her chances slip away every day in practice. Only this time it was an old friend coming out of retirement who was going to keep her from her goal. Hence, tension. Get set for Round 2 on Monday when Thompson and Torres square off again in the 100 free final. Krayzelburg should break recordLook for Lenny Krayzelburg to dump the world record in Friday's 100 backstroke final. Krayzelburg swam his semifinal heat in a relaxed 53.67 seconds, just .07 off his world record. He raced without a cap and without his preferred suit, one that extends to just below his knees. In other words, this was just a warmup. Expect Krayzelburg to get a good push from Neil Walker, who went out in a fast 50 and then pulled back in both his prelim and semifinal swims. With Walker pushing Krayzelburg, the record is almost certain to fall. Brian Cazeneuve is a Sports Illustrated writer-reporter who covers the Olympics and is a frequent contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send a question to his Sydney 2000 Mailbag.
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