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Back to basics Hyman had to reinvent herself as a swimmer
SYDNEY, Australia -- She was the innovator. She was Dick Fosbury bringing the flop to the high jump. She was Pete Gogolak kicking a football from a different, soccer-style angle. She was Wee Willie Keeler (or somebody), putting down that first bunt. Misty Hyman was an innovator. That was what she was. She was a high school kid from Phoenix with an entirely new way to swim the butterfly. She dove into the water at the start of a race and did not surface for a long, long time. The rest of the field bobbed up, one after another, pretty much in unison. She stayed under. Where was she? What was she doing? Was she all right? She stayed below the surface for 30 of the first 50 meters of her races, the 100 and 200, and when she bobbed to the top she usually was in front. Her secret was the fish kick. She had figured out that she swam faster underwater than she did when she was doing the butterfly. The secret of the butterfly was not to do the butterfly for as long as possible.
She was on the course toward becoming a champion, an Olympic gold medalist, a swim star, already a world-record holder for both the 50- and 100-meter fly -- and then her secret was made illegal in 1998. Just like that. The thinking from FINA, the world governing body for swimming, was that the butterfly should be the butterfly and that holding your breath and staying underwater should be a trick kept to family picnics. It wasn't bad reasoning -- swimmers now are limited to staying underwater for no more than the first 15 meters -- but it changed the game for Hyman. She was no longer a star. She moved back into the international pack. "It forced me to go back to perfect my stroke," she said. She was still very good, off to Stanford on a scholarship, but she missed the 1996 Olympics, which should have been her breakout moment, finishing fourth by hundredths of a second in the trials. She was on the 1998 World Championships team, a bronze medalist, but a year later she sank like a stone at the Pan-Pacific Championships. Would she never get it right? Would it never click? "It will," her Stanford coach, Richard Quick, also the U.S. women's Olympic coach, told her. "You have it in you. You can win an Olympic gold medal. And you can swim the 200 in 2:05." The words were comforting, but were they right? As recently as May, she wondered if she had any kind of chance. Was all this worth it? Again there were words from Quick and her other coaches, from friends and family. She kept going. And on Wednesday night in the International Aquatics Center in Sydney, everything came true. Swimming against Susie O'Neill and Petria Thomas, prohibitive favorites from Australia, the gold- and silver-medal winners in '96 in Atlanta, she swam the race of her life. After dropping two seconds from her personal best in the preliminaries and semifinals, seeded fourth, she took charge in the first 50 meters and never looked back. In a sport that goes very much to form, she shattered form, finishing in 2:05.88, an Olympic record, .07 from the world record. O'Neill was second. Thomas was third. Misty Hyman was all that she ever wanted to be. "I was completely at peace with myself," she said. "I was within the moment. I didn't compete with Susie or Petria. I didn't even look at them the whole race. I swam within myself." No tricks. No gimmicks. No secrets. Just a gold-medal winner. The hard way. Sports Illustrated senior writer Leigh Montville is in Sydney covering the swimming competition for the magazine and CNNSI.com. Check back daily to read Montville's behind-the-scenes reports from Down Under.
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