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De Bruijn rules the pool as women's swimming stars bow out
SYDNEY, Sept 24 (AFP) - Inge de Bruijn barrelled into the Olympics with eight swimming world records this year and swept out with three more, but at 27 she may find that her first Olympic gold medal haul is her last. De Bruijn's contemporaries Jenny Thompson, Susie O'Neill and Penny Heyns bid bittersweet farewells to the Games in Sydney. Thompson won three relay golds to take her career total of Olympic titles to a stunning eight, but failed to capture the individual gold that has always eluded her. O'Neill won the 200m freestyle, but the Australian could only manage silver in her trademark event, the 200m butterfly. Heyns, winner of both the 100m and 200m breaststroke in Atlanta four years earlier, felt lucky to come away with a bronze in the 100m breast, and didn't even make the semis in the 200m. Everything was different for de Bruijn, whose first major international success was at the 1999 European Championships. She won her first Olympic gold in the 100m fly, and never looked back. "It all went pretty fast," she said. "My first gold medal gave me a taste and I said I wanted a second, and then I said I can do a third. "I enjoyed the 100 fly the most, because that was my first gold medal ever and it felt very satisfying." With a world record in each event to take her total for the year to 11, De Bruijn said she felt there was nothing she can't do. "The sky's the limit now," she said. "That is what I've been shown here. I thought my world records coming in here were so fast they couldn't be beaten. "I've broken them, so the sky's the limit." No doubt that's how Heyns felt when she set 11 records in the space of 11 weeks last year. But the South African couldn't come close to those times this year. What's more, she didn't mind. At 25 she is ready to think of other things. So is O'Neill, who plans to finally move to the same city as her husband, and Thompson, who has already been accepted to medical school. Repeating as an Olympic swimming champion is tough. Only five women have won the same event at two Games in a row. One of them is Brooke Bennett, who defended her 800m free title and also captured the 400m free. Still only 20 and inexorably closing in on Janet Evans' venerable distance freestyle world records, Bennett is a likely candidate to be swimming in Athens. Yana Klochkova, 18, completed a medley double, setting a world record in the 400m IM, and added silver in the 800m free. Diana Mocanu, 16, won both women's backstroke titles. Megan Quann, 16, survived the acid test failed by so many teenage breaststroke stars before her. She lived up to the expectations raised by her US Trials performance and won the 100m breaststroke, and left no doubt she'll be back for more. "Coming into the Olympics, my expectations were two gold medals and to break two world records," Quann said after swimming in the world record-breaking 4x100m medley relay team. "Here I have two gold and one world record. I have at least two more Olympics." Leisel Jones, 15, finished second to Quann at her first major international competition, jumping over fellow Australian Samantha Riley as the fourth-fastest woman in the event of all time. Her rise through the ranks has been so great in the past eight months that coach Ken Wood is predicting she can break both the 100m and 200m breaststroke world records within two years. Dara Torres, who came out of a seven-year retirment to win two relay golds and three individual bronze medals at the age of 33, said coping with rising expectations -- both of themselves and others -- would be the key to the youngsters' longevity. "She's done a great job," Torres said of her young relay teammate Quann. "My only advice to give is to not keep putting pressure on herself.
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