From Stillness Comes Swiftness

"Go for it, Mark, swim it!"

Out of the darkness of the docks the calls keep coming. There are thousands of people out there; Spitz waves and peers from the parade boat but he cannot see them. It has been this way all his life, voices without faces in the night, demanding that he keep going, keep going.

"It has been so difficult for me to go back to mediocrity," Spitz is saying. "No one would accept it. Everyone wanted me to be special. 'When's your next movie? When's your next TV show?' Just because I was a good swimmer, in America they expect you to be a star. But I turned down movie offers because I won't do something if I can't do it well."

Would he undo it all if he could, join the faceless on the dock?

"No...no, I wouldn't."

What does he want out of what's left?

"I'd like to spend my remaining years with my son and give him all the guidance my father gave to me, to see him achieve the things he wants.... I'd love to go on the space shuttle, go around the world in 90 minutes.... Hey, Bob, we gotta get that boat cleaned up tomorrow. We'll Fantastik the hell out of everything. We'll clean the deck. We'll clean the teak. I think we can get the whole thing cleaned and washed in two hours, don't you...?"

There is no air conditioning or window screen in the Rome hotel where the Soviet team is staying for a week during the 1983 European championships. In the night Salnikov opens the window, lets the late July heat and mosquitoes pour in, and finds little sleep. "It is not heaven and it is not hell," he says of the hotel. "It is purgatory."

During the day, a West German in a wet suit and scuba gear swims under Salnikov and films his stroke as he works out. Neither the distractions of night nor of day impede Salnikov. He will win two gold medals, in the 400 and the 1,500.

Just now, though, he's late for an afternoon practice because he has spent too much time looking at St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. He picks Marina up in his arms and runs with her, for a joke, toward a bus stop. He laughs and puts her down. It would be wonderful if they could stay, visit all the treasures of Rome and Florence, when the week is over and his month-long vacation begins—but the champion is a Soviet athlete and he must go home with the group.