From Stillness Comes Swiftness

What compels Salnikov to invest his life in perhaps the most monotonous and grueling regimen that sport has contrived? What drives him to thrash his arms and kick his legs and stare down at blue tiles for five hours and 13 miles a day without even the marathon runner's compensation of fresh air and scenery?

"Maybe to see if it's possible to swim long and fast and to find my limits as a human being," he says. "I have no global thoughts."

The longer his domination lasts, the more Soviet coaches wonder when America is going to uncork some 19-year-old monster to swim him down. Despite the upswing in the Soviet swimming program in the last six years, competitors with Salnikov's drive are still rare in the U.S.S.R.

The reasons have to do with climate, living standards and social conditioning. The swimming pool itself is a luxury that Soviet society could only recently afford. Until 1952 there were only three indoor pools in the U.S.S.R., one per 61 million people, and as late as 1970 only one per 100,000. There is no Florida or California where Soviet youths can cavort in outdoor pools the year around.

Current Soviet athletes are the children of parents who, during World War II, underwent nutritional deprivation that most Americans cannot fathom. "Their parents went four, six, eight years with no meat, no juice, no sugar, perhaps just 200 grams of bread a day," says Sergei Vaitsekhovski, former head coach of the national swimming team. "We still see the effects. American coaches tell me their swimmers lose barely any days to sickness. Our average swimmer loses 20 a year."

Basic social philosophy favors the U.S., too. Americans grow up with the need to be special, to distinguish themselves, to step away from the crowd in order to hear the roar of the crowd. They get good feelings about themselves from what they do and how fast they can do it—a wonderful humus to grow athletes in. Russians, even before Communism, were brought up to blend in with the group. The individual doesn't expect so much of life, or of himself. "If I ever heard my swimmers say 'I' too much, I told them to take scissors to their tongues," says Vaitsekhovski. "But ask an American athlete who will win and he will say, 'I will.' In one way that's good—he's probably stronger psychologically. We have never had anyone with the psychological strength of Salnikov, and yet, he is also the quiet leader of the team."

"Even when the Russians' times were faster than ours," says Stanford coach Skip Kenney, "when Americans have gone head to head with them, the Russians have always knuckled under. They were intimidated. But Salnikov's so confident, he's out shopping with Americans in L.A. the day before he's going to compete. The other Russians always stay with their group—they're afraid of being psyched out."

By the '60s, the Soviets realized that what America could produce naturally, by evolution, they had to produce by systematization. Swimming coaches fanned out to check the muscle coordination of second-graders and steer the elite into special sports schools. They studied American technique and training methods. They surpassed the Americans in the application of science, and whittled down the talent gap. In 1980, Soviet men won gold medals in Olympic swimming for the first time—winning six events in Moscow. Sure, the Yanks weren't there, but who could diminish Salnikov's achievement? He whipped himself through the worst pain he had ever felt, lying to himself that the 13th and 14th 100 meters were his last, to set a world record in the 1,500.

The American swimmers, meanwhile, had begun treading water. With the Olympic stage pulled from under their feet by the boycott, the crowd's roar smothered, older swimmers quit, younger ones opted for shorter distances where the pain was less and the glamour greater. No American 22-year-olds had the kind of tailored college class schedule and monthly income a swimmer like Salnikov needs to spend half his waking hours in swimming pools and weight rooms. The Soviets remained preeminent in the long-distance events.

And every time he returned to America to compete or train, Salnikov became more aware of what the two societies instilled in their people, and what they took away. "New cars everywhere, highways and new buildings and technology everywhere, 20-channel TVs everywhere," he says. "The TV there is no place for ideas—it's all cowboys and advertisements. Everyone saying, 'Smile, wake up and smile! Have a nice day!' We don't smile unless we have a reason to. I like America like I like going to a show."