Different Strokes

THE U.S. WOMEN'S swim team coach, Jack Bauerle, heard the unusual noises rising through the floor of his room at the team's training camp hotel in Palo Alto, Calif., in July: muffled shouts, admonitions, denials, trash talk. "It didn't sound like a typical card game," he says. It wasn't. In the room below, 19-year-old Katie Hoff was taking on a roomful of male teammates in a bitterly fought game of Risk.

When 1,500-meter specialists Larsen Jensen and Erik Vendt played the war board game against Hoff in Athens four years ago, the two had to cheat to beat the then 15-year-old. After learning of their treachery recently, Hoff had vowed to watch them "like a hawk" during their games in Palo Alto, but despite her vigilance and her advance study of Risk strategy on the Internet, her bid for global domination on the game board came up short. "I'm proud to say I won most of the games," says Vendt.

World supremacy in the Olympic pool will be no easier for Hoff and the American women in Beijing. After arriving in China as underdogs to the Australians, they found themselves under siege from all corners of the planet. Over the first three days of finals at the cavernous Water Cube, swimmers from four countries won six gold medals in the women's events. The U.S. had just one: In the 100-meter backstroke, 25-year-old Natalie Coughlin successfully defended her Olympic title on Tuesday with a time of 58.96 seconds, holding off world-record holder Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe. "When I first saw the 1 by my name, I thought they had made a mistake," Coughlin said.

Two days earlier she helped the U.S. upset the Aussies for a silver in the 4 × 100 freestyle relay—the Netherlands won the gold—but the women from Down Under otherwise looked as strong as advertised. In the 100 butterfly the eternally sunny Libby Trickett won the first of what is expected to be an Australian women's individual record of four gold medals in one Games. (Later this week she'll defend her world records in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle events and swim in the 4 × 100 medley relay.) To punctuate her country's strength in the event, her visibly stressed-out teammate Jessicah Schipper won the bronze even though a wardrobe malfunction—she couldn't get the zipper on her Speedo LZR Racer up—forced her to change into an old suit just moments before the race. Finishing in between the two was a pleasant surprise for the U.S.'s Christine Magnuson, 22, who won the silver after setting an American record in the semis.

Most of the U.S. women's swimming medals are expected to come from just two sources, Hoff and Coughlin, who are shouldering a withering load of six events each in Beijing. Hoff is competing in five individual events in addition to the 4 × 200 free relay, a program that is nearly as ambitious as that of her former North Baltimore Aquatics teammate Michael Phelps. Even Coughlin, who is adding one event, the 200 IM, to the five she won medals in four years ago, is impressed. Says Coughlin, who will likely face Hoff in the 200 IM final and team with her in the 4 × 200 freestyle relay, "Katie is taking on a huge, huge challenge."

Hoff got a sense of what she's up against on Sunday morning when she came in third in a 400 IM race that saw both winner Stephanie Rice of Australia and runner-up Coventry break Hoff's world record and beat the 4:30 barrier for the first time. In the 400 freestyle a day later, Hoff led the field for most of the final 200 meters before getting outtouched by Rebecca Adlington, who came from a second and a half back in the last lap to win Great Britain's first swimming gold medal since 1960. "It was kind of a drag race," said Hoff. "Obviously there's a bit of disappointment because it was so close. But I got a bronze medal yesterday and a silver medal today, and so, if I keep climbing up like this, I'll be happy."

No matter what color medals she collects, Hoff's Beijing experience has already been a big improvement over her first Olympics. In Athens, Hoff, the youngest member of the entire U.S. Olympic team, was overcome by nerves in her first event, the 400 IM, and threw up on the pool deck after finishing 17th in the prelims. She recovered to come in seventh in the 200 IM.

Since then she has turned professional—in 2006 she signed a 10-year deal with Speedo, then the company's longest contract with an athlete—won six world championship gold medals, broken the 400 IM world record twice and expanded her repertoire to include the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyle events. Her coach, Paul Yetter, thinks she's not far from being a medal threat in the 100 free as well. "What she lacks right now is consistency," he says.

Out of the water, Hoff has matured into "a really cool chick," says teammate Amanda Beard. "What's remarkable about her is all the ways she hasn't changed," says Vendt. "She's still down-to-earth and humble."

When she's not taking on the boys in Risk—a game she insists she "rocks" at—she's learning new steps at her hip-hop dance classes or gambling the contents of her change purse on all manner of small-stakes bets. To feed her hypercompetitive spirit, she'll make wagers with friends on just about anything: how fast she can swim a practice set, which swimmer in a race will make the Olympic team, how many times she can say "definitely" during a press conference. "I have a gambler's personality, and I think that translates into swimming," she says. Taking on two events in one session, as she was scheduled to do on Aug. 13, when she was expected to swim the 200 free and the 200 IM, is a telling example. "I could look like a fool," Hoff says. "But it's not like I'm taking a total risk, because I've trained for it. I've done doubles at nationals, at worlds. It's not completely foreign to me."