Swimming fun to Janet Evans

Press, 26 September 1988, Page 22

Swimming fun to Janet Evans

NZPA-Reuter Seoul Janet Evans, the longdistance princess of the Olympic swimming pool, has not been out of the water for more than a week since the age of 12. Churning down the pool for 15 kilometres every day in the Californian sunshine, she spent five years on a simple formula: “Try as hard as you can, work harder.” Stretching and yawning with exhaustion at an early morning press conference yesterday, the petite 46kg 17-year-old with the shy smile was still coming to terms with a dream come true. "It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” she said after her golden Olympic hat-trick

— victories in the 800 metres freestyle, 400 metres individual medley and 400 metres freestyle. Dwarfed on the podium by her East German rivals, the pocket powerhouse said of her archrivals who must be wondering where all that strength and endurance comes from: “They don’t resent me. I am not intimidated by them.” Their admiration and praise is unstinting. The 400 m freestyle silver medallist, Heike Friedrich, of East Germany, said of Evans: “I never thought anybody could swim so fast.”

Once out of the water, she exudes enthusiasm. Her smile bubbles con-

stantly to the surface and on the winner’s rostrum she is always the one with the biggest grin. Swimming is quite obviously fun. Her father Paul, a veterinarian from Placentia, California, gets up at five every morning to take her to training. Her mother Barbara takes her for the afternoon session. When reporters asked what her mother did for a living, Evans shrugged her shoulders, laughed and said: “She is a chauffeur.” Both were in Seoul to share her triumph. But how did she celebrate her hat-trick of victories? “I sat up with my room-mates talking until

two in the morning.” Nothing seems to disturb the self-possessed teenager on the world stage of swimming. Offering a glimpse of her steely determination, Evans said: “I shall never be too nervous. I never get too scared.”

Her coach, Bud McAllister, said that Evans could win the 1500 metres by 25 seconds if the event was introduced for women at the Olympics.

She is now planning another record — two weeks away from the pool. But Mr Bud McAllister forecast: “Janet, you will be bored by the time two weeks have gone by.”