Sometimes you have to go with the losers. More interesting, more poignant, just a better story. Inge de Bruijn of Holland won the 100 metres freestyle yesterday, completing a Dutch coup at these Games which has put paid to the notion that the competition existed for the US and Australia to square off to each other. There was a dead heat for third place. That was the story of the night.
Jenny Thompson has trained with Richard Quick at Stanford for nine years. In Quick's coaching career, Thompson is the signature tune, the main event, his greatest achievement. Through three Olympic celebrations, Thompson has made US teams. She retired last night with more gold medals than any other female athlete in US history. Seven. And she wasn't happy.
All seven medals have come in relay events. Thompson is that kind of person. On teams she digs out the best in herself, comes through for the others. As an individual swimmer she has won lots, just never an Olympic gold. In Atlanta, she failed to qualify to compete in any individual races. She went home and vowed to change that for Sydney.
Cut to Dara Torres, retired since Barcelona, famous in America for the TaeBo workout advertisements, making a good living retailing her looks in a modelling career. She decides on a whim to come back to swimming. Calls up Richard Quick and asks will he train her. She is 32 when she asks, but he says yes. To show her earnestness, she flies from east coast to west in the morning and trains with him that afternoon in Stanford.
Torres and Thompson are working towards the same event. Thompson is the quiet team player. Torres is the grandstanding golden girl. Soon they can't abide each other. Every afternoon it's an Olympic final in the pool as they train, each rubbing the other's nose in the dirt. Quick separates them before they kill each other.
That was in December 1999. Yesterday, in Thompson's final individual race, she touched the wall for third place in 54.43, precisely the same time as Torres. "Hmm, ironic," said Torres in the pool when she noticed. Indeed. The two will be forever linked together standing on the bronze medal part of the podium giving each other the big freeze and trying to look happy at the same time. For Torres it was her second individual bronze medal of the Games and she adds it to her relay gold, won with Thompson earlier in the week. "Hey," she said "three for three."
Thompson ended her press conference as soon as Torres arrived to give hers and not a glance was exchanged between them.
"I guess," said Thompson, "I'll have to stop looking at what I haven't got and start giving thanks for what I do have. I have nine Olympic medals, seven gold medals. That's a lot to be proud of. I have a lot in my life, a lot of things that matter more than any medals. It's time to think of those things."
And there they went, a perfect distraction to the growing controversy over drug use at the pool this week.
Inge de Bruijn's victory in the event and Pieter van den Hoogenband's effortless qualification for today's 50 metres freestyle final suggest a Dutch sweep of the sprinting events this week. De Bruijn, who has already won the 100 metres butterfly, is favourite for the 50 metres freestyle also. Questions were asked and accusations were hurled, mainly between the Americans and the Dutch. The Americans can't swim and are jealous, ran the Dutch line. We've been burned before and need to know, ran the American counter. A win for van den Hoogenband over Gary Hall jnr in the 50 metres final should keep the pot boiling.
Elsewhere yesterday, the European insistence on getting between America and Australia continued to irk both countries. Italy's Massimiliano Rosolino, who did such a superb job trying to chase down Ian Thorpe earlier in the week, got his reward with a gold in the 200 metres individual medley final. The Italian trailed Tom Dolan (winner of the 400m IM) and Attila Czene with 100 metres left, but with the final leg being his favoured freestyle, he pulled away to win by almost a second. Italy had won its first ever Olympic swimming gold as recently as Wednesday night.
In the women's 200 breaststroke final, Agnes Kovacs of Hungary held off the challenge of two Americans to emerge with the gold. Kovacs, just 19, was one of the youngest medallists at the Atlanta Games when she won bronze in the same event. And for Australia, left drumming its fingers at its own party as yet another night passed without their palms being crossed with gold, there was the consolation that they might close strong today and tomorrow. Geoff Huegill broke an Olympic record in finishing fastest qualifier for the finals of the 100 butterfly. Michael Klim was second fastest.
That final takes place this morning, and the hosts are also keenly anticipating tomorrow's all-Australian showdown in the men's 1,500 metres. Kieran Perkins will attempt to take the crown for the third Olympics in succession. His rival is Grant Hackett, whose poor form so far this week has been attributed to everything from a broken heart to glandular fever.
His recovery, or a continuation of Perkins' run, might yet see the swimming competition finish on the same note of delirium with which it began.
