The woman who has called herself Just Janet, because she refuses to act like a superstar, and the girl who is called The Next Janet, because she looks like the second coming of Janet Evans, wound up on the top two steps of an awards podium Thursday night.
“Do you think she was in awe of you?” Evans, 22, was asked about the 14-year-old Brooke Bennett.
“You know me,” said Evans, holder of three world records and four Olympic gold medals. “Why would someone be in awe of me?”
Oh, for about 41 reasons, which is the number of U.S. titles Evans has won after her victory in the 800-meter freestyle.
Other than a slight similarity in stroke turnover, there is no comparison now between Evans, who won in a pedestrian 8 minutes 30.82 seconds, and Bennett, who was :06.2 behind. Both will swim the event at September’s World Championships in Rome.
It is memories of what Evans looked like at 14, when rivals laughed at her because she was so small, that make Bennett seem like her successor.
“I get jokes from friends on my own (club) team,” Bennett said. “They say, `Gosh, you need to grow some.’
“My dad says, `You’re a little Janet Evans.’ I like that. She has done so well in her career. I would like to do as well.”
Bennett, a high school freshman from Ft. Lauderdale, claims to be “5-2 or 5-3 and 109 pounds.”
Her stature in the sport figures to grow rapidly. Bennett’s time Thursday was :19 faster than her best of a year ago and made her the sixth-fastest 800 swimmer in the world this season.
In the wake: Ugur Taner of Bellevue, Wash., who swam for Turkey in the 1992 Olympics but since has joined the U.S., capitalized on the absence of Olympic champion Melvin Stewart (who had his tonsils removed Thursday) to win the 200-meter butterfly. . . . Jeff Rouse, world record-holder in the 100 backstroke (:53.86), won in :54.79, best in the world this year.
