This wasn’t what Ed Moses had in mind when he said last week that he wanted to “make history.” The heavy favorite in the 200-meter breaststroke didn’t plan on being history.
But that’s what he was Sunday. Kyle Salyards, a relative unknown from Lancaster, Pa., and Tom Wilkens, a veteran American swimmer, will be going to Sydney. They were the top two finishers in the event at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials.
Moses finished a shocking fourth. He already is going to the Olympics in the 100 breaststroke, but he had bigger plans for Sydney. He wanted to win gold in both events and perhaps break Mike Barrowman’s eight-year-old world record of 2 minutes 10.16 seconds in the 200.
Instead he swam 2:13.53 and touched last among a group of four swimmers desperately trying to get to the wall first. History will have to be written another time.
“I don’t know what to say,” Moses said. “I’m really disappointed. I don’t know what happened. I’ll get over this and be ready for the 100 [breaststroke] in Sydney. But [Sunday night] didn’t go the way I planned or wanted.”
Salyards won in 2:13.21. He was willing to acknowledge that what happened Sunday was an upset.
“Definitely,” he said. “I thought he was going to come in at 2:12 or something like that. It just goes to show that anyone can be beaten at any time. He still has the 100. He’ll probably break the world record.”
Moses broke the American record in the 100 earlier in the trials, but that didn’t make him feel much better Sunday. Moses and his coach, Pete Morgan, weren’t sure exactly what went wrong.
“He has extremely high expectations,” Morgan said. “He’s accustomed to placing those expectations out there in the performance field.
“I would say that sometimes an athlete can’t bring out their best. That might be the first time under the lights that he has not been able to bring his best to the final results. We’ll try to make it the last time.”
For Wilkens, just making the Olympics was a relief. Now he can concentrate on his best event, the 200 individual medley. He’ll battle Tom Dolan in the finals Monday.
“This is really going to relieve a lot of the pressure,” Wilkens said.
U.S. swimming officials here are not supposed to root for anyone, at least not openly, but they must have been pleased Gary Hall Jr. made the team in the 100 freestyle. It means America will have a veteran and a character in Sydney, someone who can pump up his teammates.
He strutted out for the 100 final Sunday night wearing a black hooded robe. Underneath were authentic red, white and blue boxer’s shorts. Then he started shadowboxing, getting ready for his heavyweight bout.
Hall is known as a swimmer with an uncanny knack of doing well in big meets, despite subpar performances on smaller stages and a questionable work ethic. Sunday was a big meet, and he delivered a :48.84, just behind Neil Walker’s :48.71.
He fought and won.
“I picked these up at Muhammad Ali’s Fight Night for Parkinson’s Disease,” Hall said of the shorts. “I don’t think I was supposed to leave with them, but I took them anyway. I wanted to bring them out for a special occasion, and [Sunday night] was the night.”
Hall lives a little more on the edge than other swimmers. He realizes that a sprinter’s moment is just that, a moment, and that he better put maximum effort into a minimum amount of time. Most important, at the right time.
“He really is an entertainer,” teammate Josh Davis said. “We love that. It helps us relax. He’s the kind of guy you want to have on your team. He exudes confidence.”
In other action, Misty Hyman of Stanford won the women’s 200 butterfly in 2:09.27. She and Kaitlin Sandeno (2:09.54) earned Olympic spots.
“Toward the end of the race I was so tired I almost froze,” Hyman said. “But I was able to keep it going. … I held on to it by the skin of my teeth.”
In the semifinals of the women’s 100 free, Jenny Thompson had the best time of :54.41, followed by Dara Torres in :54.92. Amy Van Dyken, who won four gold medals at the 1996 Olympics, was fourth in :55.37.
The finals will take place Monday night.
