Third-year medical student Jenny Thompson has won more Olympic gold medals than any woman swimmer in history, all eight in relays. Anyone who needed to be reminded how she did it got a refresher course Sunday night at the 10th World Swimming Championships.
At 30, three years after her apparent retirement from the sport, Thompson anchored a 400-meter freestyle relay that was third by nearly one-half second when she dove in and still third with 50 meters to go.
“Some power comes over me when I swim relays,” Thompson said. “I get this sense I can’t let the team down, that I have no choice but to win. Coming off the final turn, I felt an adrenaline rush that made me think there was no option but to get faster and faster and faster.”
She wound up swimming the fifth-fastest 100-free relay split in history, a personal-best 53.44 seconds, to catch the Australian and German anchors and give the United States its first gold medal of the meet. It was Thompson’s 10th world medal, matching a record previously shared by Kornelia Ender of Germany and Shirley Babashoff of the U.S.
The way Thompson swam in all three of her races Sunday, she figures to go to the head of that class soon. She set meet records in both a heat (58.14) and semifinal (57.99) of the 100-meter butterfly, making herself the surprise favorite for Monday’s final.
“Now it’s a question of how my body holds up,” she said.
Thompson won her first world medal in 1991–a relay gold, naturally.
“To be able to do it time and time again . . . my longevity is one of the things I’m proudest about,” said Thompson, who came back to swimming 15 months ago and now fits it into her studies at Columbia University med school.
Stay around long enough, and you will see it all. That was apparent when Thompson heard meet organizers apologize because they could not get a CD of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to play during the medal ceremony. U.S. swimmers and fans in the stands began singing the anthem, and the relay members chimed in.
“I have the best voice,” relay teammate Natalie Coughlin said.
That was the only way she bested Thompson on Sunday at the Palau Sant Jordi pool, where the 20-year-old Coughlin has been expected to show the world she is the new star of women’s swimming.
Coughlin not only lost to Thompson in both butterfly races but also was only the sixth-fastest qualifier for the final. Her time leading off the free relay, 54.64 seconds, was good but less than impressive for a swimmer projected as gold medalist in four individual events.
She began the day hearing boos and catcall whistles as the first swimmer from the U.S. announced to the crowd. (“Any energy is good energy,” Coughlin said, euphemistically.) She finished it having to sing the national anthem a cappella and playing second fiddle to Thompson.
“Every time she swims, Jenny gets better and better,” Coughlin said.
German relay anchor Sandra Volker had the same impression. Volker, who swam on Germany’s world record-setting 400-free relay last year, was not surprised the comeback vet caught her.
“If it’s Jenny Thompson swimming, anything can happen,” Volker said. “She’s a fighter, and she wants to win.”
That is how Russia’s Alexander Popov has felt for a decade. He may be the greatest sprint freestyler in history, the only man to win consecutive Olympic titles in the 100 meters, but until Sunday he never had been on a winning relay in the Olympics or worlds.
“I have been dreaming about this since 1992,” Popov said.
Now 31, he made it come true in the 400-free relay with an anchor leg of 47.71 seconds, only 3/100ths slower than his best relay split, which came nine years ago. The U.S. team was a distant second, with reigning world and Olympic champion Australia only fourth.
That meant for the first time in his storied career, every relay Ian Thorpe touched in a world or Olympic championship did not turn to gold.
Thorpe, 20, not only failed to improve the Aussies’ fourth-place position when he began the anchor leg but also was slower than three other teams’ anchors.
Earlier in the evening, Thorpe made history in the 400-meter freestyle as the first to win three world titles in the same event, increasing his record for total world meet gold medals to nine. His time, 3:42.58, was merely ninth on an all-time list where the seven fastest are his, topped by 3:40.08.
Thorpe had set world records in his previous three world and Olympic 400-free races.
“If I felt like I had peaked, I wouldn’t swim it anymore,” he said.
He had only to look at Jenny Thompson to know why that attitude makes sense.
