Janet Evans

When Janet Evans entered the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea, it was with a "do the best you can" attitude. Sixteen days later, she left with three swimming gold medals dangling from her neck. The 1992 Olympics were a very different story for the 24 year old Evans, however. Although her performance was still top notch - she finished with a gold and a silver and became the only U.S. woman to win four Olympic swimming gold medals - her emotional stature was drastically different, and swimming was more of an obsession than something she did for pleasure. "In Barcelona, after I got the silver in the 400 (meter freestyle), I thought I was a bad swimmer and I thought if I'm not a good swimmer, I'm a bad person. Every time I got in the pool, I had to win. It really consumed my thoughts." Indeed, the pressure to perform and the comments about her not being as fast as she used to be got to her and prevented her from being her best at the 1992 Games.

With the 1996 Olympic Games rapidly approaching, Janet Evans has taken on a new perspective and a much more relaxed style. For one, she certainly isn't going to put the pressure on herself like she did in 1992. Said Evans, "I've accomplished everything I've set out to do, so there's no pressure. I have nothing to lose…"

It would, however, be a grave mistake for Evans' challengers to confuse her new attitude with a non-competitive style. Evans has always been extremely competitive ever since she first set foot in a pool. "I could swim all four strokes by the time I was four" said Evans. It was at this age that she and her brothers joined Fullerton Aquatics, a swim team near her home in Placentia, California. At age 13 she swam at her first national championship meet next to the stars of the 1984 Olympics. Evans remembers that she was "about 4 feet, 5 inches tall and scared to death." But her fear was overshadowed by her desire to succeed and only two years later, in 1987, she set her first world record by finishing the 800 meters in 8:22. She was so infuriated when an East German swimmer lowered the mark to 8:19 that the following spring she swam an 8:17 to regain the record. Commented Evans, "I got so mad. I'm really, really competitive, and I wanted my record back."

Nine years, two Olympics, a communications major, and a whole host of records and accomplishments later, Evans still has the same sense of competitiveness and is still setting records. With 45 national titles, Evans is quickly closing in on the record number of 48 U.S. titles set by Tracy Caulkins. Her age and experience, in turn, have brought her to a higher maturity level. The 1996 Olympics will, in all likelihood, be the last Games for Janet Evans, and she's realized the limits as to how her body can perform next to her more youthful competitors. Where once her main competition came from East Germany, her toughest challengers now are much closer to home. At last year's U.S. championships, she lost the 800 meter freestyle for the first time since 1987 to a host of teenagers including 15 year old swimming sensation, Brooke Bennett.

But despite losses like this, she is still holding on to the world records for the 400 and 800 meters, records she has owned for eight years. And she maintains a very positive attitude. "My body has changed, and if I never swim an 8:16 (world record, 800 meter) in my life again, I'm not going to consider it the end of the world. I was able to swim more than 10 seconds off that and still win a world championship. The way I look at that now, that just tells me it was a pretty amazing thing when I did it."