King

Swimming World and Junior Swimmer, Jun 1999 by Lord, Craig

In Hong Kong, Grant Hackett and lan Thorpe turned in King Kong-like performances at the 4th World Short Course Championships.

HONG KONG-"We were pretty much mucking around when we split a 1:51," explained Ian Thorpe, referring to a "sedentary" 200 meter split from that bygone era when people lived in villages and world short course records in the 400 meter free stood at a gentle 3:40 pace.

But at the 4th World Short Course Championships, April 1-4, it was time to stop "mucking around." The 16year-old Thorpe, the only swimmer ever to have broken 3:40, had no choice but to get serious. His national nemesis, 18-year-old newborn "sprinter" Grant Hackett, was ready to race.

The result screamed from the Hong Kong Coliseum clock like cloud-- busting spring sunshine-3:35.01-at first, too bright for the eye to take in, like a new dawn. It dawned most savagely on the Thorpedo, who, unfortunately, missed his target despite having sliced 4.18 seconds off his own world record and having finished a knockout seven seconds ahead of the third-place finisher, Italy's Massi Rosolino. The top honor went to Hackett, who finished a full stroke ahead of Thorpe.

The younger of the teenage trailblazers was "disappointed," even though just a day earlier he had consigned another Italian, Giorgio Lamberti, to history with a 1:43.28 world record in the 200 free. But, now, he found himself 63-hundredths slower than Hackett in the 400. It was just a little over a year since Thorpe had defeated Hackett in Perth to become the youngest ever world long course champion at 15.

Thorpe's consolation is that he and Hackett now inhabit a time zone well beyond those trapped in the past. Hackett charted the first 100 meters in 5.40 seconds and touched the wall at 200 meters with a breathtaking 1:47.11.

At that point, Thorpe turned in 1:48.19, three seconds faster than the pace he set on the way to his previous world record of 3:39.82. However, it was still too slow to enable his famous kicking feet to catch Hackett over the closing stages of the race as he had done in Perth, Hackett's 300 split was 2:42.08, and he swam the second half of the race in 1:47.90, a fingernail slower than the last man home in the 200 meter final.

The enthusiasm of the Aussie guns had doubtless been triggered from the race before, in which Masami Tanaka, a star among the rising daughters of the Land of the Rising Sun, set a world record of 2:20.22 to win the 200 breast. The Japanese jet finished four seconds ahead of Olympic champion Penny Heyns.

Tanaka, who won all three breaststroke titles (30.80 in the 50 and 1:06.38 in the 100), also played a part in her country's 400 medley relay that became the first female quartet from Japan ever to hold a world relay record. The squad of Mai Nakamura (59.28), Tanaka (1:06.25), Ayari Aoyama (58.45) and Sumika Minamoto (53.64) shaved 11-hundredths off the record set by China in Palma de Majorca in 1993 to win in 3:57.62. The advantage over China came mainly on backstroke and partly on butterfly, though Le Jingyi's 52.19 split remains the fastest ever.

Tanaka, born in Hokkaido on Jan. 5, 1979, declared herself "happy" to have beaten Heyns and Samantha Riley, but said the job was not finished: "Next, I want to beat them in a 50 meter pool. I was very confident I would break the world record," said Tanaka through a translator. A student at Chuo University, Tanaka, almost 5-5 and weighing only 127 pounds, is coached by Yusuke Takahashi at the JSS Tokyo Swim School.

Nakamura, born in the same year on July 16, 2-1/2 inches taller and weighing 145 pounds, is also at Chuo University, but she has a different coach, Yoshiaki Takemura, at the JSS Nagaoka Swim School. Her victories in the 100 and 200 back with times (58.67 and 2:06.49) close to world records brought Japan's gold medal total to six. That ranked second, just three wins behind Australia (precisely, Australia's men) and two ahead of a much improved British team.

Second Fiddle

The success of the Japanese was so impressive that three titles and a world record apiece for Jenny Thompson and Martina Moravcova played a strange second fiddle.

Thompson, in the midst of pre-med school studies, slipped up only once in her five events, losing the 50 free to Holland's Inge de Bruijn (24.35). The American lowered her national 100 free record twice, settling for a win in 53.24, the second fastest ever behind Le's 53.01 from 1993. She also took the 50 and 100 butterfly titles (26.18 and 57.65) in close contests with Swedes Anna-Karin Kammerling and Johanna Sjoberg.

But it was the fun swim that produced the best effort. Moravcova, who also won the 200 IM (2:08.55) and 200 free (1:56.11), set a world record of 1:00.35 in the heats of the 100 IM and went on to win the title in 1:00.20, clearly benefiting from her experience and success in short course yards in the United States.

However, her morning mark stood less than three minutes. Thompson, conscious that she would not race the final in order to concentrate on freestyle, hit back in full measure in the heat after Moravcova's-an astounding 59.30 that caught the photographers napping.