At first, Torres was deferential toward Thompson, the 27-year-old Grande Dame of swimming. “Jenny was an inspiration to me,” Torres says. So inspiring, in fact, that when Torres started beating Thompson at her best events–the 100-meter butterfly and the 100-meter freestyle–the biggest rivalry in U.S. swimming broke out. Their coach, Stanford’s Richard Quick, decided he had to train them separately. “Every day in practice was like an Olympic final,” Quick says.
This week, at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis, the rivalry boiled over. The two were preoccupied with each other to the point of distraction. In the preliminary rounds of the 100 fly, they both swam fast in separate heats. Torres even broke Thompson’s American record. But once they were in the same pool for the final, they were so busy worrying about each other, they slowed down. “I was peeking,” Torres admits. Thompson won by .08 seconds, but at a pace that will leave her gulping chlorine in Sydney if she doesn’t pick it up. “They got caught up in the race with themselves, instead of swimming their rhythm and swimming their stroke and concentrating on their own race,” Quick says.
This was not the plan. Thompson was supposed to cruise to glory in Indy. Nobody deserves it more. Thompson was the It Girl of 1996. Favored to sweep the sprints, Thompson instead choked at trials and didn’t make a single individual event. Too many expectations and too little sleep. She became the Blew It Girl. “It was probably the worst meet of my life,” Thompson recalls. “I definitely would not be here today if I’d had the dream Olympics I wanted to have in Atlanta.” Sydney is meant to be her chance to redeem herself–and finally enjoy the spotlight.
A year ago, U.S.A. Swimming came up with a catchy billing for the Olympics: the “Jenny and Lenny Show.” The power pair of Thompson and backstroker Lenny Krayzelburg, the breakout star on the men’s team, were suppose to headline. Then along came Torres and stole the show. Not only was Torres going for her fourth Olympic team (this week she became one of only two swimmers in Olympic history to make it) but at 33 she was an age-defying phenomenon. Torres was also a glib, TV personality (the Tae Bo infomercial girl) who was at ease with the press.
For all their similarities in the water, Thompson and Torres couldn’t be more different on land. Torres hails from Beverly Hills, Thompson from a struggling single mom family in Dover, New Hampshire. Torres is confessional in talking about her bulimia and uterine cramps; Thompson is reserved, even shy, in talking about herself. After Sydney, Torres will head back to TV land and modeling, Thompson to medical school at Columbia University. Torres is an ebullient, effortless self-promoter, while Thompson is a reserved, Calvinistic workhorse. New billing: Glam vs. Grit.
Thompson seems to be trying to shed her Puritan image. This week she appeared in a risque Sports Illustrated spread, topless except for two precisely placed fists. “I’m proud of my body and the work that I’ve done to get it where it is,” Thompson explains. She had complained to the photographer that SI never uses “real athletes” in its swimsuit issue. He convinced her to take it off for the glory of sport. Was she really unaware that the first “real athlete” to be a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model was none other than Dara Torres?
After their 100 fly showdown, Torres hammed it up by sitting in on Thompson’s press conference, even pretending to ask her a question. “Get out of here!” Thompson only half joked while her agent fumed in the back. When asked about their rivalry, Thompson towed the line: “When it comes down to it Dara and I are friends,” she said. They hugged each other over the lane line after their race, but the tension is palpable. Torres dismissed the speculation about tension between them with typical aplomb. When asked about the hug, she joked: “It was totally fake.”
On Monday night, the cameras trained on Torres as the two women stripped down at the racing blocks for the 100-meter freestyle. Again, it was Thompson who got to the wall first. This time she set a new American record of 54.07 seconds. The two will represent the U.S. in both events at Sydney. The big question then may be whether they compete as fiercely against the Aussies as they do against each other.
