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Tuesday, September 19
Six-year quest pays off for Dolan
By Steve Wilstein
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- The roars burst out of Tom Dolan in
uncontrollable waves, his face ferocious, defiant, wild.
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"
|  | | US swimmer Tom Dolan celebrates after winning the 400 individual medley in world record time. |
He whacked the water and pumped his arms, exhorting a crowd
packed to the roof to shout with him, to celebrate his gold and the
world record he set, breaking his own mark after it had stood for
six years.
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"
He slapped hands hard with teammate Erik Vendt, who had followed
him for silver, then sat pugnaciously astride the lane marker,
bellowing until he was hoarse.
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"
When Dolan finally emerged from the pool, his whole body
shivering in victory, he apologized for the way he had acted,
explaining that the emotion had just poured out of him.
But anyone who knew what Dolan had gone through before he
touched the pool wall at the end of one of swimming's most grueling
races, the 400-meter individual medley, would hesitate to condemn
his feverish display.
Picture him sitting in a hot, tiny trailer during the steamy
afternoon a few hours before the race. He suffers brutally from
asthma -- worse on high pollen-count days like Sunday -- and he was
sucking in oxygen for an hour, sweating the whole time.
He had posted the fastest time in the morning qualifying and had
hoped to nap a bit while clearing his lungs with the oxygen, but
that was impossible.
"For some reason, I wasn't allowed to bring the oxygen tank
with me into my room, so we were in the trailer behind the U.S.
medical building, and the trailer had zero air flow," Dolan said.
"Every five minutes I was dousing myself with ice because I was
really sweating."
Drama follows Dolan everywhere. Always prone to illness because
his asthma depresses his immune system, he suffered a viral
infection at the Olympic trials a month ago that is still wearing
him down. He had knee surgery in May last year, forcing him to miss
the rest of the year. In Atlanta four years ago, he could barely
breathe, yet he won the gold, willing himself to the finish when
his legs were burning and his lungs were empty.
All his illnesses and injuries, all his crises, fed Dolan's
desire, drove him harder, made him become like the heroes he most
admired when he was a kid, those athletes who persevered year after
year, who had staying power.
When he sat Sunday night with the gold medal around his neck,
his world record lowered to 4 minutes, 11.76 seconds from the
4:12.30 he swam at the 1994 world championships in Rome, he looked
back on the jagged path he had taken and the success he had found.
"To me, to have the longevity in the sport that I've had, I'll
be more proud of that than any of the records I've broken," he
said.
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This is what I've been dreaming about for six years. There's been a lot of ups and downs. ... It's the dream of every athlete to win the gold medal, break the Olympic record, break the world record, and I did it." ” |
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— Tom Dolan |
It all came together for him here in Sydney, where, as he said,
"swimming is heaven."
He turned 25 years old Friday, the day of the opening ceremony.
This Olympics, he knew, was his time -- indeed, perhaps his last
time -- to show what he had inside him.
"It was a very emotional swim for me," he said. "It was
definitely not a good setup for a world record. There are a lot of
things out of your control. But this is the Olympics. If that
doesn't make you swim fast and make you emotional, nothing will."
Taking inspiration wherever he could find it, he fueled himself
for this race by plotting with Vendt for revenge against the
Australians for winning the 400 freestyle relay the night before.
The Americans had never lost that race in the Olympics, but their
7-for-7 streak came to a stunning end when Australia's Ian Thorpe
touched the wall a split-second before Gary Hall Jr.
Afterward, the Aussies taunted Hall, who had boasted last month
that the Americans would "smash them like guitars." The Aussies
played air guitars in Hall's face.
"Obviously, we were extremely upset," Vendt said.
Dolan kept telling Vendt, on Saturday night and again on Sunday
as they shaved their bodies getting ready for the race, that they
had to finish one-two.
"We've got to turn this thing around," Dolan said.
Other Americans had the same idea.
Brooke Bennett and Diana Munz went first, winning gold and
silver in the women's 400 freestyle. Then came Dolan and Vendt,
delivering a double 1-2 punch that left the Americans feeling like
a swimming superpower again and left Dolan with the feeling that he
had completed his journey.
"This is what I've been dreaming about for six years," Dolan
said. "There's been a lot of ups and downs. ... It's the dream of
every athlete to win the gold medal, break the Olympic record,
break the world record, and I did it."
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ALSO SEE
Dolan, Bennett win gold for U.S. in swimming
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