OMAHA, Neb. — The U.S. Olympic trials ended with Michael Phelps cheering from the stands after another dominating meet, Katie Hoff savoring her emergence as a potentially huge star in China, and Dara Torres scoring another win for middle-aged moms everywhere.
Next stop, Beijing.
The Phelps-led swim team heads to the Olympics having left track and field in its wake and ready to go neck-and-neck with those cute, perky gymnasts for the title of America’s team.
There are huge story lines everywhere.
Phelps, who rested Sunday after locking up his eight-event program for Beijing, is ready to make another run at Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals. He’ll go in as THE Olympic icon after winning six golds in Athens and giving every indication he’ll do even better at these games.
Hoff will be nearly as busy in Beijing. The 19-year-old figures to have her face plastered everywhere after earning a spot in five individual races and assuring herself of at least a relay. Medaling in all six is not out of the realm of possibility.
Then there’s Torres, who might get as much TV time at these Olympics as anyone. After all, it’s not often that a 41-year-old woman comes out of retirement — her second long layoff, actually — and re-emerges as one of her country’s best athletes.
After having a baby, no less.
“I’ve gotten so many wonderful e-mails and messages from people and from friends of friends who have said that they feel like they can go out and do things that they’ve put off, that they thought they couldn’t do,” Torres said. “But they have to remember that they’re also inspiring me.”
Torres won her second event of the trials Sunday with another American record in the 50-meter freestyle. She’ll be the oldest U.S. swimmer ever at the Olympics, but she wants so much more.
“I can’t sit here and lie and say, ‘Oh, I’m just glad I’m going,’ ” said Torres, who again took 2-year-old Tessa to the awards stand before heading off to her fifth Olympics. “I want a medal.”
Having already won the 100 free Friday, Torres got off to the third-slowest start in the most frenetic lap in swimming. But she was in control midway through, touching in 24.25 seconds to eclipse the mark of 24.38 she set the previous night in the semifinals.
Jessica Hardy claimed the second Olympic spot in 24.82, beating Lara Jackson by six-hundredths of a second. Torres has raised the possibility of dropping the 100, worried her still-buff body can’t take the grind of two individual events, especially when she’s likely will swim two relays, too.
“I’m hoping to go somewhat fast, because they have girls in the world that are going 24.1 and 23.9. I have five more weeks to try to drop a couple tenths to hopefully be in competition with those girls,” Torres said. “I’m very happy with my time, but I know I have more work to do.”
In the final race of the eight-day meet, Peter Vanderkaay pulled off a major upset by beating U.S. record holder Larsen Jensen and top qualifier Erik Vendt. From the stands, Phelps cheered on two of his training partners, Vanderkaay and Vendt.
Jensen set the early pace in swimming’s version of the mile, but he began to tire about two-thirds of the way into the grueling race.
Everyone expected Vendt to challenge, but he apparently wore himself out by swimming the preliminaries Saturday in 14:50.24 — more than 12 seconds faster than anyone else.
Instead, it was Vanderkaay who overtook Jensen and held on to win in 14 minutes, 45.54 seconds, just off Jensen’s national mark of 14:45.29.
“This wasn’t the event I train for primarily, but I’ll take it,” Vanderkaay said.
Jensen took the second Olympic spot in 14:50.80, while Vendt struggled to the wall in fourth at 15:07.78, also trailing Chad La Tourette.
“My effort was there, it’s just that extra something wasn’t,” said Vendt, a silver medalist in the 400 individual medley at the last two Olympics and long one of America’s top distance swimmers. “I was expecting something really good, I felt great in warmup. For some reason I couldn’t get going or couldn’t hold pace. I was kind of surprised.”
Vanderkaay added to his busy Beijing schedule, which will include the 200 and 400 free as well as the 800 free relay. Vendt will have to be content with a possible relay spot in Beijing.
“I’m just thankful I’m on that team,” Vendt said, “because if I had to end my career on that, I’d be pretty (ticked) off.”
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