16 April 2008
A Sense of the Water
Swimmer acquired more than medals during her competitive career
By Janet Evans
With five Olympic medals in her trophy case, American swimmer Janet Evans had a terrific Olympic career. At only 17, she won three gold medals in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, then another gold and a silver in 1992 in Barcelona. But when Evans thinks back on her swimming career, the Olympics, and what she learned along the way, the medals aren’t the most important thing.
When I started swimming competitively, I wasn’t as tall as most of the other kids, so people were always telling me I was too little to be a really competitive swimmer.
In my mind, that didn’t make any sense. I knew I had the capabilities, I had the desire, and I just thought I could make it happen. At a very young age, I didn’t care what people said about me or what they thought about me because I knew what I could do.
So I had to face people’s doubts about me all the time as a young competitor when I was 10, 11, 12, all the time. Everywhere I went, I was always swimming against girls who were bigger than me. But I had a lot of discipline. I had great family support. I had great coaches. I had a great stroke. I had a great sense of the water. Most importantly, I worked really hard.
By my first Olympics in 1988, I was 17, and I was 5 feet [1.5 meters] tall. I was swimming against women from East Germany who averaged 5 feet, 10 inches [1.75 meters].
Beyond the size issues in my swimming, what I learned by both my failures -- I had a lot of failures along the way, too -- and my successes was that I could do whatever I put my mind to.
So that mindset was with me at my first two Olympics, 1988 and 1992. I thought that if I didn’t go to the Olympics to win, then I was a failure. I never stopped and said, “Gosh, I’m really honored just to represent my country at the Olympics.” In 1988 I won three golds. In 1992 I won a gold and a silver, but I was very disillusioned with my silver medal. At that time, I thought the Olympics was all about winning.
When it came to 1996, with the Games scheduled here in the United States, in Atlanta, Georgia, I was looking at the only chance of my Olympic career to swim for my country, in my country. I was 24, and at the time that was considered aging in swimming. I wasn’t over the hill, but I was pushing the limit. Just making the Olympic squad was a greater challenge for me than it had been in the past.
My coach and my parents said to me, “You need to swim in Atlanta not to win. You need to swim in Atlanta to experience the Olympics, to compete in your home country, to realize that life isn’t just about winning.” Of course, I went to Atlanta wanting to win. Who doesn’t want to win? But I’d put a lot of miles on my shoulders by then. I just didn’t have it when I got there, for a variety of reasons.
In Atlanta, I really learned it was okay not to win. It was okay to represent my country, do my best, and be satisfied with the results. And I was.
The Atlanta Games were my greatest Olympics even though I left without a medal.
I experienced the whole thing as I never had before. I passed the torch to Muhammad Ali; I went to opening and closing ceremonies. Far and away, the Atlanta Olympics was my best Olympic experience.
Being an Olympian is a fantastic experience even without winning, and that’s what I was missing before. By 1996, I was just happy to be an Olympian, to be competing and representing my country. Obviously I was more mature when I was 24 than when I was 17, so that was part of it too.
I remember sitting in the Olympic village in Atlanta and listening to five or six different languages being spoken around me in the dining hall, and I just sat there by myself, and said, “Wow, this is incredible.” I’m living in a community for two weeks with 10,000 athletes -- how great is that? That’s the stuff the Olympics is really all about.
