Current Biography Excerpts: Swimming

EVANS, JANET
Aug. 28, 1971- Swimmer.

A diminutive and bubbly 17-year-old, Janet Evans appeared not to have a care in the world at the 1988 Olympics. Behind her unimposing frame and infectious smile, however, lurked an intensely determined athlete, who humbled her older and bigger competitors by winning three gold medals at the 1988 Summer Games. In a sport in which women usually peak at the age of 19, Evans was considered an aging veteran at the 1992 Olympics, where she became the first woman ever to win back-to-back golds in the 800-meter freestyle and added a silver for good measure. Four years later, at the age of 24, she has fought off the challenge of a host of talented teenagers to qualify once again for the United States Olympic swim team in two events.

Evans burst onto the international swimming scene as a 15-year-old, by breaking the three oldest records in swimming, all of which she still holds nine years later. Although her best times were all recorded before 1990, she remained, until 1995, virtually unchallenged in her top events, the 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle. In the past year, a new generation of swimmers has overcome her invincibility, but they have done little to alter the widely held opinion that Evans is, in the words of one sportswriter, the "greatest female distance swimmer in the history of the sport." The complete article can be found in the July 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM ( released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

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