Janet Evans - WikiHQ

Janet Beth Evans (born August 28, 1971) is an American former competition swimmer who swam from 1989 to 1992 for Stanford University and specialized in distance freestyle events. Evans was a world champion and world record-holder, and won a total of four gold medals in the 400 and 800-meter freestyle events at the 1988 and the 1992 Olympics. In the late 1980s Evans was the first woman to hold three world records simultaneously in the 400, 800, and 1500-meter freestyle and was the first American woman to win four individual Olympic gold medals in swimming.

Career

Early career

Born in Fullerton, California, Evans grew up in neighboring Placentia, where she started swimming competitively by the age of 5.

In 1987, at age 15, Evans broke the world records in the 400-meter, 800-meter, and 1,500-meter freestyle distances.

College

Stanford University

Evans attended Stanford University, where she swam for the Stanford Cardinal swimming and diving team from 1989 to 1991 under Stanford's Hall of Fame Women's Head Coach Richard Quick. At Stanford, she received the Honda Sports Award for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding college female swimmer of the year in 1988–89. At Stanford, Evans was an All-American eight times, dominating distance events. She captured all the 500 free and 1650 free events in both 1990 and 1991, and in 1990 also captured a 400 IM title. She also took two national titles in the 800 free relay during those seasons.

University of Southern California

When the NCAA placed weekly hours limits on athletic training time, she quit the Stanford swim team to focus full time on training. She began training at the University of Texas at Austin the Texas Aquatic Club around 1992 under Coach Mark Schubert who helped prepare her for 1992 Olympic competition. Schubert served as Head women's coach in the 1992 Olympics, where Evans excelled. After enrolling for the Spring semester in 1993, Evans graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in communications in 1994, where Mark Schubert had moved and continued his coaching career. At USC, Evans trained under Schubert, worked out with the USC team and the Trojan Swim Club, and served as a student Assistant Coach for two seasons for the USC Women's swim team. She could not compete for USC, however, because she had accepted commercial endorsements in Spring, 1991 after her Sophomore season at Stanford.

Olympics

1988 Olympics

At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, she won three individual gold medals in the 400 and 800-meter freestyle and the 400-meter Individual Medley. At the games, she earned the nickname "Miss Perpetual Motion" due to her unique swimming style. In these Olympics, Evans set a new world record in the 400-meter freestyle event. This record stood for 18 years until France's Laure Manaudou broke it in May 2006.

Evans held the 1,500-meter freestyle record, set in March 1988, through June 2007, when it was broken by American Kate Ziegler with her time of 15:42.54.

In 1996 Olympic heats, Evans finished ninth in the preliminaries of the 400-meter freestyle. She did not qualify for the finals, as only the top eight finishers advance to the next level. In the final swim of her career, Evans finished in sixth place in the 800-meter freestyle. suggesting that she might have been using performance-enhancing drugs. When asked about the accusations, Evans said that when anyone like Smith showed such a significant improvement, "there's always that question." American sportswriters sympathetic to Smith took this comment to mean that Evans was accusing Smith of steroid use as well, and they attacked Evans as being a sore loser. Evans later insisted that she meant no such accusation and that her remarks were taken out of context. In 1998, Smith received a four-year suspension for tampering with a urine sample.

2012 Olympic trials

In June 2011, it was reported that Evans was in the process of a comeback and had been training for six months with the goal of competing at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials. At the 2012 Olympic Trials, at the age of 40, she finished 80th out of 113 swimmers in the 400-meter freestyle and 53rd out of 65 swimmers in the 800-meter freestyle.

At the end of Evans's swimming career, she held seven world records, five Olympic medals (including four gold medals), and 45 American national titles – third only to Tracy Caulkins and Michael Phelps. She was the first American woman to win four individual Olympic gold medals in swimming.

Other activities

In 2010, Evans returned to competitive swimming as a United States Masters swimmer.

On November 3, 2016, Evans was chosen to serve as co-Grand Marshal of the 2017 Rose Parade.

Evans served as Vice Chair and Athletes director for the Los Angeles 2024 Olympic bid committee and traveled with the team to promote Los Angeles as a candidate city. Los Angeles was ultimately awarded the 2028 Summer Olympics at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru, on September 13, 2017. As of 2020, Evans works with the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics in the executive leadership role of chief athlete officer.

As of August 2019, Evans works as chief athlete officer for the 2028 Summer Olympics organizing committee.

Swim style and technique

Evans was known for her unorthodox "windmill" stroke and her cardio-respiratory reserves. She had a higher stroke count than many distance swimmers, taking 55 strokes per 50 meters, when other distance swimmers took closer to 40. Her endurance was at least partly a product of her training. In July 1986, at the height of her training, she was reputed to have often completed as much as 13,000 meters in a day of workouts, the equivalent of 8 miles.

Honors

Janet Evans was the 1989 recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. She was named the Female World Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World Magazine in 1987, 1989, and 1990. In 1988, as a junior in high school, she was recognized as a "Rising Star" by the Los Angeles Times. Evans was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 2001. In 1995, Evans was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

Personal life

Evans married Bill Willson in Long Beach in 2004, with whom she has two children.

References

External links

Janet Evans (USA) – International Swimming Hall of Fame

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Women's 1500 m freestyle (long course)

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