Ziegler's Winning Attitude Has Long Been on Display

"She's gotten more out of that relationship than you can imagine," her father said. "It's important to her."

So, too, is her swimming. At the trials, Ziegler made the team by finishing second to Hoff in both the 400 and the 800. She swam her best time ever in the 400. "I was really happy about that," she said, and there is room, still, for improvement in Beijing.

There were, though, extenuating circumstances that led to her seemingly substandard performance in the 800, in which she swam almost seven seconds slower than her personal best, losing to Hoff by nearly five seconds. For one, Benecki was so confident Ziegler could make the team in the event -- "That was the goal for trials," Ziegler said -- that he had her train hard right through that week, eschewing the normal "taper" that is customary prior to a big meet. The idea, Benecki said, was to make Ziegler her best in Beijing, not Omaha.

Then, on July 5, the day of the 800 final, Ziegler started to feel a bit ill. Her condition worsened the next day. "Thank God she wasn't swimming Sunday night," Don Ziegler said. "She might have had to scratch."

Ziegler balanced the joy of making the Olympic team in her second event with the misery she was about to feel. She spent all of the final day of the trials resting, trying to get better. But July 7, when the rest of the team headed to Palo Alto, Calif., for the first training camp, she and Benecki remained in Omaha, where they visited the hospital. Ziegler got a three-day pack of antibiotics, and was on her way a day later.

Presumably, she will arrive here both healthy and rested.

"If we don't taper for Beijing," she said, "I'll be looking for a new coach."

She smiled and laughed about it, because she trusts Benecki's approach. Yet how coach and athlete manage the days before Ziegler's first Olympics will contribute to how she performs here, and thus with how she is perceived by the American public.

Back home? It'll hardly make a difference.

"She's been blessed with a God-given talent," Don Ziegler said. "It's a nice, storybook journey. If she does well at the Olympics, that's great. If she does her best and comes home with a fourth and a seventh, that's okay. It might not be okay for [the media] or other people outside.

"But for us, each time she swims, we give her a big hug and kiss and tell her, 'Have a great time.' In our little family circle, that means have fun, and if you swim your best time, that'd be good, too. But just go out and do whatever you can do, and we'll be happy."

Because either way, when she returns from China to Virginia -- whether her 12 minutes 30 seconds yield success or not -- fall semester classes at George Mason will await. Win or lose, her people will, too.