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Multilingual Chladek Silver-Tongued

ATLANTA, July 29—The work wasn't over for Dana Chladek after she won her silver medal in white-water kayaking, nor was the competition.

After medal ceremonies Saturday along the roaring Ocoee River in Tennessee came a news conference. As the wiry blonde from Kensington, Md., sat between Czech gold medalist Stepanka Hilgertova and French bronze medalist Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, Chladek chatted easily on one side in Czech and on the other in French.

The Dartmouth graduate speaks both fluently, having emigrated from the former Czechoslovakia at age 5 and studied French literature in college. She's married to an ex-member of the French national kayak team.

When questions rained down in various tongues, moderator Markus Fletchner asked Chladek to interpret, which she cheerfully did, including translating both a question posed to her by a reporter in Czech and her answer, which she gave in both Czech and French.

Chladek also offered a competitive challenge. Hilgertova and her husband, Czech national team member Lubos Hilgert, have a 9-year-old son and Fox-Jerusalmi and her husband, British ex-world champion Richard Fox, have a preschool daughter. Who will produce the future world class paddler? "The race is on," said Chladek, who has repeatedly assured husband Thierry Humeau this Olympics would end her racing career.

Now she's not so sure. Whether Chladek calls it quits at 32 or goes on to try for gold in Sydney in 2000, she'll have one remarkable surprise to reflect on. Her silver here, the only trophy for the U.S. white-water team and her second Olympic medal after a bronze in 1992, came in the unlikeliest way.

She was the lowest-ranked kayaker in the field after spending the past year recovering from shoulder surgery. "A year ago this time, I couldn't lift my arm over my head," she said. She'd made only one international race in two years, finishing ninth on the Ocoee in April.

Little was expected of her and she came up with little on her first run down the rumbling, tumbling Ocoee as she flipped upside-down and missed several gates, accumulating 205 penalty points to stand next-to-last entering the second run.

Chladek looked dazed. She'd flipped in practice the day before, too. It was uncharacteristic for the stylish racer, who at 5-foot-6, 128 pounds, banks on grace and technique rather than power to get through the surging rapids.

Her second run was a pirouetting dance through the raging foam in her tiny, purple boat. She nudged not a single pole on the 25-gate slalom course till the next-to-last gate, which her paddle brushed as she sped through. The little mistake cost her the gold as her time without the five-second gate penalty was fast enough to win.

Compared to the bronze in '92, she said, "This was much more of a surprise, starting as the first [lowest-seeded] boat, then having to wait an hour and a half to find out."

The silver, she said, will go alongside the bronze in a table drawer in the living room in Kensington, handy to show visitors. "People are always asking to see it," she said.

Chladek's medal run saved the highly regarded U.S. team—and the Washington area's strong contingent—from a shutout. Her suburban Maryland neighbors, Cathy and Davey Hearn of Brookmont, lacked the speed to keep up with the new breed of white-water racers and finished out of the medals.

Davey Hearn, 37, reigning white-water world champion, was ninth in men's canoe and his sister, Cathy, 38, was seventh in the women's event.

Age might be creeping up on both. Davey Hearn pointed out he was "twenty years, one month and one day older" than Czech gold medalist Michael Martikan, who's still in high school, and Cathy Hearn was second-oldest in the women's field.

But neither expressed any interest in hanging up their paddles. "I want to keep racing," Cathy said. "I'm still improving." She and her brother both improved their standings by two places over their finishes at Barcelona. "The overwhelming emotion for me," said Cathy Hearn, "is great, great thankfulness to be here and still be able to kick some butt."

"Retire?" said Davey Hearn, feigning disbelief. "I don't even say the R-word. I don't believe in it. This is my life's work."