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Dolan Grabs 400 IM World Mark
By Robert Millward
Associated Press Writer
Sep. 7, 1994
Tom Dolan of Arlington, Va., who swims for the Curl-Burke Swim Club in Rockville, Md., set a world record today in the 400-meter individual medley at the world swimming championships.
Dolan, 18, who graduated from Yorktown High School in 1993 and attends the University of Michigan, shaved .06 seconds off the old mark to win in 4 minutes 12.30 seconds. Dolan's previous best time was 4:13.52, the U.S. record.
{"It's a big deal," Dolan told The Washington Post in a telephone interview later in the evening. "A world record at the world championships means a lot. This is the second-biggest meet in all of swimming, to the Olympic Games.
"This is my first world championships, and it's a great thing to have happen, a great thing for the future."}
Franzi Van Almsick, a 16-year-old German star, also set a world record, in the women's 200 freestyle -- after at first failing to qualify for the event. Van Almsick was ninth-fastest in morning heats, one place out of the final field. But a berth opened for her when her teammate and the eighth qualifier, Dagmar Hase, withdrew -- a move Van Almsick said was Hase's decision.
Van Almsick responded with a stunning final lap, powering past China's Lu Bin and touching first in 1:56.78, breaking the eight-year-old mark of 1:57.55 set by another German, Heike Friedrich, by almost three-quarters of a second.
"Without Hase I would never have done it," said Van Almsick, who wiped away tears on the medal podium. "I don't know how to thank her, and without her there would never have been this record."
Lu finished second, and her time of 1:56.89 also beat the previous mark. Claudia Poll won Costa Rica's first swimming medal by placing third in 1:57.61.
In the 400 IM, Dolan said he felt "a little sluggish" in morning qualifying, finishing third. But in the evening final, he stayed close to the leaders -- countryman Eric Namesnik and Finland's Jani Sievinen -- until he took the lead with a powerful breaststroke performance that put him on world-record pace.
"I made my move in the first 50 meters of the breaststroke," Dolan said.
{"That's where he really dominated," Rick Curl, his coach, said in a telephone interview with The Post from his Rome hotel room. "With that leg, and a great finish, I could tell he would be close to the world record."}
Involved in a tight battle with Namesnik and Sievinen, Dolan increased his lead over the final freestyle leg and broke the record set by Hungary's Tamas Darnyi at the previous world championships, in January 1991.
"When I touched and looked at the scoreboard, it took me a couple seconds to register that I had gone under the world record," Dolan said.
Dolan, who said he has been having problems with asthma this summer, became the only man other than Darnyi to break the 400 IM mark since American Dave Wharton held it in 1987. Darnyi, now retired, is regarded as the best IM swimmer in history.
Dolan also will swim the 400-meter freestyle Friday.
Sievinen took silver in 4:13.29 and Namesnik, a silver medalist in the Olympics and at the previous world championships, this time collected bronze in 4:15.69.
After taking all three races Monday, China failed to win any of today's five races.
Samantha Riley of Australia won the women's 200 breaststroke in a meet-record 2:26.87; Poland's Rafal Szukala, the Olympic silver medalist, powered away from the field to win the 100 butterfly in 53.51, the fastest performance of the year; and Sweden won the men's 800 freestyle relay in 7:17.74.
The United States's team of Chad Carvin, Ugur Taner, Chris Eckerman and Josh Davis finished fourth in 7:19.10.
Staff writer Christine Brennan contributed to this report from Washington