Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics

by John Feinstein

“Pleasure, Mr. Thomas,” Edward said.

  He turned to Tamara, smiling. “I presume this is the young man you’ve told me about who is a young Bobby Kelleher.”

  “He’s a lot better than that,” Bobby said with a laugh.

  “But his partner won’t be working this fortnight, will she?” Edward said. “Be a bit busy in the pool.”

  “That’s right,” Stevie said. “You’re well informed.”

  “Well, she’s made quite a splash here, if you’ll forgive the pun. Pretty girl, that,” Edward said. He clapped Stevie on the shoulder. “I’d keep a close eye if I were you.”

  “He does, Edward,” Kelleher said. “He does.”

  They made their way into the lobby.

  “What about our bags?” Stevie asked as they walked to the front desk.

  “Edward will take care of them,” Kelleher said.

  “But he didn’t give you a ticket or …”

  “Stevie, Bobby is the mayor of the Gloucester,” Tamara said. “Don’t worry about it.

  The rest of the check-in confirmed that. It seemed as if everyone who worked in the hotel came out to greet them. Much to Stevie’s relief, they headed straight to the hotel restaurant once they had their key cards. There, the night manager simply told them to order whatever they wanted, regardless of what was on the late-night menu.

  After they’d eaten, everything seemed better still. Kelleher leaned back in his chair with a smile. “I love the morning flight,” he said. “Means we can get a good night’s sleep and be ready to go in the morning instead of walking around like jet-lagged zombies.”

  “But what are we going to do?” Stevie said. “The opening ceremony isn’t until Friday night and there’s nothing important going on until Sunday.”

  Tamara and Bobby both laughed.

  “First trip to London and he’s bored already,” Tamara said.

  “In the morning we’ll pick up our credentials,” Bobby said. “That will kill half the day. Then we have to find the media center and figure out the lay of the land. And then we have to fill out all the paperwork so we can get into the athletes’ village. That’ll kill the rest of the day. Friday, if we’re lucky, we’ll get to do some sightseeing.”

  “Half a day to pick up credentials?” Stevie said.

  “If we’re lucky,” Bobby said. “If you think security was tight at the Final Four or the Super Bowl, think again. This is a whole new world.”

  Susan Carol already knew what Bobby was talking about. She had arrived in London ten days before the opening ceremony, flying on a charter that included all forty-nine American swimmers plus the men’s and women’s water polo teams. Coaches and officials quickly filled the plane to capacity.

  As luck would have it, Susan Carol was seated next to Elizabeth Wentworth. Or maybe it wasn’t luck. Apparently USA Swimming thought it was a good idea for swimmers who swam the same stroke to get to know one another better.

  Elizabeth Wentworth wasn’t anything like Susan Carol had expected. In their brief encounters at the trials, she had seemed like a nice girl. And she’d been genuinely excited about Susan Carol’s record-breaking time in the 200 fly. But when they started talking on the long flight across the Atlantic, Susan Carol found herself thinking that her problems with her dad and her agents were pretty minor.

  Elizabeth had grown up just outside Pensacola, Florida. She was the youngest of her parents’ four children and her dad had left when she was five. To this day she had no idea what had caused her parents to split, but her older siblings had told her that her father’s drinking had been a major issue.

  Left alone with four kids ranging in age from eleven to five, Elizabeth’s mom had often worked two jobs: one at Walmart and another one on weekends and sometimes at night manning the front desk at the local YMCA. That was where Elizabeth started swimming. Her mom had enrolled her in swimming classes so Elizabeth didn’t have to sit around the day-care center while she was working.

  “I was always the biggest kid in my class,” Elizabeth said. “Not just tall, but big.” She shrugged. “The Y coach took one look at my shoulders and said, ‘You’re a butterflyer.’ ” She smiled. “Why’d they make you a butterflyer?”

  “Because I was tall like you,” Susan Carol said. “And I’m pigeon-toed. I always had the kick.”

  Elizabeth began winning meets when she was six, easily swimming twenty-five meters of butterfly when other kids her age couldn’t swim the length of the pool yet. By age eight she was nationally ranked, and at ten she was being recruited for top age-group teams around the state.

  “Even though home wasn’t the greatest place in the world, my mom didn’t want me to leave,” she said. “It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that she sent me to Orlando to swim with Mike Schulte. That was when I really started to get good. But even though it’s nice there, I do get homesick.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “With Mike and his family. It’s okay, but I have to share a room with two of his daughters and sleep on the top bunk.”

  She laughed. “Of course, I’m up at 4:30 to work out every morning, so it isn’t as if I get to sleep that much anyway.”

  The two girls talked for at least half of the trip before falling asleep. Once they had arrived at the hotel north of London where they were going to stay until they moved into the athletes’ village, Susan Carol sent Stevie an email detailing Elizabeth Wentworth’s story.

  She’s the best story on the team, she wrote. You should write something on her as soon as you get here. I feel terrible—she’s so nice, and incredibly talented, but she’s not that pretty, and it seems like that’s why no one’s really paying attention to her. It’s so not fair! I’d almost like to see her win more than me.

  Stevie had written back and said, You’re kidding about wanting her to win, right?

  Susan Carol thought a long time before she answered. Honestly, she wrote, I’m not sure.

  The team had spent a week at a hotel outside London, getting bused to a nearby health club that had apparently just built a fifty-meter pool for workouts. The Chinese and the Russian teams were using the facility too because there weren’t many fifty-meter pools in the London area.

  Susan Carol knew enough from her history classes to realize that even just twenty years ago, the thought of American and Chinese and Russian athletes sharing a practice facility would have been impossible.

  The schedule was the same each day: The Chinese team had the pool at seven and again at three. The Americans had it at 8:30 and 4:30, and the Russians had it at ten and six. The workouts were hardly taxing. Everyone was tapering heavily. There were times in the middle of winter when Susan Carol would swim 12,000 meters a day. Now, in a long-course pool, she was barely cracking 3,000.

  There were all sorts of team meetings, but the silliest by far was when the ever-annoying Trevor James from USA Swimming was brought in one evening to go through the rules with them. How could they have come this far without knowing the rules? The butterflyers and breaststrokers knew they had to touch every wall with two hands and that their hands had to be parallel to one another. The backstrokers knew they were allowed one stroke on their stomach before flipping. Everyone knew they couldn’t kick underwater for more than fifteen meters.

  But James went over the rules so thoroughly, and so officiously, that for several days the swimmers had mimicked him during practice. “If you allow a hand to drop making a two-handed turn, you will be disqualified!” … “Ooooh, looked like you were trying to beat the starter there. Wait until you hear the beep before moving. Don’t think you can outsmart the officials!” … “That was more than fifteen meters underwater—clearly you are a fish and must be disqualified!” In an odd way it helped bring the team together. They were all so focused and keyed up, it felt good to laugh.

  It was on Monday, four days before the opening ceremony and two days before they were all scheduled to move to the athletes’ village in London, that Susan Carol met Liu Zige, the Chinese worl
d-record holder she’d just touched out to win the World Championship. They hadn’t spoken in Shanghai beyond nodding at one another before climbing onto the blocks.

  Susan Carol was standing off to the side of the pool stretching with Elizabeth Wentworth when she saw Liu climb out of the pool. She had noticed her on other mornings, but protocol seemed to dictate that the swimmers not speak to one another as one team exited the pool and the other entered it. Now, though, Liu was walking directly toward them.

  She was easy to distinguish from the other Chinese swimmers because she was just about six feet tall. Her walk, Susan Carol noticed, was full of confidence, the kind of strut—for lack of a better word—befitting an Olympic gold medalist.

  “Miss Anderson,” she said, in very clear English, her hand extended. “I thought perhaps it was time we meet.”

  Susan Carol had stood up straight when she saw Liu approaching. They were almost the same height.

  “It’s a pleasure,” she replied, taking Liu’s extended hand. “This is—”

  “Elizabeth Wentworth,” Liu said, turning to Elizabeth with a bright smile. “The two of you have certainly become stars very quickly.”

  “A star is someone with an Olympic gold medal,” Susan Carol said.

  “Perhaps so, but you beat me fair and square last year in Shanghai,” Liu said. “I very much look forward to our meeting again next week.”

  The way she said it took Susan Carol aback. Not the idea that they would be competing again but that it would be next week. It was all happening very fast now.

  “I guess we all have a lot of swimming to do before that,” Susan Carol said.

  Liu nodded. “I know you will both swim the 100 butterfly too,” she said. Then, with a smile, she added: “I’ll wish you both the very best in that event.”

  Elizabeth had been staring at Liu almost since she had first approached. Now, finally, she asked the question Susan Carol hadn’t wanted to ask: “Where did you learn to speak such good English?” she said.

  Liu laughed. “It is taught in our schools,” she said. “But if someone shows potential as an international athlete, they’re put into a special program to accelerate their studies.”

  Susan Carol was keenly aware of how monolingual most Americans were. Covering tennis, she had met a number of athletes from other countries who spoke English that ranged from passable to perfect.

  A whistle blew, and Susan Carol and Elizabeth realized it was time to get in the water and warm up. They shook hands with Liu again. “Perhaps we will see each other when we are all in the athletes’ village,” Liu said. “I will buy you both a Coke.”

  Whether it was because of Liu’s boldness or just a coincidence, Susan Carol met another major threat in the butterfly later that day. Svetlana Krylova was a Russian swimmer and in much the same boat as Susan Carol and Elizabeth. She had just emerged on the international scene in the last year at age seventeen. Her swim at the Russian trials in April had announced her arrival. She had won the 200 in a time of 2:01.91—just one-tenth of a second shy of Liu’s world record.

  Susan Carol had just finished her last 50-fly sprint of the day and was about to warm down when she noticed Krylova standing at the far end of the pool, clearly watching her. Krylova was impossible to miss. She had already been dubbed “swimming’s Maria Sharapova.” She was tall and blond and, according to Stevie and every other boy in the world, stunning. Mary Carillo had done a feature on her for NBC that had aired during the Olympic Trials. In the piece, Krylova had laid out her plans to Carillo very clearly: “I will win at the Olympics twice, this year and then again in four years, and then I will move to the USA and become a model and an actor,” she had said. “I think people will give me this chance, don’t you?”

  No doubt people would give her that chance. But Susan Carol wasn’t going to let her win her first Olympic gold medal without a fight. (Rooting for Elizabeth was one thing, but this girl … no way!) Now, seeing Krylova eyeing her, she climbed out of the pool fifty meters sooner than she had planned so she could introduce herself.

  Krylova saw her coming and put her hands on her hips as Susan Carol walked up.

  “Svetlana, hi,” Susan Carol said, trying to keep her tone friendly. “I’m Susan Carol Anderson.”

  “Yes, I know,” Krylova said. “Congratulations on your race in the trials. It was quite something to watch.”

  There wasn’t a hint of a smile on her face, and she never moved her hands from her hips. It might have been Susan Carol’s imagination, but it seemed as if she was standing as straight as possible so she could look down at her. She was tall—easily three inches taller than Susan Carol.

  “Well, thanks, I didn’t go quite as fast as you did in April, though,” she said.

  “I suspect you will do better here,” Krylova said. “I think we all will have a good race, two good races, in fact.”

  She was … polite. But unlike Liu, who seemed genuinely friendly, there was a coldness to Krylova. She had heard from her friend Evelyn Rubin, who was a top-ten-ranked tennis player, that Maria Sharapova wasn’t very friendly. It seemed as if Krylova had that in common with her as well as her looks.

  “Well, I just wanted to introduce myself,” Susan Carol said. “I’m sure I’ll see you around the next few days.”

  “Most important, you will see me in the water on Sunday night, no?” Krylova said with that icy smile. That was when the 100-butterfly final was scheduled.

  Susan Carol decided two could play this game. “Yes, you will,” she said. “You most certainly will.”

  She didn’t bother shaking hands before walking away. She needed a hot shower.

  17: OLYMPIC HURDLES

  As usual, Stevie had to admit that Bobby Kelleher was right. Getting their credentials on Thursday took the entire morning. First they rode the subway—or, as it was called in London, the Underground—to the Stratford Station stop. From there they walked several blocks to the entrance of Olympic Park, where they had to go through a lengthy security check and show letters confirming they were credentialed to cover the Games.

  From there they were directed to the check-in area at the main press center, where they waited in line for forty-five minutes and then endured what felt like an interrogation before being given their badges.

  Once they had their badges, they went inside the vast press center, which looked like a giant warehouse, and began looking for the cubicle assigned to the Washington Herald and the Washington Post.

  They walked forever—or so it seemed—before they found where they were going.

  “Pretty grim place,” Stevie commented. He had kind of expected bright lights and glitter. This was, after all, the Olympics.

  Tamara said, “Ah, budget cutbacks. There were supposed to be a couple of restaurants and bars in here, but now there’s apparently just a tent with cafeteria food. Cost overruns and the tough economy forced them to economize and, no surprise, the first thing they cut was amenities for the media.”

  “Not necessarily a smart move,” Kelleher added. “The Atlanta people are still hearing about how bad the food was, and that Olympics was sixteen years ago.”

  The Post-Herald cubicle had ten desks: five on one side of the “room”—there were no walls, just partitions separating them from the cubicles along the same row—for the Post, five more for the Herald. The only person inside was Matt Rennie, the Herald’s sports editor.

  “Welcome to paradise,” Rennie said as Stevie, Tamara, and Bobby trooped in.

  Kelleher shrugged. “No big deal,” he said. “After all, we’re not going to be spending much time here once the Games begin.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Rennie said. “Someone has to edit what you write into readable English.”

  Rennie was a classic editor. His attitude toward his writers was simple: If you don’t have something sarcastic to say, don’t say anything at all. Stevie knew Kelleher loved Rennie because he was smart, funny, and knew what he was doing.

  “We wan
t to go over to the athletes’ village,” Kelleher said. “How tough do you think that will be?”

  “No tougher than getting your credentials,” Rennie said. “What’d that take you, about three hours?”

  They had to fill out a form requesting access to the village that explained who they were, who they wanted to see, and how long they intended to stay. They had to sign another form in which they agreed that if they spoke to any athlete other than the ones they said they were going to see, they could be stripped of their credentials.

  Stevie had texted Susan Carol to let her know they had arrived and wanted to come see her. That was necessary because she had to send an email through the Olympic computer system saying she was willing to be interviewed by the three reporters who had requested to see her.

  When they had finally cleared all the various hurdles, they were directed to a shuttle bus that would take them to the front gate of the athletes’ village. The “Guide to the Games” they had been given earlier said the village was within walking distance of all the venues in the park, but apparently they had a pretty liberal interpretation of the phrase “walking distance.”

  Traffic around the Olympic Park was gridlocked, so it took the shuttle twenty-five minutes to go what couldn’t have been more than two miles. They had to go through another lengthy security check at the gate, and when they were finally cleared, they were greeted by an unsmiling thirty-something guy who studied their badges, their faces, and their paperwork before saying, “Peter Brooks, IOC Communications. I’m your escort to Miss …” He paused to look down at his paperwork. “Anderson.”

  There were brief handshakes, and then Peter Brooks began leading them through a plaza that had modern apartment buildings surrounding it. Each building looked to be about eight stories high.

  Brooks was giving them a tour-guide spiel as they walked, explaining how designing the village so that the apartments surrounded several plazas “was done to give the athletes of the world a place to gather and come together and learn from one another.”