After more than a decade, Janet Evans plunges back into competition

[seabeyond]

Janet Evans won the 800-meter freestyle at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Her goal seems an impossible dream, an Olympic comeback after 15 years in retirement. She will compete in U.S. Olympic Trials in the 800-meter freestyle at the end of this month. As her slender body knifes through the water, it is easy to imagine that the clock has rolled back to 1988, when Evans burst onto the Olympic scene at 17 with three gold medal victories at Seoul, South Korea. Four years later, Evans added silver and another gold at the games in Barcelona. In 1996, she was a part of one of the most electrifying moments in Olympic history, when she passed the Olympic flame to Muhammad Ali in Atlanta's Opening Ceremonies.

But by the '96 Olympics, Evans was burned out from over a decade of competition. "I was 24," she says, "I'd started to have a few shoulder problems. ... I was tired, you know?" At 40, Evans still retains the effervescent smile that warmed the nation's heart so long ago. Gone is the pixie haircut. It's been replaced with a more sophisticated shoulder-length style more fitting a busy post-retirement career as a wife, a mother of two, an Olympics booster and a motivational speaker. She is currently representing Metamucil.

It was two years ago that Evans started thinking about a comeback. She was attending a swim meet and realized that the winning times hadn't really improved much in the 15 years since her retirement. "Can I do this?" she texted her former coach, Mark Schubert. "You'll never know unless you try," was his response. But Schubert warned that the distance races that were Evans' specialty can take a toll on a 40-year-old body.

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" 'You've had your time.' I've heard that a lot," says Evans. "For me, it's a question of confidence and knowing that my legacy will be intact. (It's) being proud of the fact that at 40, I can come back and actually swim with 17-year-olds and keep up."

"Well, if I swim fast enough," laughs Evans, "Who says it's not my time?"





http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/20/us/janet-evans-comeback/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
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i think this is awesome neat and wish her the best on this. would be great fun to see her succeed.