Bennett is 1 race from double gold

By JOHN ROMANO

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 21, 2000

SYDNEY, Australia -- She celebrated until 2 a.m. after she won gold in the 400-meter freestyle. She slept for two hours and got up to enjoy her upset victory a little more. Later she chatted with Katie and Matt on the Today show, and in between, there were countless phone calls with friends and family back home in the Tampa Bay area.

Brooke Bennett gave herself 36 hours to bask in the glory of the 400 before returning to work. And now she plans to do it all over again.

Bennett swam the fastest time in the preliminaries of the 800 freestyle Wednesday and appears to have another gold medal waiting when she returns to the pool. The final is Friday. "When you have the fastest time in the world ... you put yourself on the pedestal as the one to be beaten," Bennett's coach, Peter Banks, said. "That's obviously what her opponents are thinking about, and so we're thinking about going out and winning the race."

Bennett is thinking about more than that. She is the defending champion, she has the world's fastest time this year and she was more than 31/2 seconds faster than her closest competitor in the heats. If she does not win the final, it would be a huge upset.

So to push herself, Bennett has her eyes set on the Olympic record of 8 minutes, 20.20 seconds, set by Janet Evans in 1988. Bennett swam 8:26.47 in the prelims and figures she can go one second faster per 100 meters. That would put her in the 8:18 range. Her personal best is 8:23.92, set at the trials last month.

"The Olympic record is 8:20, and the world record is 8:16. So if I can get one or both of those, I don't know how I'll react afterwards," Bennett said.

The only wild card could be the Ukraine's Yana Klochkova, a 400 individual medley specialist who had the second-fastest qualifying time, 8:29.84. That time was her best this year by eight seconds.

Still, Bennett considers the 800 her race, and she has no intention of giving it up. Her preliminary time was faster than what she swam in the final to win the gold medal in 1996.

"There is no sure thing. There are going to be seven other girls who are trying to do the same thing I am doing," Bennett said. "But if I just swim a smart race, like I did in the 400, I think I'll be all right.

"My confidence is really high right now. I think I'm ready to go in there and have an outstanding swim."

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