Janet Beth Evans (born August 28, 1971) is an American former competition swimmer who swam from 1989 to 1992 for Stanford University and specialized in distance freestyle events. Evans was a world champion and world record-holder, and won a total of four gold medals in the 400 and 800-meter freestyle events at the1988 and the1992 Olympics. In the late 1980s Evans was the first woman to hold three world records simultaneously in the 400, 800, and 1500-meter freestyle and was the first American woman to win four individual Olympic gold medals in swimming.[2][3]
Born inFullerton, California, Evans grew up in neighboringPlacentia, where she started swimming competitively by the age of 5.[4] By the age of 11, she was setting national age group records in distance events. She swam as a teenager for Fullerton Aquatics Sports Team (FAST Swimming) where her most influential coach in the mid-1980's was Bud McAllister.[5]
In 1987, at age 15, Evans broke the world records in the400-meter,800-meter, and1,500-meter freestyle distances.[2][6]
She graduated fromEl Dorado High School, and when not competing or representing FAST, she swam meets and trained with El Dorado High, where she was coached by Tom Milich, a 1987 California Swimming Coach of the Year, and an American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) Distinguished Coach of the Year.[4][7]
Evans attendedStanford University, where she swam for theStanford Cardinal swimming and diving team from 1989 to 1991 under Stanford's Hall of Fame Women's Head CoachRichard Quick.[8] At Stanford, she received theHonda Sports Award for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding college female swimmer of the year in 1988–89.[9][10] At Stanford, Evans was an All-American eight times, dominating distance events. She captured all the 500 free and 1650 free events in both 1990 and 1991, and in 1990 also captured a 400 IM title. She also took two national titles in the 800 free relay during those seasons.[11][12]
When the NCAA placed weekly hours limits on athletic training time, she quit the Stanford swim team to focus full time on training. She began training at theUniversity of Texas at Austin the Texas Aquatic Club around 1992 under CoachMark Schubert who helped prepare her for 1992 Olympic competition. Schubert served as Head women's coach in the 1992 Olympics, where Evans excelled. After enrolling for the Spring semester in 1993, Evans graduated from theUniversity of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in communications in 1994, where Mark Schubert had moved and continued his coaching career.[13][14][15] At USC, Evans trained under Schubert, worked out with the USC team and the Trojan Swim Club, and served as a student Assistant Coach for two seasons for the USC Women's swim team. She could not compete for USC, however, because she had accepted commercial endorsements in Spring, 1991 after her Sophomore season at Stanford.[16][17]
At the1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, she won three individual gold medals in the 400 and 800-meter freestyle and the 400-meter Individual Medley. At the games, she earned the nickname "Miss Perpetual Motion" due to her unique swimming style.[18] In these Olympics, Evans set a new world record in the 400-meter freestyle event. This record stood for 18 years until France'sLaure Manaudou broke it in May 2006.[6]
Evans held the 1,500-meter freestyle record, set in March 1988, through June 2007, when it was broken by AmericanKate Ziegler with her time of 15:42.54.[6]
Evans held the world record in the 800-meter freestyle, 8:16:22, that she set in August 1989, until it was broken byRebecca Adlington of Britain in August 2008. Adlington set the new record with her time of 8:14.10 in winning the race at the2008 Summer Olympics. Evans's 800-meter record was one of the longest-standing ones ever in swimming, and it went unbroken through four Olympic Games (1992–2004). Only the 100-meter freestyle swimming record set by the Dutch swimmerWilly den Ouden stood longer—from 1936 through 1956, during a period when international competition was interrupted by world war.[6]
Following her 1988 Olympics performance, Evans continued to dominate the world's long-distance swimming competitions, remaining undefeated in all of the 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle events for over five years.[2]
Evans became the first woman to capture back-to-back Olympic and world championship titles in any one swimming event by winning the 1988 and 1992 Olympic gold medals and the 1991 and 1994 world championships in the 800-meter freestyle race. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, she won a silver in the 400-meter freestyle with a time of 4:07.37, taking second, and finished about .2 seconds behind German swimmerDagmar Hase, whom she led for almost the entire competition but was narrowly caught at the end. Evans had held the record in the 400 since the 1988 Olympics, but her times in the event had been continually slowing. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, she also won a gold in the 800-meter freestyle in 8:25.52, another signature distance event, finishing nearly 5 seconds ahead of Australia's Haley Lewis.[6][19][2]
Evans won the 400-meter and 800-meter freestyle events at the U.S. National Championships 12 times each, the largest number of national titles in one event by an American swimmer in the 100-year history of the competition.[2]
Evans ended her swimming career, for all practical purposes, at the1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. She did not win any medals, but she did add one more highlight to her life. She was given the honour of carrying the Olympic torch in the opening ceremony, handing it to the American boxing legendMuhammad Ali who lit the Olympic cauldron.[6]
On July 27, 1996, she was in a building being interviewed by a German newsman whena bomb exploded nearby. The explosion very lightly shook the building and startled Evans. The incident traumatized her so much that she had a panic attack the next day while waiting for a train in an Atlanta subway station.[19]
In 1996 Olympic heats, Evans finished ninth in the preliminaries of the 400-meter freestyle. She did not qualify for the finals, as only the top eight finishers advance to the next level. In the final swim of her career, Evans finished in sixth place in the 800-meter freestyle.[6]
At the 1996 Atlanta Games, American swimming officials criticized Ireland'sMichelle Smith about her unexpected gold medals,[20] suggesting that she might have been using performance-enhancing drugs. When asked about the accusations, Evans said that when anyone like Smith showed such a significant improvement, "there's always that question." American sportswriters sympathetic to Smith took this comment to mean that Evans was accusing Smith of steroid use as well,[21] and they attacked Evans as being a sore loser. Evans later insisted that she meant no such accusation and that her remarks were taken out of context. In 1998, Smith received a four-year suspension for tampering with a urine sample.[22]
In June 2011, it was reported that Evans was in the process of a comeback and had been training for six months with the goal of competing at the2012 U.S. Olympic Trials.[23] At the 2012 Olympic Trials, at the age of 40, she finished 80th out of 113 swimmers in the 400-meter freestyle[24] and 53rd out of 65 swimmers in the 800-meter freestyle.[25]
At the end of Evans's swimming career, she held seven world records, five Olympic medals (including four gold medals), and 45 American national titles – third only toTracy Caulkins andMichael Phelps. She was the first American woman to win four individual Olympic gold medals in swimming.[2]
In 2010, Evans returned to competitive swimming as aUnited States Masters swimmer.[26]
On November 3, 2016, Evans was chosen to serve as co-Grand Marshal of the 2017Rose Parade.
Evans served as Vice Chair and Athletes director for theLos Angeles 2024 Olympic bid committee and traveled with the team to promoteLos Angeles as a candidate city.[27] Los Angeles was ultimately awarded the2028 Summer Olympics at the131st IOC Session inLima,Peru, on September 13, 2017.[28] As of 2020, Evans works with the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics in the executive leadership role of chief athlete officer.[29]
As of August 2019, Evans works as chief athlete officer for the2028 Summer Olympics organizing committee.[30]
Evans was known for her unorthodox "windmill" stroke and her cardio-respiratory reserves. She had a higher stroke count than many distance swimmers, taking 55 strokes per 50 meters, when other distance swimmers took closer to 40. Her endurance was at least partly a product of her training. In July 1986, at the height of her training, she was reputed to have often completed as much as 13,000 meters in a day of workouts, the equivalent of 8 miles.[4] Slight of build and short of stature, she more than once found herself competing and winning against bigger and stronger athletes, some of whom were subsequently found to have been using performance-enhancing drugs.[31]
Janet Evans was the 1989 recipient of theJames E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. She was named the Female World Swimmer of the Year bySwimming World Magazine in 1987, 1989, and 1990. In 1988, as a junior in high school, she was recognized as a "Rising Star" by theLos Angeles Times.[32] Evans was inducted into theInternational Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 2001.[33] In 1995, Evans was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.[34]
Evans married Bill Willson in Long Beach in 2004, with whom she has two children.[35]
| Records | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Women's 800-meter freestyle world record-holder (long course) July 27, 1987 – August 19, 1987 March 22, 1988 – August 16, 2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Women's 1,500-meter freestyle world record-holder (long course) July 31, 1987 – June 17, 2007 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Women's 400-meter freestyle world record-holder (long course) December 20, 1987 – May 12, 2006 | Succeeded by |
| Awards and achievements | ||
| Preceded by | Swimming World World Swimmer of the Year 1987 1989–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Swimming World American Swimmer of the Year 1987–1991 | Succeeded by |
Articles related to Janet Evans | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
