Amy Van Dyken
Swimming
She seems like such a sweet woman with those reddish freckles and warm blue eyes. And that infectious giggle could make a Buckingham Palace guard crack a smile.
But watch swimmer Amy Van Dyken closely today when she gets near the starting blocks for the 100-meter freestyle, and the face you’ll see is anything but friendly.
She grunts. She growls. She stares. She claps and jumps up and down near her competitors (especially if they’re Chinese).
She even spits.
“I am mean,” said Van Dyken, who listens to the heavy-metal music of Metallica before races. “I’m vicious. I want to get into people’s heads. I feel if someone is mentally weak enough to subject themselves to my stares and my spitting, they’re just like you and me and I don’t have to be afraid of them.”
NBC has nicknamed her “Hired Gun with a Giggle.”
Many Olympic swimmers are fretting about suspicions of Chinese drug use. They’re concerned that they don’t recognize most of the names on the Chinese roster. Ten of the 17 Chinese swimmers were not ranked in the world’s top 10 in their events last season. Van Dyken refuses to get caught up in the hysteria.
She and teammate Kristine Quance took a good, hard look at the Chinese women on the pool deck the other day. They stared them down. Van Dyken insists she’s not impressed.
“They don’t look as big and bad as everyone says they are,” said Van Dyken, who will face world record-holder Le Jingyi of China tonight and again July 26 in the 50 freestyle. “I don’t care about them. I think we’re stronger and I think we’re faster. I think the Chinese women can and will be beaten. We’re going to shock a lot of people.”
Asked if the Chinese women looked as big as they did four years ago, Van Dyken, who is 6-feet and 155 pounds, replied: “Hey, I’ll flex at ‘em. I’m not a small girl.”
Van Dyken is America’s best sprinter and one of the best hopes for a gold medal or two. She is the third-fastest woman in history in the 50 freestyle, fifth-fastest in the 100 free and eighthfastest in the 100 butterfly.