Young Hoff overcomes nervousness
ATHENS, Greece — Katie Hoff walked out on the Olympic pool deck and looked up at the stands filled with 10,000 screaming fans. She took her place behind the starting block and stared at the 50 meters of water ahead of her.
This time, the youngest member of the U.S. swimming team didn’t panic.
“I was just like, ‘Wow!’ ” she said. “I looked up at my team — they’re all cheering for me. It was really cool. I could just kind of feel the energy coming toward me, so it was nice.”
The 15-year-old Hoff dove in and raced the 200-meter individual medley semifinal against much more experienced swimmers. She more than held her own, winning her heat in 2 minutes, 13.60 seconds Monday night to advance to the final.
“It didn’t scare me,” she said, smiling.
Hoff felt much differently Saturday, the first day of Olympic swimming competition. She failed to make the 400 IM final and vomited afterward. She wound up 17th — a shocking result for someone who swept the 200 and 400 IMs at the U.S. trials to earn a place on the team.
“I was just dealing with some nerves and it being my first race,” she said.
Her teammates rallied around her, including Michael Phelps, who swims for the same North Baltimore club. Paul Yetter, her coach, also counseled his young charge.
“He’s been helping me get back on my feet after kind of a devastating first couple days,” she said. “Everyone was really supportive. It was good to have everyone on my side.”
Hoff, a teenager from Abingdon, Md., who is home-schooled, also was helped by talking to her parents a few times since Saturday.
“I’m just happy because I got over my disappointment and now I’m in my first Olympic final,” she said.
Hoff brought a more carefree attitude into her morning swim Monday. It worked because she advanced to the evening semifinal, the last race on a night dominated by the men’s 200 free final.
That race featured the sport’s big three — Phelps, Australian Ian Thorpe and Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband — in a showdown for gold. Thorpe won, Van den Hoogenband took silver and Phelps settled for bronze.
Hoff loved the electric atmosphere, including the pounding drum music played before the swimmers walk out to race.
“I just felt like I had really nothing to lose,” she said. “Everyone was saying, ‘Have fun, have fun.’ So I was like, ‘Well, I’ll just go with this. It’s been fun and I still have nothing to lose.’ “
In Tuesday night’s 200 IM final, Hoff will take on defending Olympic champion Yana Klochkova of Ukraine, who won the 400 IM Saturday; teammate Amanda Beard; Beatrice Caslaru of Romania, the silver medalist at the Sydney Games; and Agnes Kovacs, who won the 200 breaststroke four years ago.
Hoff figures she’ll be more together this time.
“Because I’m young, I probably have a couple more of these to go, I’m hoping,” she said. “So I’m just going to try to smile and be relaxed and go for it. I just think this is the beginning.”