LONG BEACH, California, 15 June 2004 — Petria Thomas of Australia closed out her pre-Olympic US stay with a satisfying victory in the 100m butterfly Sunday at the Janet Evans Invitational grand prix meet.
Thomas clocked 58.56sec to beat Slovakian Martina Moravcova (58.75) and US veteran Jenny Thompson (59.21) and said the victory was a good pointer for her preparations for the Athens Games in August.
“Those two girls are some of the best in the world ever,” Thomas said. “Just to be able to swim against them is great for me. To be able to get one up on them is a boost.”
Thomas was pleased to end the meet on a high note, after starting with a disappointing performance in the 200m fly earlier in the week.
“I started slow with the 200 fly,” she said. “I think the 200 is probably harder to swim when you’re in hard training than perhaps the short ones are.”
Thomas was among a group of Australian Olympic swimmers who trained at altitude for three weeks in Arizona before stopping off at the Janet Evans.
The meet this year was moved from it’s usual home in Los Angeles to a temporary facility in Long Beach, which will host the US Olympic trials in early July.
“It’ll be nice to get home — good to get back and see my husband and my dogs,” said Thomas who was due to fly out late Sunday night and expected to be back in the pool on the same day as she arrived in Australia.
“This is not our main job here,” she added. “This is just a stepping stone. To swim the times that I have here, I’m quite pleased. Hopefully it means I’ll swim faster in Athens.”
Australian superstar Ian Thorpe, who won the 200m and 400m freestyles here this week, closed out his meet swimming the backstroke leg in Australia’s second-place medley relay team.
“It was all right,” Thorpe said, but added he had no plans to make backstroke a regular part of his competitive program.
“It’s not doing it for me at the moment,” said Thorpe, who is slated to swim the 100m, 200m and 400m freestyles in Athens.
World record-holder Lenny Krayzelburg won the men’s 100m backstroke in 55.28sec ahead of fellow American Randall Ball and said the meet was a good preparation for the upcoming Olympic trials.
US Olympic hopefuls Natalie Coughlin in the women’s 100m backstroke, Tara Kirk in the 100m breaststroke, Amanda Beard in the 200m medley and Mark Gangloff in the 100m breaststroke posted wins on the final day of the meet.
