By Craig Lord

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS A Festival For Purists

Alexander Popov, Emiliano Brembilla and Agnes Kovacs emerged as the stars of the European Championships in Spain.

SEVILLE, Spain-"The water is your friend...you don't have to fight with water; just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move."

The words of Alexander Popov on the eve of racing proved prophetic: the 23rd European Championships, held Aug. 19-24, were dominated by those whose technical mastery of their element left their competition with a sense of wonder.

Here was a festival for perfectionists and purists. Yes, there were victories by those who are to technique what Roseanne is to ballet-their bombastic style and brute strength the chief weapons in their armory. But only three swimmers set individual European or Championship records in hothouse conditions at the San Pablo pool-and they did so through their endeavors to perfect the technical fundamentals of their sport.

Like toreadors twirling around the tormented beasts about them-a mood embellished by the use of a stirring bullfighting anthem as walk-on music for the finals-Popov, Emiliano Brembilla and Agnes Kovacs were the heroes of the hour. Hungary's Kovacs, who clocked 2:24.90 in the 200 meter breast, was the only individual in Seville to set a European record. The other European record came from Russia's Popov, Roman Egorov, Denis Pimankov and Vladimir Pyshnenko in the 400 freestyle relay (3:16.85).

That helped Popov toward a record tally of 15 European titles since 1991, two more than the 13 won by Michael Gross in the 1980s. The German won eight individual titles to the Russian's seven-both over a six-year period.

In retaining his 50 and 100 meter freestyle titles and helping Russia to two relay victories (Russia also won the 400 medley relay in 3:39.67), the 25-year-old from Sverdlovsk provided the first sight of the new technique that he and Coach Gennadi Touretski have been working on at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

They call it the "kayak principle," where the swimmer rolls on the bow wave before him in a perpetual motion that suffers no "dead zone" or break in stroke pattern, like the continuous propulsion seen in kayaking, in which one oar is always precisely at the start of the pull phase as the other is starting the overarm recovery above the water-forward motion never ceases.

The first glimpse of this technique came in the heats of the 100 freestyle on Day 3, almost a year to the day since Popov had been rushed into ten hours of surgery after a watermelon vendor had stabbed him in the stomach on a street in Moscow. Popov cruised a 49.87 prelim. He was less than happy-not with the time, but the technique.

The solution was an hour and 20 minutes in the warm-down pool with Touretski on tap to put him right. Such devotion to detail did the trick. As Popov put it after the final, "I felt like I was reborn tonight."

The four-time Olympic champion split the 50 in 23.91, just 1-tenth ahead of Lars Frolander. After the turn, any doubts about Popov's form faded rapidly. With the strokes of his rivals tightening and failing about him, the Russian plowed on like a battleship through a flotilla of tugs to take his fourth successive 100 free. The time was 49.09, a championship record by 1-hundredth and the latest in a series of swims in which Popov has emulated his pole-vaulting hero, Sergei Bubka. Popov's four triumphs from 1991 to 1997 have progressed as follows: 49.18, 49.15, 49.10, 49.09.

As leadoff in the record-breaking relay, he clocked 49.02 for another championship record, and the next day he retained the 50 title in 22.30. Popov, who described his 50 time as "only a training time" on the way to the World Championships in Perth in January, was one of five European men who swam faster in Seville than their Pan Pacific counterparts in Fukuoka to leave European men the victors in their transcontinental battle, nine races to seven.

Among those, apart from Popov, Brembilla was most impressive. The 18-year-old Italian beat both Britain's Olympic medal winners, Paul Palmer in the 400 and Graeme Smith in the 1500, with the fastest times in the world this year. The 400, at 3:45.96, was the third fastest ever behind Kieren Perkins and Evgeni Sadovyi, and, like his 14:58.65 in the 1500, was a championship record.

Brembilla's 400 time was 1.01 seconds faster than the time in which Danyon Loader won the Olympic title for New Zealand ahead of Palmer last year, when Brembilla was fourth. Finishing second was Massimiliano Rosolino at 3:48.11, marking the first time that Italy had claimed the top two positions at the European Championships.

Palmer, who finished third, would have had to break his own national record by 2.18 seconds to match Brembilla and by 3-hundredths to equal Rosolino, who was also second to Palmer in the 200 free on opening night (1:48.85 to 1:49.02). Palmer was also part of Great Britain's winning 800 freestyle relay (7:17.56).

Brembilla's fan club was on hand to celebrate the occasion: as the protagonists marched on to the deck for the 400 final to the sound of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" and with an uncharacteristic drizzle falling from a mournful sky, a great cheer went up from five percent of the population of Chignolo, a village of 2,500 in northern Italy. Their local hero did not disappoint, his classic freestyle, with high-elbow recovery and pointedly central-line pull-in Sadovyi style-never once faltering, the product of a staggering training regime from a very young age.

The Italian, at 5-10 and 158 pounds, was covering a staggering 20 kilometers (20,000 meters) in training a day by the time he was 8. "I get up to 23 kilometers now," he said in Seville with a masochistic smile.

Since French-Croatian coach, Dusko le Cabec, left the country in a row with officials over Brembilla's coaching, Italy's most promising talent has been coached at a national center in Verona by Alberto Castagnetti, former coach of now retired Giorgio Lamberti, world 200 meter freestyle record holder.

Two other men won two titles each: Marcel Wouda, who doubled the Dutchmen's tally of gold in European swimming history by winning the 200 and 400 IM (2:00.77 and 4:15.38), and Alexander Goukov, winner of the 100 and 200 breaststroke (1:02.17 and 2:13.90) to become the first Belorussian to take a European swimming title-after a truly remarkable progression.

On a world view, the backstrokes were disappointing, failing to come close to the efforts of Lenny Krayzelburg at the Pan Pacs. Nonetheless, Spain's Martin Lopez-Zubero's win in the 100 (55.71) rated highly on the parochial clap-o-meter, while Vladimir Selkov's 200 triumph (1:59.21) made him the first to win the title three times.

The form of his Russian teammate, Denis Pankratov, however, remains a mystery. The Olympic and world champion and holder of all world records both short and long over 100 and 200 meters butterfly, looked, as he did at Gothenburg in April-like a man in heavy training...and seemingly unperturbed with his poor performances.

His condition left the way clear for Frolander to add the European 100 fly title to the world short course title he had claimed in April. His 52.85 was the fifth fastest time ever. In the 200, Franck Esposito regained the title he had first won six years earlier. The Frenchman sat on the shoulder of Denis Silantiev (the Ukrainian who finished second in both the 100 and 200) for three lengths of the race before breaking through in the closing stages to win convincingly in 1:57.24.

Women's Events

If the European men fared well in comparison with their Pan Pacific rivals, the women did not-all, that is, apart from Agnes Kovacs, a 16-year-old from Budapest who promises to do in breaststroke swimming what her former teammate, Kristina Egerszegi, did for backstroke.

Kovacs is coached, like Egerszegi before her, by Lazslo Kiss and was the only individual woman to swim faster in Seville than her counterparts had in Fukuoka. Together, coach and pupil have apparently perfected Hungarian breaststroke-a high head and hand recovery helping to plunge the swimmer into a long glide as if every stroke were almost a dive, while the arm pull is deep and wide to maximize the pulling surface of hands and arms.

The technique helped Kovacs, who walks with the outturned feet seen among other great breaststroke swimmers, to win both 100 and 200 titles in Seville. The 200 was a race against the clock but proved a much more thoughtful effort than that in April when she split 1:09.4 on her way to a European record of 2:25.31. In Seville, the splits were 33.09, 1:11.38, 1:47.45 and a European record of 2:24.90, just 14-hundredths outside Rebecca Brown's world record and 9-hundredths slower than Samantha Riley's best. The battle with the Australians in Perth will surely be mighty, indeed, both in the 200 and 100 meters, a title captured by Kovacs in Spain in 1:08.08.

Outside of the individual events, only the German women could better what had taken place in Fukuoka. They captured all three relays, two of them faster than the winning time at Pan Pacs. Their best effort was a championship record of 3:41.49 in the 400 freestyle. They also won the 800 free with a world-leading 8:03.59. Their winning 4:07.73 medley relay was some three-and-a-half seconds slower than the winning American time in Fukuoka.

The strength of that German team made for many a multi-medal winner. Antje Buschschulte won four gold, a silver and a bronze, her individual victory coming in the 100 back (1:01.74); Sandra Volker captured the 100 free title (55.38), two other gold medals in relays as well as a silver and bronze; and there were two gold medals apiece for former East German teammates, Kerstin Kielgass (800 free, 8:34.41, and 800 free relay) and Dagmar Hase (400 free, 4:09.58, and 800 free relay). Although not winning multiple medals, Cathleen Rund took home a gold in the 200 back (2:11.46).

It was Hase, however, who caused upset when she beat Michelle Smith-de Bruin in the 400 freestyle on Day 3, after the Irish triple Olympic champion had claimed the 400 IM (4:42.08) and 200 free (1:59.93) titles.

Racing a pool apart in the 400 with de Bruin in lane 8 having barely qualified for the final-as she had in her two previous races-and Hase in lane 2, the battling pair eyed each other across the lanes. It was the 1996 Olympic champion after a personal improvement of some 19 seconds in 15 months versus the 1996 runner-up and 1992 Olympic champion.

In Seville, the younger woman had the upper hand. Hase, at 27, just four days younger than de Bruin, blasted away in the closing 20 meters to clock 4:09.58 to de Bruin's 4:10.50.

The irony of Hase's defeat of de Bruin was lost on few-de Bruin had been halted in her effort to surpass the record four individual European titles by one of the last products of the East German medal factory that won 97 out of 144 European titles until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

The irony went deeper still-Hase has been at the center of speculation about drug use in much the same way as de Bruin, who failed to make the top 16 in any races at the 1989 championships in Bonn when Hase won the 200 backstroke for East Germany.

Hase dedicated her 1992 Olympic title to her former training partner, Astrid Strauss, the East German who retired during a two-year suspension for a positive drug test. Their coach, Bernd Henneberg, is one of 12 German coaches involved in court action in Germany in which they are accused by former East German swimmers and state prosecutors of administering banned substances to their charges.

Two others who were coaching for Germany in Seville are also among the accused, while former Olympic champion, Ulrike Tauber (now Lebek), was a water polo team doctor in Seville and has signalled her readiness to appear as a witness against the coaches if called.

Hase is among those named in Stasi documents (first published by Swimming World) as having tested positive in private East German tests in 1989. In 1994, she courted controversy when she was rewarded financially and received a free holiday for withdrawing from the 1994 world championship 200 freestyle final to make way for teammate Franziska van Almsick, who went on to win the title in one of the most technically remarkable and stirring swims ever, her world record of 1:56.78 too good even for a steroid-boosted Lu Bin.

De Bruin fell far short of the German's standard in the 200 and is certainly not the woman she was in Atlanta. Yet, her winning time of 1:59.93 ranks her third in the world this year-quite an accomplishment, considering she had never raced a 200 freestyle at an international championship before.

After that and her defeat in the 400, de Bruin withdrew from the 200 IM. She had already withdrawn from the 800 free. Her final race was in the 200 butterfly, but even two days of rest was not enough to bring back that edge she had found a year ago, and she was beaten in the closing 15 meters by Spain's Maria Pelaez, 2:10.25 to 2:10.88.

One of the lessons for de Bruin in Seville is clear: much of the controversy surrounding her is self-generated because she and her team do not know the rules of their sport.

De Bruin's arrival in Spain set the mood: no pre-race press conference; coach, husband and former athlete, Erik de Bruin, just two weeks after his four-year suspension for a positive drug test had expired, had to go before a hearing of the European Swimming League to explain why he had assumed a false name when accompanying de Bruin to doping control at the 1995 championships; then, de Bruin was taken out of the fast heats of all but one of her races because she had not raced since Atlanta, and her entry times of more than a year past were invalid under championship rules; on Day 1, she failed to appear at the official press conference after being taken for a drug test and received a warning letter from LEN that her non-appearance was against championship rules and a repeat could prompt disqualification.

De Bruin has also had her lawyer write to several media outlets threatening legal action and demanding apologies. She is unlikely to get any. Most of what has been said and written about her sticks to the facts of her staggering progress.

Whatever training de Bruin is doing, she is likely to need to pick up the pace for Perth. Though European women lagged behind their Pan Pac cousins this time, there were a host of young Russians and Ukrainians, such as Oxana Verevka, winner of the 200 IM (2:14.74), and Olga Klochkova, second to de Bruin in the 400 IM, who are on the up-and-up.

Some of the veterans who remained competitive in their mid-20s were Russia's Natalia Mesheryakova, who won the 50 free in 25.31, and Denmark's Mette Jacobsen, who captured the 100 fly in 59.64.

Meanwhile, Istanbul will stage the 1999 Championships-and there will be another meet less than a year later. The European Swimming League (LEN), to compete with the new calendar for FINA, the world governing body, is shifting its event from odd years to even years. In 2000, there will be a world cup, world short course championships, European long course championships, Olympic Games and a European short course championships.

The news was greeted with the kind of wide-eyed hysteria that the Ironman triathlete feels when he breaks the finish tape only to hear his coach utter, "No, no, no, it won't do at all-go round again."

Financial inducements may also be offered to get swimmers to show up. But in this poker game with FINA and the marketeers, the winner will take all, and European and Pan Pac swimming may well be the losers.