Mayukh Ghosh
February 2012.
She leaves her home at 4:40 a.m. and swims 8,500 yards in less than two hours.
She is 40.
Shortly after she disappears into the bathroom, her 5-year old daughter Sydney knocks on the door and cries, "Can I come in ,Mama?"
"Mommy, what are you doing there?"
She comes out but fails to explain what exactly she was doing.
She is swimming so fast that she has to go to the bathroom to prove that she is not cheating!
Sydney's 40-year old mother is making preparations for the US Olympic trials.
That too in long distance free-style swimming.
And after a 14-year hiatus from training.
Janet Evans was swimming laps at the age of two. She mastered the butterfly and the backstroke before turning three. But it wasn't an easy road to success for her.
She was short in height and thin, thus resulting in taunts and jibes directed at her.
She was at her best in Seoul 1988.
As they stood on the blocks waiting for the start of the 800m free-style final in Seoul, Janet Evans and her East German rivals presented an odd sight.
Astrid Strauss was 6 feet 1.5 inches and she weighed 82 kgs.
Anke Mohring was 6 feet tall and weighed 70kgs.
Between these two was Janet Evans, 5 feet 5 inches and a mere 45 kgs!
Evans won clocking the Olympic record time, just a shade under her own world record.
In 1996, she bowed out by passing the Olympic torch to Muhammad Ali during the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics.
Not quite.
She makes the comeback as a mother of two.
And competes with 17-year olds who say in utter dismay: “Sometimes if she’s beating me, I’ll be thinking, how can I not keep up with her when she’s going to go home and take care of two kids and she probably got no sleep last night?
I seriously have no idea how she does it.”
Janet Evans was born on August 28, 1971.