Sport: Getting Ready

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The demands are never ending, the sacrifices outrageous. Relentless workouts, a life lived in sweat. For what? A Greek traveler named Pausanias more than 1,800 years ago wrote of the "unique divinity" that cloaks the Olympics. The mystery may never be phrased better. The lure persists, transfixing competitors, enticing them to devote their lives to it. It leads women like Janet Evans to spend their youth in pools, logging the numbing laps, and men like Tim Daggett to suffer through injury after injury. All for a touch of that divinity.

Perhaps no trial is greater than the constant and solitary hardening of will. And few champions must strive for it in a solitude as perfect as Jackie Joyner-Kersee's. Four years ago, she narrowly lost the gold medal because a hamstring pull hobbled her in the 800-meter run. Now she has so greatly outdistanced the field in the heptathlon, that epic ordeal in seven acts, that the only rival in the corner of her eye is the memory of her last triumph. Since 1984 she has set the heptathlon world record and bettered it twice; she has shared the world record in the long jump. Regardless of the success and the mental and physical cost of its purchase, the work goes on. No number of records will substitute for an Olympic gold.

JANET EVANS, SWIMMING

She doesn't weigh much more than a long drink of water, but even that is something of a victory. "I'm 5 ft. 5 in., and 105 now. Yay!" laughs 16-year- old Freestyler Janet Evans. When she nearly made the 1986 World Championship team at 14, she stood a towering 4 ft. 10 in. and weighed about 80 lbs. soaking wet, which is most of the time. "Everyone knew me because of my size, but I just wanted to be recognized as a good swimmer." That recognition is piling up almost as fast as the 300 to 400 laps she does daily. Last year she became one of only a handful of swimmers to set three world records in a single year, in the 400-, 800- and 1,500-meter freestyle events. At Seoul she will compete in the 400 and 800 freestyle and the 400 individual medley. "A lot of people say, 'Look, you're the American hope,' or whatever, but I don't look at it that way," says Evans. "I'm swimming mostly for myself, and if I concentrate on what I have to do, then doing well for America will come as a by-product."

TERRY SCHROEDER, WATER POLO

Kicking, scratching and dunking are part of the daily ordeal of water-polo players. At age 29, with a wife and a career to attend to, Terry Schroeder might have done without the punishment. But Schroeder, captain of the U.S. team for the second consecutive Olympics, is haunted by the silver medal he and the squad won in Los Angeles four years ago. Haunted by silver? Leading the top-ranked Yugoslavs by a score of 5-2 in the final game and needing an outright win, the U.S. team got caught in a riptide. The Americans gave up three goals in the last ten minutes and had to settle for a tie and second place. "We were so close in '84, and at this point, we don't want to leave any stone unturned," says Schroeder. The memory "keeps coming back," which explains why he is preparing to do the same.

JOE FARGIS, EQUESTRIAN