Naiad's Triumph

The quality of competition at the quadrennial Pan-American games rarely requires U.S. athletes to do anything more exhausting than show up -- except when it comes to baseball. To Latin Amer icans, baseball is a passion, not just a pastime, as the U.S. team learned last week at Winnipeg when it lost its very first game 4-3, and to Cuba at that. But by week's end the embarrassment was eased by the brilliant performances of U.S. swimmers--not so much be cause they won practically everything in sight (nine of eleven events), but because they demolished three world records in the process.

The binge began when California's 17-year-old Mark Spitz, who already held the world marks for the men's 100-meter butterfly and 400-meter freestyle, added the 200-meter butterfly to his collection with a 2-min. 6.4-sec. clocking that pared .2 sec. off the record set in 1964 by Australia's Kevin Berry. Then, swimming the first leg of the men's 400-meter freestyle relay, Michigan's Ken Walsh, 22, was timed in 52.6 sec. for 100 meters, bettering the old mark by .3 sec.

Impressive as they were, those performances were nothing compared with the one turned in by Debbie Meyer, a tiny, blonde, 14-year-old naiad from Sacramento, Calif. Daughter of a plant manager, Debbie startled experts last month when she broke two world records (for the 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle) in one race at Santa Clara, Calif. At Winnipeg last week, Debbie was matched in the women's 400-meter freestyle against the reigning world record holder, Pamela Kruse, 17, of Pompano Beach, Fla. She obviously has no respect for her elders. Leaving the aging Pamela struggling vainly in her wake, Debbie splashed to a daylight victory in 4 min. 32.6 sec., beating the Floridian's world mark by a fantastic 3.8 sec.

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