The Preps : REPAIRING BROKEN DREAMS : Amy Shaw Is Overcoming Leg Problems That Kept Her From Olympics

September 20, 1988. For Amy Shaw, a date which will live in infirmity.

The Olympic 200-meter breaststroke final, Shaw’s specialty, was being held. Without her.

While Silke Hoerner of East Germany was winning the 200 breaststroke in Seoul, Shaw was resting in a hospital bed in Mission Viejo.

Her right leg was in a cast. Scar tissue, which had inhibited her performance at the Olympic trials, had been removed from the knee.

Three years of preparation had ended with a couple hours of surgery.

“It was a depressing year,” Shaw said. “I still don’t know what happened.”

But then, it all happened so fast.

In 1987, Shaw was, without a doubt, the best in the nation at the 200 breaststroke. She set the American record in the event. Twice. On the same day.

But that was before the twinge in her right knee in 1987 developed into a series of leg problems in 1988. Swimming with an injured knee, hamstring and groin, Shaw finished a distant seventh at the Olympic trials.

The year that was supposed to be hers, wasn’t.

Shaw is swimming again, with Capistrano Valley High School and the Mission Viejo Nadadores, concentrating on events that put less pressure on her knees. But the memory of her pain lingers.

“Amy had something taken away from her last year,” said Terry Stoddard, Mission Viejo Nadadores coach. “She was No. 1 in the country in the breaststroke. She earned something, then didn’t receive it.”

Shaw rose to the top quickly, going from obscurity to the top of her event.

In 1985 she had placed seventh in the 200 breaststroke at the U.S. Swimming Short Course Championships. But in 1986, she won the event and qualified for the Goodwill Games in Moscow.

Shaw won bronze medals in the breaststroke and the 400 individual medley.

“I got a taste of international swimming and was hungry for more,” Shaw said. “I didn’t fear the Soviet and East German swimmers anymore. I always had thought they were too dominant, but they were just swimmers like me. I was on the road to the Olympics.”

On returning to the United States, Shaw continued to barrel down that road.

She won the 200 breaststroke at the U.S. Swimming Short Course Championships, barely missing the American record. Shaw added that record to her list of goals.

At the 1987 long course championships, Shaw won her preliminary heat in a time of 2 minutes 30.77 seconds, which broke Susan Rapp’s American record of 2:31.15.

Shaw broke the record again in the afternoon when she won the final in 2:29.78.

“I had to prove it wasn’t a fluke,” Shaw said. “At that point, I felt I could do anything I put my mind to.”

Her exhilaration was such that she ignored the slight pain in her right knee.

“After she broke the record the first time, she came up to me and said her knee was a little sore,” Stoddard said. “But by afternoon, she said it felt fine. When she broke the record again, I didn’t think anything more about it.”

Shaw followed up her success at the long course championships by winning a gold medal at the Pan-Pacific games in August.

In a tight race, she just beat Xiao Min Huang of China to the finish line. Huang later won a bronze medal in Seoul.

Although Shaw was swimming well, the pain in her knee was getting worse.

“I thought it was fatigue, I had been training so hard,” Shaw said. “I had never been injured before. I just thought it was something that would go away.”

Shaw took a month off, figuring the rest would end the pain. She returned to heavy workouts in September to begin training for the Olympics.

By then, the pain seemed less, so Shaw wasn’t too concerned.

However, what Shaw didn’t realize was that she had changed her stroke slightly to compensate for her discomfort.

“She altered her style slightly, you couldn’t even notice it,” Stoddard said. “But it caused more problems.”

In March, Shaw injured her hamstring while swimming for the Capistrano Valley team. She altered her style again.

In April, she injured her groin. It was becoming impossible to swim without pain.

“She was like an old car I used to own,” Stoddard said. “As soon I fixed the radiator, the hoses went out.”

After swimming in an international meet in Canada, Shaw couldn’t deny the fact she was injured.

“I knew it was serious, but by then it was too late,” Shaw said. “The Olympic trials were coming up.”

Also after the Canadian meet, Shaw was told that she and Mission Viejo swimmer Ernie Vela were disqualified from high school competition for the remainder of the season.

They had broken Southern Section rules by competing in an international meet while their high school seasons were in progress without seeking permission from the Southern Section.

Both had been granted permission in the past, but this time no one had petitioned the Southern Section.

“It was just a breakdown in communication,” Stoddard said. “I didn’t check to see if a request had been made and neither did her high school coach.”

Shaw and Vela appealed the decision to the California Interscholastic Federation, but lost.

“It’s very difficult to declare a kid ineligible,” said Bill Clark, the Southern Section administrator overseeing swimming. “There was a violation and we had to uphold the rule.”

For Shaw, it was just another distraction. But a minor one compared to her health problems.

“I was angry about it, but I wouldn’t have been able to swim anyway,” Shaw said. “My leg was hurting too much.”

Stoddard and Shaw discussed the situation and decided to push on to the trials. However, Shaw’s training was drastically reduced.

She stopped swimming the breaststroke, hoping that the time off would allow her leg to heal.

During workouts, she would wrap her legs together with plastic tubing to keep from aggravating her injuries. When she swam, she would only use her arms.

Despite the problems, she still felt she could make the Olympic team.

“I kept telling myself that my arms were strong enough,” she said. “I could do anything I put my mind to.”

But there are some things even desire cannot overcome.

Tracey MacFarlane finished first in the 200 breaststroke at the Olympic trials in Austin, Tex.

Shaw was seventh.

“The fact that she finished seventh is amazing,” Stoddard said. “She did it without using her legs. I think Amy got something out of the fact that none of the qualifiers exceeded her best times.”

If she did, it was little solace.

“I look at it now as something that happened,” Shaw said. “I had no control over it. Actually, the only thing I can remember about the summer is going to physical therapy every day.”

Shaw, a 17-year-old senior, continues therapy, although the pain has subsided. She began swimming again one week after her surgery and has slowly worked back into shape.

However, she hasn’t competed in the breaststroke since the trials. Instead, she swims freestyle events and an occasional butterfly.

Shaw’s immediate goals are not as lofty these days. She is looking forward to the 4-A Southern Section meet in May with more enthusiasm than ever before.

“This is the first time I’ve ever trained for just the Southern Section meet,” she said. “I think I’m taking that meet more seriously this year than ever before. I’m also getting to spend more time with the team. It’s fun.”

Shaw began swimming the breaststroke again in February, but won’t compete in the event for a while. Her leg feels fine, but she wants to make sure it’s completely healed before pushing it.

The desire, though, is still there.

“Mary Ellen Blanchard set the short course record in the 200 breaststroke last month and I could see the intensity on Amy’s face,” Stoddard said. “You could tell that it was a record that Amy would like to break someday.”

There is time for that and, much more.

“The next Olympics is in 1992,” Shaw said. “Four years can go by very fast.”