THE LAST OF SHEILA

By BILL PLASCHKE

July 27, 1996 12 AM PT

Sheila Taormina, 27, became the first masters division swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal Thursday . . . and it aged her about 10 years.

Taormina swam the third leg in the gold-medal women’s 800 relay team, even though, 12 hours earlier, she didn’t even know if coaches would allow her in the water.

Utilizing the rule that allows teams to change all four relay members between the preliminaries and the finals, the U.S. told the four morning swimmers that only one of them would join top talents Jenny Thompson, Trina Jackson and Cristina Teuscher in the evening.

By swimming the fastest 200-meter split time in the morning--a 2:00.57--Taormina was summoned in the early afternoon with the news.

“They made all of us warm down and get ready, and then they told me I was in,” she said.

Nice retirement present.

“I knew I was retiring either way, after the morning race, or evening race,” she said. “I did the easy part.”

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Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke, an L.A. Times sports columnist since 1996, is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame and California Sports Hall of Fame. He has been named national Sports Columnist of the Year nine times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards. He is the author of six books, including a collection of his columns entitled “Plaschke: Good Sports, Spoilsports, Foul Balls and Oddballs.” Plaschke is also a panelist on the popular ESPN daily talk show, “Around the Horn.” He is in the national Big Brothers/Big Sisters Alumni Hall of Fame and has been named Man of the Year by the Los Angeles Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as receiving a Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women’s Law Center. Plaschke has appeared in a movie (“Ali”), a dramatic HBO series (“Luck”) and, in a crowning cultural moment he still does not quite understand, his name can be found in a rap song “Females Welcome” by Asher Roth.

THE LAST OF SHEILA

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