Susan von der Lippe of Loveland is going into today’s start of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials with an injury that she won’t have in common with any other swimmer. She has tennis elbow.
From pruning.
Not that she will have much else in common with any of them. On Saturday, the married mother of two turns 43. What in the world could she talk to them about in the practice pool?
” ‘Um, did you hear Led Zeppelin is touring again?’ ‘Hey, what do you girls do for iron-poor blood?’ Or, ‘My son got the best report card the other day?’ ” she said.
If the other swimmers listen, though, they can pick up some sage advice from the oldest female in the history of the Olympic swim trials.
She’s a three-time Olympian, won a gold medal in the 400-meter relay and silver in the 200 breaststroke in 1984 and has a life’s perspective that could help any world-class 15-year-old.
And here she is in Omaha, back at the Olympic Trials, racing against girls about her son’s age.
“I think it’s actually a cosmic joke,” von der Lippe said from her Loveland home. “I think God just has a great sense of humor. I think He’s like, ‘Well, let’s just see how fast she can go.’ ”
Von der Lippe couldn’t talk long. She was waiting for a call from a friend who was going to pick up her 12-year-old son, Jacob, at Boy Scouts. She’s pretty sure that wasn’t a worry for Natalie Coughlin.
How von der Lippe wound up back in the same competitive waters she jumped into as a 14-year-old Olympian in 1980, when she was Susan Rapp, is one part chance and two parts talent. She hung up her Speedo after the ’88 Olympics and started raising a family while working swimming clinics. When she had her second child, Katie, nine years ago, she wanted to work off the weight gain from being pregnant.
She hated running, and a parent suggested a masters swim program. She was 34. She eventually gave it a shot and swam her first meet at 37. She was hooked. Again.
“I had a blast,” she said. “It was in Arizona, so the weather was beautiful. I ran into so many old swimmer friends that I knew, and I swam much faster than I anticipated because I got to wear one of those full-body suits for the first time.
“I felt like Superman.”
She made masters nationals the next year and attended the 2004 Olympic Trials in Long Beach, Calif. She and her fellow post-baby boomer swimmers would beg their way into the practice pool between sessions. However, they were never allowed on the pool deck. So, she figured, the best way to get a good seat is to attend the next Trials as a competitor.
That summer, she swam a 1:14.2 in the 100 breaststroke in Colorado and felt she could cut half a second at sea level. In 2005 at a sectional meet in Seattle, she recorded a 1:12.49. The Trials qualifying mark is 1:12.50. She was set for Omaha, and will swim the 100 breast Monday. She just recently qualified in the 100 butterfly with a 1:02.37, the 139th-fastest time in the nation. She swims that race today.
“This is going to be a real fun time for me,” she said. “I’m just thrilled that I can swim as fast as I can, training like I do.”
No, she’s not putting in 12,000-14,000 yards a day as she did as an All-American and Olympian at Stanford. She has a family to look after, a household to maintain and a job as an office manager at the Loveland Swim Club. Oh, yes, and shrubs to prune.
Instead, she swims about 2,000 yards a week, swimming three times a week.
“I train like a mom,” she said.
Her ideal practice? Get together with friends, swim about 4,000 yards in an outdoor pool on a sunny day and then end it with a dark beer. That’s probably not on Michael Phelps’ workout schedule this week, but it’s perfect for a woman who marched into Olympic stadiums, stood on Olympic stands and found the Olympic spirit isn’t in the medals won but the journey taken.
She should probably have a long talk with Missy Franklin of Centennial. She’s entered in the 50 and 100 freestyle and 200 individual medley and, at 13, is the second-youngest swimmer in the U.S. Trials. What would von der Lippe say if Franklin asked for advice — if she didn’t confuse her with a competitor’s mother?
“You’ve got to have a balance,” von der Lippe said. “It’s not the end all, be all. To most kids, swimming is their life. It takes awhile for people to mature and understand that you’re not a swimmer. You’re somebody that does other things who happens to swim.
“Swimming’s not everything. It’s just one little part, so if it doesn’t work out ideally and you don’t end up on that team, if you went and you tried your hardest, great.”
Her family doesn’t have any flights to Beijing on hold. She merely wants to better her masters division bests and maybe have a good Omaha steak with her family. Still, von der Lippe is a big deal in Loveland. Later Saturday, her neighbors were throwing her a good luck party.
“We’re having hot dogs and beers,” she said with a laugh.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
Lapping the competition
When Susan von der Lippe hits the pool today in Omaha, the 42-year-old will become the oldest swimmer to compete in the Olympic Trials.
Birthday: July 5, 1965
Olympic teams: 1980, 1984, 1988
Medals: Silver medal in 200-meter breaststroke in 1984 and gold as an alternate on the 400 freestyle relay
College: Stanford
Family: Husband, Paul; son Jacob, 12; daughter Katie, 9
Trials events: 100 butterfly (today) and 100 breaststroke (Monday)
