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August 18, 2004 6:19 pm

Schoeman just short of freestyle gold

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - In a drama-filled Olympic 100-meter freestyle race Wednesday night not decided until the final meter, Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, the defending Olympic champion, edged out University of Arizona alumnus Roland Schoeman of South Africa.

By the length of a fingernail. Maybe less.

Van den Hoogenband touched the wall in 48.17 seconds. Schoeman, who had led until the last stroke, got there all of six hundredths of a second later.

``I just tightened up,'' said Schoeman, who took the lead right from the start.

Australian superstar Ian Thorpe came on with a huge rush to grab the bronze medal away from Ryk Neethling, another Arizona swimmer by way of South Africa. Thorpe's time of 48.56 beat Neethling by .07.

Still, the 2-4 finish represented one of South Africa's greatest days in individual-event racing at the Games, and Schoeman remains one of the hot candidates in the 50-meter freestyle, which begins with preliminaries Thursday and finals Friday. Lurking there is another reigning Olympic king, Arizona's own Gary Hall Jr.

Van den Hoogenband, who had set the world record of 47.84 in taking the gold medal at the Sydney Olympics four years ago, had to dig down into his deepest reserves to win it again.

``I waited until the last part of the race...and boom,'' he said afterwards.

He called it ``the biggest moment of my life, sweeter even than Sydney's gold. The pressure was on me, so I had a lot to prove.''

Schoeman's medal was his second, to go along with the gold that he, Neethling, Lyndon Ferns (another Arizona Wildcat) and Darian Townsend won in the 4x100 freestyle relay.

Schoeman had no regrets about placing second.

``I don't look upon it as losing the gold, I look upon it as winning the silver,'' he said.

``I had to swim my race to favor my strength, and that was to take it out fast and hoping to hold on.''

He reached the 50-meter wall in 22.60 seconds; with van den Hoogenband (23.27) just fifth at that point

``You know Pieter had to swim the race of his life to catch me,'' he said. ``I knew it would take a 48.1 to win the race. I was hoping it was in me. I was just a little bit short.

``Still, in a year, from not even medaling at the World Championships, to this, that's a pretty remarkable thing.''

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