By KAREN CROUSE
SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 30 — The International Swim Center pool where Mark Spitz and Donna de Varona once trained is considered a cradle of swimming, having spawned dozens of Olympians and 26 world records over the past 50 years.
Black-and-white portraits of Olympians dating to the 1960s adorn the foyer of the main entrance. On the deck is a bronze bust of the renowned coach of the Santa Clara Swim Club, George Haines, his gaze directed at the water as if he were supervising the next generation of stars.
History permeates the place like chlorine, so it would not seem the ideal hiding spot for a swimmer who owns an Olympic medal and a world record. And yet, on Friday at the Santa Clara International Invitational, a competition that has attracted many of the country’s top swimmers, Allison Wagner was invisible in plain sight.
Nobody approached Wagner, who owns 13 national titles and one of the oldest world records on the books, for her autograph. The cameras mostly followed Natalie Coughlin, her California Aquatics teammate.
During Wagner’s two races in Friday’s preliminary session, the chatty public-address announcer did not trumpet her achievements, as he did with other participating Olympians like Coughlin and Michael Phelps.
The lack of recognition did not seem to bother Wagner. “It’s a young person’s sport,” said Wagner, who was 32nd in the 100-meter freestyle and 39th in the 100 fly Friday.
Besides, Wagner considers herself an altogether different person than the skinny, single-minded perfectionist who was 16 when she set a world record in the 200-meter individual medley in a short-course meters pool in 1993, and 18 when she won a silver medal in the 400 individual medley at the 1996 Olympics.
Since her star turn in Atlanta, Wagner has quelled an eating disorder, earned a degree in Buddhist psychology and traveled solo around the world for eight months.
A decade-long journey of self-discovery led Wagner back to the swimming pool, a place that once set off a wave of negative emotions.