Olympic Girls

Name: Amber Stachowski
Sport: Water Polo
Hometown Rancho: Santa Margarita, California
Cred: 2002 First Team NCAA All-American

Wet and wild “There’s a lot of stuff going on underwater—a lot of kicking, grabbing, pulling.”

Name: Misty May
Sport: Beach Volleyball
Hometown Rancho: Costa Mesa, California
Cred: 2000 Olympic Team; 2003 AVP Team of the Year (with Kerri Walsh)

Greed is gold “We want to win gold, ’cause, actually, my friend told me that gold prices are up. So of course I want to win the gold!”

Name: Kaitlin Sandeno
Sport: Swimming
Hometown Rancho: Lake Forest, California
Cred: Bronze medal (800-meter freestyle) in 2000 Olympics

We prefer jai alai, but… “It’s fun watching people go up and down a pool! Also, you should watch because you’ll get to see me kick butt.”

Name: Lindsay Benko
Sport: Swimming
Hometown Rancho: Elkhart, Indiana
Cred: 2000 Olympic team captain and gold medalist (800-meter freestyle)

Hometown hero “[Elkhart] is very small. The population is around 40,000. I hate to admit it, but [I’m a celebrity there]. I don’t enjoy the attention that much, but the support there is just phenomenal.”

Name: Amanda Freed
Sport: Softball
Hometown Rancho: Cypress, California
Cred: UCLA’s All-Time Winningest Pitcher

Shorts story “It doesn’t hurt to slide in shorts if you do it right. I slide more on my shins than I do on my rear end. I slide headfirst. We have small sliding pads for our knees. It’s more graceful than it looks.”

Name: Annett Davis
Sport: Beach Volleyball
Hometown Rancho: Long Beach, California
Cred: 2000 Olympian

Strawberry fields “If the court were made of strawberry jam, it would be a lot more slippery. When we dive, we’d get a mouthful of jam instead of sand. That wouldn’t be so bad, because I love strawberry jam.”

Name: Jackie Frank
Sport: Water Polo
Hometown Rancho: Hermosa Beach, California
Cred: 2002 and 2003 Division I NCAA Player of the Year

Pool genes “Both of my parents swam. They met at a swim meet. I think it was inevitable that I would end up somewhere in water. In preseason, we’ll do soccer or basketball or volleyball, and I’m just really bad.”