Trading places (oh, and another U.S. record)

OMAHA -- Changing a coach less than three months before the Olympic trials?

It used to be unthinkable. Swimmers are creatures of habit in terms of diet, training sets and sleep patterns. These athletes aren't like tennis players, who could sack a coach for forgetting to place a wake-up call or not picking up the racket bag fast enough. Where IS my non-fat latte?

But now there is Amanda Beard, who in April moved across town, from Dave Salo at USC to Cyndi Gallagher at UCLA. Cullen Jones, who lowered the American record this morning in the 50-meter freestyle, and backstroker Margaret Hoelzer also made last-minute moves.

Jones moved from North Carolina State to join Dave Marsh in Charlotte, N.C., and Hoelzer left Marsh's program to swim for Sean Hutchinson in Seattle.

"Maybe there's a little formula in that, maybe you go there and somebody fine-tunes you nicely," Marsh said this morning. "But there needed to be some fine-tuning [with Jones]. And Margaret's in a happy place and very dangerous, as you'll see in a few minutes in the 200 back. That's good stuff."

Jones was not in a bad place, either. He went 21.59 seconds in the preliminaries, breaking Gary Hall Jr.'s long-standing American record of 21.76, set in 2000. Last year's world champion Ben Wildman-Tobriner (21.68) and Hall (21.89) were the next-fastest qualifiers.

"I definitely put my head down when I was going into the wall," Jones said. "But I think there's a lot more in the tank, so we'll see what happens tonight.

"There's a lot of weird things that go into a 50 freestyle. One of the things is that you have to be perfect, or at least try to. There's never the perfect race. You always mess up something, and my coach can find something. That's what I love about the sport. You never swim that perfect race. You keep trying. They'll probably say my breath was too slow."

Hall, the two-time defending Olympic champion in the 50, was pleased with his first step and didn't seem bothered by losing the record.

"That record was going down," he said. "Records don't last, especially these days."

-- Lisa Dillman

Photo: Cullen Jones celebrates setting a U.S. record time of 21.59 in the men's 50-meter freestyle preliminaries this morning. Credit: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press