ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 27, 1996 TAG: 9607290035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
JO TAORMINA COULDN'T BE in Atlanta, but she cheered her niece, Sheila, to victory Thursday night during the Olympic swimming competition.
A slow plane in Denver kept Sheila Taormina out of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Nothing could keep her out of the pool Thursday night in Atlanta.
It was there, at the 1996 Summer Games, where Taormina and three American teammates - Trina Jackson, Cristina Teuscher and Jenny Thompson - set a world record with a time of 8 minutes, 4.99 seconds in the 800-meter freestyle relay.
Soon after the race, Taormina called her aunt Jo, who lives in Roanoke. Jo Taormina is a former flight attendant who now works in sales for USAir. Oddly enough, the last time they saw each other was on a flight in Charlotte, N.C.
``I was talking about her to the crew,'' Jo Taormina said Friday. ``I said, `She looks like me.' And then I saw this woman and said, `She actually looks like her. Oh my God, that is her!'''
Because of their busy schedules, Sheila and Jo Taormina only have spoken by telephone since then. But the whole family will get together soon to celebrate the gold medal. Twenty-three family members were at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center to see Sheila swim.
``It was $8,000 for rooms, so they had to come up with a scheme to pay for it all,'' Jo said. ``Her older sister, Sue, is an artist, and they sold T-shirts she made.''
Sheila, 27, has another important meeting before the reunion. She and the rest of the U.S. gold medalists have been invited to the White House. ``She became tight friends with Chelsea'' Clinton, Jo said. ``She said she gave her a personal invite.'' Sheila, the youngest of eight children, is one of the brightest in a diversely talented family. She paid for her entire undergraduate schooling at the University of Georgia through a scholarship and didn't have to pay a cent for graduate school, either.
Jo ended her own swimming career in high school in Hudson, N.Y. ``I just wanted to have fun. I didn't care about competition,'' Jo said.
Jo became a fencer at Florida Atlantic University and now spends her spare time as an artist and karate expert. On Thursday night, she also was a cheerleader.
As swimmers go, Sheila's getting on in years, and many close to the U.S. swim team figured her career ended when she got stranded in Denver en route to the 1992 Olympic trials in Salt Lake City. But Sheila was granted a year's leave from her engraving company in Livonia, Mich., and pursued her golden dreams.
They were realized when she gave the U.S. the fastest three-leg split in women's 800 freestyle history, and Thompson held on for the record.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP U.S. swimmers Sheila Taormina, Christina Teuscher,by CNBJenny Thompson and Trina Jackson (left to right) celebrate their
800-meter freestyle victory Thursday in Atlanta.|