The former University of Georgia star is not considered a medal favorite in her event, the 200-meter backstroke, but she also was an underdog at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials last month in Indianapolis. Adkins, an Illinois native whose family has lived in Gahanna the past 12 years, was the No. 10 seed in the 200 backstroke at the Trials. In the finals, she was in fifth place at the halfway point. She had missed a spot at the '96 Trials by 0.75 second with a third-place finish. She plans to retire from swimming after the Sydney Games to work for Swiss Re, a reinsurance company outside New York City.
Reinsurance companies provide insurance protection against losses to other insurance companies.
Connie Price-Smith, who moved to Hilliard from Bloomington, Ind., last September, has done just about everything in the women's shot put but earn an Olympic medal. Not that she's pressuring herself into winning one in her fourth Olympics. Her fourth-place finish at the Atlanta Games is the best in an Olympics by an American woman in that event since Earlene Brown won bronze in 1960.