The New York Times Away From Competition, but Still in the Pool By KAREN CROUSE Published: July 8, 2005 For five years Lenny Krayzelburg was the gold standard in swimming's backstroke events. He won three gold medals at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and another last year in Athens. Although the 29-year-old Krayzelburg is not

The Olympian Lenny Krayzelburg opened a swim school at the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles after he helped reopen its pools.

"I'm following all the meets closely," said Krayzelburg, who plowed 20 years of his life into the sport. "Swimming's definitely still tugging at me."

He recently plunged $100,000 of his earnings from motivational speaking and product endorsements back into the sport, paying for repairs to reopen the pools at the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles after they had been shuttered for three years.

He had worked at the center as a lifeguard and trained there as a teenager after his family immigrated to the United States from Ukraine in 1989. One day last week Krayzelburg was standing on the freshly painted pool deck, watching as water poured into the smaller of the two newly plastered indoor pools.

The facility is the wellspring of his future, the site of the first Lenny Krayzelburg Swim School, which was christened Wednesday. The first lessons, for children and adults, begin next week. Krayzelburg will leave the swimming lessons to others as he gets a crash course on running a business.

Krayzelburg's dream is for the school to make such a big splash that the ripples eventually reach Jewish community centers in every corner of the country. His goal is to become to swimming what Arthur Murray was to dance. He wants to make the sport accessible to the masses.

"I don't want to coach," Krayzelburg said. "But I love kids. And I still think I can make a difference. Even after Sydney, I started thinking about my future beyond competing and what route did I want to go. I had an idea that I wanted to create a swim school. The past seven, eight months, it all came together."

Krayzelburg has not swum a lap since November, when he had surgery on his left shoulder for the third time in five years. He has retreated from competition but has not officially retired from it.

"I'm not closing any doors," he said.

The floodgates of fame swung open for Krayzelburg in 2000, when he traveled to Australia as the world-record holder in both backstroke events and weathered the world's glare with a grace and charm that set off a side career as a Hollywood hunk. He signed with the William Morris Agency, dabbled in modeling, mulled over movie roles and fended off marriage proposals by the dozens. He laughed at being named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People."

It was fun while it lasted, Krayzelburg said, but he never wanted to make a career out of being famous. "It's not me," he said.

As it turned out, Krayzelburg was keeping the celebrity seat warm for Michael Phelps, who supplanted him as the face of swimming in the United States in 2004. Krayzelburg felt fortunate to make the United States team that raced in Athens. He qualified in the 100 backstroke with one good shoulder and after only three months of training.

He finished fourth in a deep Olympic field, raising the question he can't quite shake: What might he accomplish in 2008 if he can train without chronic pain?

"That's the thought that's in the back of my mind," Krayzelburg said.

When he imagines trying for a third Olympic team, he said he recalls an archived snapshot of Gary Hall Sr., a three-time Olympian, parading his baby boy on the pool deck in Montreal in 1976. That baby, Gary Hall Jr., would grow up to become an Olympic teammate of Krayzelburg's in 2000 and 2004.

The picture resonates with Krayzelburg because his wife, Irina, whom he met on a blind date in New York and married in March, is due to deliver twin daughters in October.

"It would be great to have something like Gary had in 1976," Krayzelburg said. "To be on the pedestal and have my kids up there with me."

In the meantime there's his other baby, the swim school that enables Krayzelburg to reach out to children and raise up his sport.