Maria Carrillo High School grad Maya DiRado wins gold at World University Games

<p>An official stopped Maya DiRado short of her goal at the World University Games on Monday. One day later, the globe's top college-level competition didn't stand a chance.</p><p>DiRado, the Maria Carrillo High grad who is about to enter her second year at Stanford, rebounded with a gold medal in the 400-meter individual medley in Shenzhen, China, on Tuesday, rallying from behind with a blistering final lap in the freestyle to finish in 4:40.79, decisively beating Miho Takahashi of Japan (4:42.28) and Joerdis Steinegger of Austria (4:43.30).</p><p>It wasn't as fast as DiRado's 4:37.88 at the USA National Championships at Stanford two weeks ago — that one was the world's 10th-fastest time in the event — but it was good enough to bring her first international gold.</p><p>The Pac-10 Freshman of the Year and five-time All-American started the race by taking the lead in the butterfly, and recaptured it through the backstroke and the first lap of the breaststroke. But Takahashi, a strong breaststroker, passed her and made the final turn of the race with a fingertip's lead of eleven-hundredths of a second. </p><p>DiRado's freestyle surge was the difference.</p><p>“The race went pretty much how I was expecting it,” DiRado told swimmingworld.tv in Shenzhen, which is near Hong Kong. “Andi (Stanford teammate Andrea Taylor) is always out faster than me in butterfly, but then my backstroke felt really good. And breaststroke, the Japanese girl just destroyed me. But freestyle I felt really strong coming home, so I had enough left in the tank.”</p><p>DiRado entered the 400 IM as the top seed, but was taking nothing for granted after a bitter disappointment a day earlier in the 200 IM.</p><p>She would have qualified second for that event and been among the favorites for a podium finish, but was disqualified for a stroke infraction in a preliminary heat. A swim official said DiRado performed a double dolphin kick in her turn from back to breast; only one kick is allowed.</p><p>If this had been the Olympics or the U.S. Olympic trials, officials could have used slow-motion video review. The World University Games offered no such luxury, and DiRado was out of the 200-meter race.</p><p>“The U.S. coaches were quite upset and protested vigorously but were denied — a bit of a ‘balls and strikes' call, only so far you can contest it,” Ruben DiRado, Maya's father and the assistant cross country coach at Maria Carrillo, emailed from China. </p><p>“She has never been DQ'd for this type of infraction at any level of swimming ever before — and she has swum internationally seven times before — so it was a shock for sure, completely unexpected.”</p><p>Maya overcame her disappointment and regrouped to win the United States' sixth gold medal of the games, and its 14th overall.</p><p>Now, in addition to her competition for Stanford, DiRado can begin to focus on the 2012 Olympic Team Trials, which will be held in Omaha, Neb., next June. First, though, the young champion had a little shopping to do. She had been in Shenzhen for a week and had barely been able to leave the athletes' village.</p><p>“I think I might go to the market now that I'm done swimming and try to haggle for some Beats headphones,” DiRado told swimmingworld.tv.</p>