INDIANAPOLIS -- Diana Munz won the 800-meter freestyle race at the U.S. National Spring Swimming Championships on Tuesday, beginning what is expected to be a week filled with victories for the Olympic gold medalist.

The 20-year-old Munz has 21 national titles after winning her event for the eighth time. Fellow Olympic gold medalist Jenny Thompson is the active leader with 25 titles, and Munz should close that gap by the time the meet ends Saturday.

Thompson, who's in her second year in medical school at Columbia University, plans to compete in only the 50 meters. Munz has three more events -- the 200, 400 and 1,500 free. She's seeded No. 1 in all of them except the 200, in which she ranks second to Lindsay Benj.

"I try not to look at that,'' Munz said of her national championship total.

She won her heat in the finals at the Indiana University Natatorium in 8 minutes, 32.17 seconds. Adrienne Binder, 18, was second, followed by Alyssa Kiel. Munz was third after 50 meters, but by the 100-meter mark she held the lead.

"I need races,'' Munz said. "In the winter there's not many, since I'm not in college ... the more races I can get under my belt, the better.''

Also among the top finishers was Brooke Bennett, who is working her way back from surgery on both shoulders following the 2000 Olympics, where she won gold medals in the 800 and the 400 freestyle.

"I'm very pleased,'' said Bennett, who raced in the heat immediately before the top finishers and took sixth overall. "I've done a lot of growing in the last year and a half.''

It has taken hours and months of excruciating physical rehabilitation to reach this point, and Bennett looks at her progress as a step toward next year's Olympic trials.

"To place sixth in the 800, it means a lot,'' she said. "I'm on the road, and we have a lot more work to do in the next 15 months to work for the trials.''

On the men's side, Chad Carvin and Tom Wilkens will vie for the top spot in national titles among active swimmers this week. Craven tops the list with 16, one more than Wilkens.

The only other race Tuesday was the men's 800 freestyle. Larsen Jensen, who at 17 holds the American record of 7:52.05 in the event, easily won in 7:54.86.