Baring it all, for art

It is so, so tempting to dismiss "The Body Issue" from ESPN The Magazine as either a lame attempt to compete with Sport's Illustrated's swimsuit issue, or just so much voyeurism, or both. The clock is already running on which librarian in which city declares the whole thing an abhorrent shock to the system, and orders it banned.

That would be foolish.

To look at the photos themselves in the magazine, which goes on sale Friday, is to be reminded once again that the human body comes in an astonishing variety of different sizes and forms and features, and to realize that humankind has celebrated the gift of our bodies since the dawn of time, and it's absurd to pretend that we don't, or we shouldn't.

Here are some of the best of the best among us, among them Olympic athletes past, current and future.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

And here for an ESPN photo gallery.

Bearing down, Sochi-style, for volunteers

SOCHI, Russia -- For those of us lucky enough to live in Los Angeles,  it's both normal and yet incredible what inevitably happens when there's some sort of Olympic-themed event in town. It has already been 26 years since the 1984 Summer Games. And yet, whenever there's something Olympic going on, it's all but guaranteed that someone in the crowd will, unprompted, announce both that he or she was a volunteer at those 1984 Games and that it still ranks way up high there on the list of life's great experiences.

Which is why being here, in Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Games, is -- among many reasons -- so intriguing.

There's no real volunteer culture in Russia.

And that's a fact they're trying to change -- indeed, already making some small headway -- with the Sochi Games as catalyst. A "new page in our country," Dmitri Vityutnev,  the Russian official overseeing the volunteer effort, said in a speech  here Thursday.

That there is a Russian ministry official in charge of volunteering speaks to the nature of how things are different here than in, for instance, the United States, where the tradition is firmly established and is hardly considered a state function.

That there is a Russian ministry official in charge of volunteering also speaks, loudly and clearly, to how an Olympics can produce a legacy that extends beyond the construction of, say, a ski jump ramp -- and how that legacy doesn't have to wait until a Games is over to become real.

"The volunteers are a new generation -- like the generation in the mid-'60s called the baby boomers," said a 19-year-old university student, Ekaterina Tskhakaya, a volunteer at a 10-day workshop here for what's called Generations for Peace.

All six prior Generations for Peace workshops -- the outreach project aims to use sport as a means to defuse conflict -- have been held in the Middle East. The program was launched by Prince Feisal of Jordan and his wife, Princess Sarah, a couple increasingly influential in International Olympic Committee circles.

This seventh workshop is here, in Sochi -- in part a reflection of the growth of the Generation for Peace brand and in part a mini-model for some of the initiatives the Russians aim to promote before, during and after the 2014 Games.

Like the concept of volunteerism.

Most people in the world will never attend an Olympic Games in person. For that matter, even in a city staging the Games it may not be all that easy to score a ticket.

Those two reasons explain why the reach of the movement arguably finds its greatest one-to-one in-person connection in one of two ways:

The journey of the Olympic flame relay.

And volunteering.

An Olympics, Summer or Winter, is now such a grand-scale undertaking that it would be impossible to run a Games without volunteers. The London 2012 organizing committee volunteer effort, for instance, makes for Britain's biggest post-World War II volunteer recruiting campaign.

London 2012 organizers need 70,000 volunteers. They announced Thursday that more than 100,000 have already applied, 2012 Games chairman Seb Coe telling the Associated Press he is "thrilled with the response we've had."

A volunteer force that's sub-par can make for a major Games buzz-kill. On the other hand, a great volunteer crew indisputably makes a great Games great.

Wilfried Lemke, the United Nations' special advisor on the use of sport as a development and peace-building tool, said here earlier in the week amid a presentation to the Generations for Peace group -- 57 delegates from 11 nations -- that what he recalls most about the 2008 Beijing Games is the volunteer spirit.

"I might forget who won the 5,000 meters in track and field. But," he said referring to an 18-year-old volunteer, Wang Yang, who helped look after him in Beijing, "I will never forget the kindness of how she welcomed me with a ni hao every morning," Chinese for hello and welcome.

It's foolish to pretend that such one-on-one goodwill doesn't hold the potential for positive political, diplomatic and business consequences.

There are roughly 20-some million Australians and before the 2000 Sydney Games there were doubts in some quarters about the ability of a nation that small to pull it all off. Now those Games are remembered as one of the best-ever, if not the best, and in significant measure because the volunteers were so incredibly friendly and helpful.

"I've had successive prime ministers tell me that when they travel other world leaders want to talk to them about the Sydney Games," the head of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, said in an interview last month marking the tenth anniversary of those Games.

Vityutnev on Thursday handed out a passport-sized booklet to the Generations for Peace audience, and for the six Russians among the 57 it probably held extra significance -- Vityutnev saying the idea is that volunteers will fill the booklet just like you fill a real passport, and that a record of such volunteer service will be promoted as a career-builder.

Russia is hardly the only country in this part of the world confronting -- in some cases again, in some anew -- the concept of volunteerism.

In Serbia, "we have had to build it up again like a phoenix," said Andrej Pavlovich, one of the 57 in the audience. A 30-year-old English teacher, he served as a supervisor in the organizing of more than 10,000 volunteers for the 2009 University Games in Belgrade. A "milestone," he said.

They're looking for 25,000 volunteers for the Sochi 2014 Games.

There were 10 on hand here Thursday at the Generations for Peace workshop, identifiable in their white T-shirts with black sleeves or blue polo shirts.

"Hey, every1! I'm a Volunteer!" Dana Vorokova wrote in the volunteers' newsletter (already -- a volunteers' newsletter). "It's G8!"

Ekaterina Tskhakaya also contributed to the newsletter. She wrote, "The obligations of volunteers have no limits. You can never know what kind of situation you will face, and when.

"You must always be ready to take on any job and this is what makes our work exciting. It starts from stuffing refrigerators with water and providing delegates with pens to helping the lecturers make their presentations and translating to royal highnesses.

"You know, when sending applications to participation in the event you never know what surprises are waiting for you. I love this feeling of getting involved in all sorts of activity, gaining all-around experience, investigating and which is more important -- making your own contribution to the event."

She's 22, not a grandmother

Before it became the province of girls on the way to becoming women, it used to be that being a woman was normal in what is, after all, called women's gymnastics. Hungary's Agnes Keleti was 35 when she and 21-year-old Larysa Latynina dueled for gold in the all-around at the 1956 Summer Games. Latynina, competing for the Soviet Union, was 29 when in 1964 she won the last of her 18 Olympic medals. Czechoslovakia's Vera Caslavska won Olympic gold in the all-around twice, the second time in 1968, when she was 26.

Then came teen-agers Olga and Nadia and Mary Lou -- and, recently, all those teen Chinese girls.

The sport has changed.

Or has it? Because clearly there's still a place for someone like Alicia Sacramone, who is already 22 -- and closing in, in December, on 23.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

Chicago 2016 - can a loss be a win?

CHICAGO -- Destyne Butler Jr. is a young boxer. As the intriguing new movie chronicling Chicago's unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Summer Games opens, the camera catches Destyne banging away in the gym and then saying, "It's all going to pay off in the long run, and I know I can make it." Maybe, in its way, that's the Chicago 2024 motto, too. Or Chicago 2028. Or Chicago 2032.

Not that anything like that, and for sure not a most unlikely 2020 bid, is the main point of the film.

It nonetheless remains an unavoidable subtext, and the documentary's recap of the 2016 race can't help but look ahead to what might be someday, with new takes from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and bid chief Pat Ryan, along with some logical thinking from U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun.

Indeed, Ryan says at one point, "I believe Chicago should bid again."

But, again, that's not the central point. Instead, it's this: Can a loss nonetheless be a win?

No one likes losing, and losing was particularly difficult in the case of Chicago 2016 because it was indisputably the most complete Olympic bid ever put forward by the United States. It featured a great technical plan based along the city's lakefront enhanced by unprecedented business and political support.

President Obama made a personal appeal as part of Chicago's presentation to the International Olympic Committee last Oct. 2 in Copenhagen. Yet Chicago got bounced in the first round, with only 18 votes, Rio de Janeiro winning in a landslide. "Shocked. I really was. Never anticipated it," Ryan says of the first-round exit.

It would be easy, of course, to make a documentary about a winning Olympic bid. The 44-minute Chicago film, produced by Mark Mitten, written and directed by Mitten and Jim Schmidt and due to air Saturday on Chicago's NBC affiliate, the one-year anniversary of the 2016 vote, is believed to be one of the very few on a losing campaign. It might even be a first -- insiders from losing bids generally not eager to re-visit that sort of thing on film. (Disclosure: I was among those interviewed for the movie. No idea if I made the final cut.)

The documentary -- here's a clip -- skirts the many controversies involving the IOC's complex relationship with the USOC that are widely believed to have played a key role in sinking Chicago's aspirations.

It's not that Mitten and Schmidt don't know about the controversies. Mitten was the bid's chief brand officer; he and Schmidt, a principal at Downtown Partners Chicago, worked on all the bid's campaign films. Some critics may thus declare the film, entitled Making Big Plans: The Story of Chicago's Olympic Dream, guilty of omission.

At the same time, it's not clear that much -- if anything -- would be gained by rehashing those conflicts, in particular the USOC's plan to launch its own television network. The USOC made that announcement in the summer of 2009 over ferocious IOC objections; ultimately, the USOC abandoned the project.

Besides, the film's focus is elsewhere:

"Chicago didn’t lose," Ryan says. "Rio won.  But Chicago won in so many ways."

If some will be tempted to say that's self-serving or just so much rationalization, consider:

The Chicago bid generated undeniable civic spirit; it positioned Chicago on the world stage; it also produced significant partnerships and real-world job and other benefits.

One example: The 2016 Fund for Chicago Neighborhoods, for example, used $2 million left over from the bid to attract $18 million in federal matching funds for job-training programs in South Side neighborhoods. Some 2,200 people stand to benefit.

Another: The bid branded Chicago, previously known around the world perhaps for Al Capone or Michael Jordan, in ways that arguably nothing else could. "We put Chicago on the global map, with all the publicity and all the competition -- it was worth it," Daley says.

If one day there is another Chicago bid, it will be under the direction of another mayor. Daley recently announced plans to leave office.

Ryan has made clear, too, that while he would be happy to advise and support another bid, someone else will be in charge.

As things stand now, there are only three cities in the United States that can legitimately aim to mount and then win a Summer Games bid: Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. The USOC has made it abundantly plain that no American bid will even be considered until a longstanding dispute with the IOC over the USOC's shares of broadcasting and marketing revenues is resolved.

There's no timetable for getting that done. So any bid talk  has to be considered hypothetical.

"If and when we do want to reconsider a bid, we are definitely going to want to be in a dialogue with the people of Chicago – a combination of the great leadership that they were able to put together, the great plan," Blackmun, who has been chief executive since January and played no part in the 2009 campaign, says in the movie, adding, "I think we definitely want to revisit that with Chicago at some point in the future."

Again, and for emphasis: Blackmun was not endorsing Chicago and he was not slyly suggesting the Americans are up to something for 2020. He was speaking in the hypothetical.

The film does, however, give voice to the obvious question:

"Should we bid again?" asks Scott Myers, the executive director of World Sport Chicago, another legacy of the bid, its youth sport-oriented organization.

"I think we should bid again," Bill Scherr, World Sport Chicago's president, answers.

"Chicago should bid again," Phil Enquist, an architect and key 2016 Games planner, says.

Lori Healey, the Chicago 2016 president, says, "Never say never, right?"

Ryan says the bid team "put our bid plan in a time capsule and it's there to be taken out by a future mayor and business community and community leaders. And it will be very timely because what was great about our bid was the physical beauty and lakefront and parks of the city, and that’s not going away.

"So when there is another bid, it will cost far less than our bid cost. And it could be eight years, 12 years, 16 years."

He also says, "The Olympic bid -- it was a great, great thing for Chicago," adding, "Some day Chicago will host the Olympics."

Maybe. It's like Destyne Butler Jr. also says: "I want to make history."

'Beyond Sport,' and the right thing to do

CHICAGO -- Far too often it is said overseas that the primary interest -- indeed, perhaps the only interest -- in the United States in the Olympic movement is money. That is, making as much money as possible off the Olympics.

The rest? The Olympic spirit and all that? Commitment to the values that underpin the Olympic ideal? Attention to the idea that sport can cut across social and political differences and move the world forward, bit by bit?

Those who would hold fast to the idea that it's only a dash for cash here in the States ought to have been part of the crowd Wednesday at the opening of what was called the 2010 "Beyond Sport" summit.

"Fellow agents of positive social change," Jordan's Prince Feisal Al Hussein, an International Olympic Committee member and the founder of an initiative called "Generations for Peace," said in beginning a speech that focused on "how we can get sport to effect great and lasting social change."

It's not treacly and it's not saccharine to say such things.  Just the opposite. Talking about such values and such goals -- and then doing something about it -- is what makes it all real.

That said, the point here Wednesday was not that world peace suddenly broke out. Of course not.

The point is that there are efforts underway to recognize the distinct role that sport, and the Olympic movement in particular, can play in effecting change.

"This is what the 'Beyond Sport' summit is all about -- getting the world to listen," the prince said from the lectern.

World Sport Chicago, the group created to promote the legacy of Chicago's unsuccessful 2016 bid, played a key role in organizing the event here, which runs through Thursday.

Again: Chicago is not now in the bid game. If Chicago ever again launches an Olympic bid, it will be many years down the line. Yet here were World Sport Chicago and the United States Olympic Committee, stepping up -- with no expectation of immediate pay-off from the IOC, maybe no bid-related pay-off ever.

It was just the right thing to do.

"We think it's important for Chicago, and for the United States, to host these international sports conferences and events," Bill Scherr, the president of World Sport Chicago, said in an interview, adding, "We think it connects us."

Scott Blackmun, the chief executive of the USOC, took part in the very first panel discussion on the agenda, an examination of "legacy delivery."

"Yes, we're doing a lot. No, we're not doing enough," Caryl Stern, the president and chief executive of UNICEF USA, said as part of that panel.

Added Tim Leiweke, the chief executive of AEG Worldwide, "We have to do more," noting that sports and music are "the only two entities that break through."

"A generation ago, this conference wouldn't happen," Blackmun said, noting the power of the stories of Olympic athletes to inspire not just young people but influence-makers on Capitol Hill.

Just last Saturday, at the conclusion of the USOC's annual assembly in Colorado Springs, Colo., Blackmun, asked about the way he and USOC board chairman Larry Probst have this year quietly but pointedly emphasized a commitment to relationship-building with international sports officials, said, "I think the 90-degree right turn is for us to be more engaged and become more active participants.

"That," he said, "means showing up."

Like at events such as Beyond Sport.

Among other provocative discussions on the schedule here:

What good can sports celebrities do -- what's possible and what's not?

How can sport provide opportunities for girls' and women's education?

Can sports programs help reduce youth violence? How?

"There could be no greater legacy to Chicago's Olympic bid than to commit to Chicago's young people… [and to explore] how sport can play a crucial role in the urban environment," Nick Keller, the founder of Beyond Sport, said Wednesday from the lectern.

Again, the point is not that answers were fully divined in the great ballroom of the Palmer House in Chicago's Loop.

It's the pursuit of those answers.

That is, the affirmation of some of the key values that animate the Olympic spirit between editions of the Games, among them "courage, boldness, tenacity, humanity," Keller said in asserting, "We want you to be moved … to forge the next set of connections … to use sport to address the next set of the world's great challenges."

"We all believe sport can bring youth away from and into very important things, away from crime, away from violence, and into academics, into sport, into character development," Pat Ryan, the head of the Chicago 2016 bid and chairman of World Sport Chicago, said in his address.

"Archimedes once said, 'Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth,' " Prince Feisal said a moment or two later.

It was the "prerogative" of those in the room to do so, he said, then paused and corrected himself: "No, it's our duty."

USOC: 'an exciting new time'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- After Larry Probst and Scott Blackmun had given first-rate speeches to the hundreds gathered here at the Antlers Hilton hotel for the U.S. Olympic Committee's annual assembly, the two senior USOC officials, with a gaggle of reporters in tow, found a small room just off the big ballroom for an impromptu news conference. This was the Jackson Room, named not for the seventh president but for a 19th-century Colorado photographer. A big wooden table dominated Mr. William Jackson's room. Blackmun took one of the blue chairs on one side of the table, Probst the chair right next to him.

Probst, in his shirt and tie, jacket off, leaned back in the chair, waiting for the first question. The two of them hadn't yet said a word in this little clutch but their body language said everything: relaxed, calm, comfortable, confident, in charge.

What a difference a year makes.

And what buzz around what traditionally has been a lackluster, even dreary, event.

This year, the scene at the assembly and its related programs was marked with energy, enthusiasm and a distinct sense of inclusion, from the opening reception Wednesday (a packed house swarming the bruschetta and the fried shrimp, and how about the support of that Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau!) through the wrap-up meetings Saturday.

The catch phrase that appeared on the literature the USOC distributed here read "one team," and that sentiment seemed to strike home.

One example from among many: Dick Ebersol, the NBC Universal Sports & Olympics chairman who last autumn was a vocal USOC critic, delivered the keynote address Friday night. Probst introduced him as "our good friend and partner."

Another example: Mark Emmert, the incoming NCAA president, made a joint appearance Thursday morning with Blackmun and while they didn't announce any major initiatives, it didn't matter; the point was that the guys in charge of the USOC and NCAA were on stage together.

"I have said this repeatedly: I am more enthusiastic about this organization and this movement today than I have been at any point in the last 10 years," Dave Ogrean, the executive director of USA Hockey, said at a cocktail party Friday night.

"The best presentation I have heard in my 32 years of association with the USOC by its leaders," a former USOC spokesman, Mike Moran, posted on his Facebook page, referring to the Probst and Blackmun speeches to the assembly. "Candid, on the money and substantial."

Donna de Varona, the Olympic swim gold medalist turned sportscaster and women's- and athletes'-rights activist, called the meeting the "most inclusive, visionary and inspirational gathering in the history of the U.S. movement."

A pause: the USOC's history is filled with much-documented starts, stops, missteps and missed opportunities.

One also must note that the success of the moment hardly guarantees anything in the future. See above: USOC starts, stops, missteps, etc.

Even so, this assembly made for a great convention, and it would thus be irresponsible for the reasonable observer not to relate the obvious: There is a renewed sense of optimism and can-do within and around the USOC, and it's primarily because of leadership. That means Probst, the USOC chairman, and Blackmun, the chief executive.

"Larry has not only found his role but his voice," Doug Logan, the outgoing USA Track & Field executive, said in an interview. "And Scott is not only doing the right things and saying the right things but saying them with the right inflection."

From the daïs Friday evening, Ebersol, referring to Probst and Blackmun, said, "Let me say very clearly: congratulations for the start of this incredible turnaround. We are very lucky we have your leadership. And we hope we have it for a very long time."

It was last Oct. 2 that the International Olympic Committee delivered its humiliating verdict on Chicago's 2016 chances -- out, despite the personal lobbying in Copenhagen by President Obama himself, in the first round, with only 18 votes. Later that day, Rio de Janeiro would win going away.

A lot of things that had bubbling for a lot of time led to that vote, which Probst in his speech here Friday called, among other terms, "devastating." Some of it involved the USOC's complex relationship with the IOC. Some of it revolved around the USOC itself.

The criticism and turmoil that ensued afterward produced weeks, indeed months, of reflection and re-engineering -- institutional and, for Probst in particular, personal.

Stephanie Streeter, the USOC's acting chief executive, stepped down; Blackmun, who had been a candidate for the CEO job nearly 10 years ago, got the job this time and said Friday that "in retrospect I am grateful to be standing here now instead of then."

Why? Because then the USOC "wasn't structured to succeed." Now, Blackmun said in his assembly speech, "I am filled with optimism about the future of our American Olympic family, and in particular about the future of the USOC."

In part that's because of Blackmun himself. He is modest and speaks softly. The staff loves him.

In part that's because of Probst. He weathered furious criticism after Copenhagen, then -- as Blackmun put it -- "stepped forward to listen" and learn. As the senior USOC official, and thus its key protocol figure, he has since been traveling the world, meeting with IOC members, with plans in the coming weeks to go to Mexico, Japan, China and Serbia, among others.

"It's a relationship business," Blackmun, who is also a frequent flier, said. "We have to start by being present."

Finally, there's the way Probst and Blackmun work together. To simplify something that by its nature is more complex, indeed laden with nuance: Probst hired Blackmun to be in charge, and Probst lets Blackmun run the USOC.

The two get together by phone every Tuesday morning. Of course they trade emails and make other calls as warranted. "There is a high level of communication between us," Probst said in Mr. Jackson's room, adding, "Having said that, he is the CEO and I have no intention of being the CEO of the USOC."

In his speech, Probst said, "We are being honest and open and present and I believe we are on the right track," and while he was referring specifically to the USOC's international outreach, he could have been speaking of so much more.

Ebersol said, "I knew I was coming here for what is really an exciting new time for the United States Olympic Committee and for the Olympic movement in the United States. Just think: a year ago that would have been unthinkable, absolutely unthinkable."

The USOC's "new direction" (for real)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A year after Chicago's "devastating" 2016 loss, a regrouped U.S. Olympic Committee can rightly call the past 12 months extraordinarily challenging and yet "one of the best" years ever, USOC chairman Larry Probst asserted Friday. In addresses to the annual USOC assembly, Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun pointed to, among other accomplishments, 37 medals won by American athletes at the Vancouver Games, key top-tier sponsor deals, a far-reaching study aimed at re-making the USOC board, re-engagement with domestic groups such as national governing body officials and intensive relationship-building internationally.

Blackmun called it a "new direction," one that he told the hundreds gathered for the USOC's annual assembly ought to make "us all incredibly proud to say we are part of the United States Olympic Committee."

The tone and tenor, along with the substance itself, of Friday's remarks served as an unveiling of sorts of a USOC with clearly articulated plans -- even, in a marked change given the USOC's historic zigs and zags, a remarkably defined vision, both near- and long-term.

All of it, and in particular the vision thing, both Probst and Blackmun made clear, is rooted in a thorough re-evaluation tied to Chicago's first-round defeat last Oct. 2 in Copenhagen in the International Olympic Committee's 2016 voting.

Rio de Janeiro won. Chicago, despite a first-rate technical plan and unprecedented leadership that extended to the White House -- President Obama even making a last-minute personal appeal in Copenhagen to the IOC -- was unceremoniously sent off in the first round, with only 18 votes.

In some of the most frank comments on the matter ever delivered from senior USOC leadership on the matter, Probst on Friday said Chicago's loss was not just "devastating" but  "shocking."

He also said, "It was a bid of incredible technical merit and social promise. And yet we lost tragically in Round One."

The loss, and a wave of ferocious criticism it unleashed, some from NGB officials, "opened my eyes to the fact that we had serious problems within our own family" and convinced him that "nothing short of a full transformation in our relationships and our governance was needed," Probst said.

He said, "The situation called for a year of real action, which I would describe as significant and sustainable change."

Thus:

Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue was commissioned to lead a study that likely will see the USOC board expanded here from 11 to 15 members, among other changes.

In January, Blackmun was hired as chief executive.

Probst began traveling the world -- now with a clear understanding that in the  nuanced world of IOC politics, the USOC board chairman holds senior protocol status and must be the American point person.

The USOC and IOC recently announced, in the aftermath of worldwide sponsor deals cut with Proctor & Gamble and Dow Chemical, a deal under which the USOC would help underwrite certain so-called administrative "Games costs." The amount, which neither side would publicly confirm: $18 million.

That deal sets the table for more complex negotiations aimed at resolving a long-standing tensions between the USOC and IOC over the USOC's singular shares of certain IOC revenues. The USOC gets 12.75 percent of the U.S. broadcast rights fee package and 20 percent of worldwide marketing revenues; some have called those shares unfair.

No timetable has been set for resolution of the revenue-splits dispute, Probst said Friday.

Moreover, Blackmun said, the USOC has no plan to bid for the Games any time soon. Asked in an informal news conference if he could definitively rule out a 2020 Summer Games bid -- the IOC will pick the 2020 site in 2013 -- Blackmun declined to do so but called the notion "highly unlikely."

Blackmun, in his address to the assembly, also unveiled a wide-ranging strategic plan that called, among other matters, for the USOC to develop relationships with government leaders in Washington, to formally define its Paralympic commitment and to ensure return on investment on the millions spent on projects such as the Olympic Training Centers scattered throughout the country.

"First and foremost," Blackmun said, "we have to earn the credibility and trust of our constituents and partners," adding a moment later, "We lost that credibility and we lost that trust."

As Probst, a few moments earlier, had said, "In many ways, last year was a year of earning trust. Trust doesn't happen because of titles or past accomplishments. Trust doesn't come from promises. Trust belongs to the province of relationships. You build trust by earning respect, and developing friendships, both at home and abroad.

"And I think the journey we've begun is headed in the direction of real trust and genuine respect."

Dara is back, and that's good

True enough, over the past year or so Dara Torres hadn't committed herself to competitive swimming. Not in any way. Not with the knee surgery, the shoulder surgery, the book tour, the motivational speaking, the travel -- and, most important, the being a mom to daughter Tessa, who's now 4 1/2. Then again, Dara secretly probably knew deep down all along that vying for London and 2012 was her destiny. And here is the telling clue: All this time, she kept herself in the athlete drug-testing pool.

"So if I decided to swim again," she was saying the other day on the telephone, "people wouldn't question me," wouldn't be able to suggest that she'd had a lengthy window to do whatever or use whatever.

And, she said, "They were very diligent in continuing to test me."

Earlier this month, on the "Live with Regis and Kelly" TV show, Dara said she's back in the game. She said she intends to try to make the London 2012 Summer Games, a turn that's good for her, good for swimming, good for the Olympic movement.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

Judo Princess, world champion

When she was just 12, Kayla Harrison gave herself a nickname: Judo Princess. It's still part of her email address. The princess fights tough. Now she's world champion.

At judo's world championships earlier this month in Tokyo, Kayla Harrison, now 20 years old, beat 19-year-old Mayra Aguiar of Brazil in sudden-death overtime to win the 78-kilogram (172-pound) division.

Her victory shines a spotlight on a sport that may be poised to be one of the American success stories come London and 2012. At the same time, it also shows just how long and uncertain the road to an Olympic medal can be for athletes in sports such as judo, where you sure don't do it for money but you indisputably need some amount of money to even have a shot at making it.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

Sydney: still the best-ever

The night that Cathy Freeman won the 400 at the Sydney Olympics, some 118,000 people jammed into Olympic Stadium. Down on the field, she would later say, the sound and light and noise was almost overwhelming. So, too, the expectation. She said it was like trying to get your bearings and finding yourself in electric jello. Just off the track, in a VIP box near the finish line, the chief organizer of those 2000 Sydney Games, Michael Knight, was sharing the evening with a number of influential aboriginal activists, among them Lyall Munro, a campaigner for aboriginal rights since the 1960s.

Cathy Freeman, in Lane Six, was not first as the field swung around the final turn, the stadium keening with sound. But then she turned on the jets. She won convincingly. And as she crossed the line, as all those in Knight's box gave in to cheers and hugs, they noticed that Lyall Munro had tears in his eyes. They were tears of joy.

"In 50 seconds," Lyall Munro told Michael Knight that night, a rough estimate of how long it took Cathy Freeman to complete one revolution around the track, "that young woman has done for my people than I've done in a lifetime."

The tenth anniversary of the Sydney Olympics arrived Wednesday. Already so long ago -- there have been five editions of the Games since, Summer or Winter -- and yet those 2000 Games remain for many the best Olympics ever.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.