Aaron Peirsol, swim ambassador and waterman

Now that he's retired from competition, all of 27 years old, we can let you in on a little secret about Aaron Peirsol, the greatest backstroke swimmer the United States of America ever produced. It has always been one of the great joys of journalism to write about Aaron, winner of seven Olympic medals, five of them gold.

Win or lose, Aaron has always gracious, thoughtful, passionate. Any competition was better because Aaron was there, big or small. Especially small. That's when you really got a chance to talk to him -- and even in the weirdness of what's called the "mixed zone," where athletes and reporters mingle, the breadth and depth of his interests would inevitably surface, anything and everything from politics and current events to literature to his zeal for environmental protection.

Even at the biggest of the big meets he was a champ, and in the biggest sense of that word. At the world championships two years ago in Rome, when he didn't qualify for the finals of the 100-meter backstroke, a race he had essentially owned, he straight-up said it was his own fault. He didn't pout. He came back and won the 200 back, and broke his own world record.

Aaron formally announced his retirement earlier this year, and as they say, one door closes and another opens. Now the sport has on call one of the greatest ambassadors you could ever ask for. And the man is totally willing.

His message: swimming is more than just up and down, back and forth, in a pool, looking down at that black stripe.

Swimming is about water, and our planet is water, and water is life itself.

"If I could get each swimmer on the [U.S.] national team one thing," Aaron was saying the other day, "it would be a pair of body-surfing fins.

"Get out there and have fun. Don't lose perspective on why you do this."

Training for the Olympics can, let's face it, be a grind. But the fact is, that kind of training imbues dozens if not hundreds of hometown standouts with an enviable skill set. That's a simple message that Aaron is trying to get other elite swimmers to try to better understand.

Because if they can understand it -- it stands to reason that they can pass that message along.

This is, actually, the way it works. Aaron grew up looking up at the guys who seemed larger than life -- the guys who already knew how to handle the famed Wedge in Newport Beach, California, one of the world's most famous spots for surfing of all sorts. He started in the Junior Lifeguard program in Southern California. At 17, he and his buddies were big enough, good enough and one day confident enough to tackle the Wedge on their own.

Now he's the one with the message. Again, this is how it all works, and how it's supposed to work.

"It's so great to be able to understand that even when you're done with swimming in the pool you have the ability to experience something, to take it to another level -- to use this skill and ability to take it to a level that maybe few people can, to understand that you have a gift. It's just the tip of the iceberg for so many swimmers.

"So many guys on the national team are like, 'I'm never going in the ocean.' I'm like, 'You're joking.' That's why we do this -- so you can get thrown around and be active and explore a little bit with what you can do out there."

Just a couple examples:

This past weekend, in Florida, Aaron took part in an open-ocean race held in honor of Fran Crippen, the American swimmer who died in a race last October in Dubai.

In February, on the North Shore of Oahu, Aaron was among those who took part in the 2011 Pipeline Bodysurfing Classic. Sure, some of those there knew who he was. But the way to earn credibility in that crowd is to do what comes naturally to Aaron Peirsol -- to move with humility and to treat everyone and everything around you, and in particular the ocean, with respect.

"This competition was my first at Pipeline," he said. "I was hesitant because I hadn't gone out a week in advance and practiced, or anything like that. I had only gotten there the night before. I went out early that morning and I was just trying to be as humble as I could be.

"It was so much fun. The waves were such pretty waves. They were just as perfect as could be. You get in the wave and you pick a line and it just shoots you out. It was a good-sized day -- none of it was too big or too scary. Everyone was just having fun.

"For me it was felt so good. It felt like home in my own way. It was nice."

He said, "I would just love to see -- I would just love to have swimmers understand what they have."

Pyeongchang's 2018 evaluation report win

In the old days of the Soviet Union, experts from afar used to watch the grand parades ever so carefully. They would carefully parse the reviewing stand to see which dignitaries were seated next to which generals. That way they might be able to figure out what might really be going on behind the Iron Curtain. It's much the same in trying to divine the real meaning of the International Olympic Committee's evaluation commission reports.

There is, actually, a method to it. It's all nuance. It's not just what is said but how.

Such a close read of the document issued Tuesday makes plain that Pyeongchang, the perceived front-runner all along in the 2018 race, got the best marks, cementing the Korean bid's status heading into next week's pivotal briefing before the full membership at IOC headquarters in Lausanne.

The evaluation commission went to lengths to praise Munich and Annecy, France, too.

But it's the way the praise for Pyeongchang was written, and the way perceived obstacles deflected, that proved so key.

For instance, tensions on the Korean peninsula? Not to worry. Such tensions have existed for 60 years, the report said, adding that "Pyeongchang and the region can be regarded as a safe and low-risk environment for the Games."

Compact venue plans? Check.

Land required for the Games? Roger that.

Public support? "No apparent opposition to the Games." Indeed, the report said, an IOC poll shows support for the Games at 87 percent across Korea, 92 percent in Pyeongchang.

Federal backing? The Korean government assured the IOC that hosting the Games was a national priority.

And then this, probably the most significant sentence in the full report: "Overall, the commission believes the legacy from a 2018 Pyeongchang Games, building on existing legacies from previous Olympic Winter Games bids, would be significant to further develop winter sport in Asia."

Disclaimer: Nothing is predictable in an IOC election. Just ask Paris, the perceived 2012 Summer Games front-runner. Paris lost to London in the final round of voting in 2005.

Further disclaimer: The evaluation report is not nearly as important as the meeting next week in Lausanne and, at the risk of being obvious, the IOC session in July, in Durban, South Africa, at which the 2018 vote will be taken.

Even so: What the evaluation commission report can do is offer members a safe harbor. That is -- a rationale, if they want one, for voting a particular way.

For instance, this from the summary section of the 2016 evaluation commission document: "A Rio 2016 Games aims to showcase Brazil's and Rio's capabilities, social and economic development and natural features."

Like the sentence about Pyeongchang and legacy -- that just radiates sunny optimism.

Compare this from the summary section about Chicago's 2016 bid. The "well-designed and compact" athletes' village would be a "special experience." But transport, in a city where the el train takes people everywhere, was somehow thought to be a "major challenge."  Temporary venues, which the bid committee had played up as a clever innovation, "increases the element of risk." Worst of all, Chicago 2016 had not at press time provided the necessary finance guarantees and "the commission informed the bid that a standard Host City Contract applied to all cities."

Thud. And you wonder why, among other reasons, Chicago got just 18 votes and was bounced in the first round?

It's not the "technical" stuff itself. It's more the way those elements contribute to the perception of a bid that sometimes starts sweeping the membership.

To be clear, this 2018 report -- like its predecessors -- absolutely does not rank the cities. The report presents the race as a three-horse derby, saying "each city's concept offers a viable option to the IOC though the very nature of each project presents different risks."

Again, though, when the report gently -- or as in the case of Chicago, not so gently -- points out challenges, that's when you have to ask, why? Of all the things the commission could point out, why this? And how did this come about?

In Munich's case, the report was -- no question -- positive, as it should have been, given that many of the 1972 Summer Games venues would be re-used for the Winter Games; the allure of Munich itself, one of the world's most dynamic cities; and avid German crowd and financial support for winter sports. But then this:

"There is some opposition to the bid at the local level," the report said, and the IOC opinion poll fixed public support for the Games at 60 percent in Munich, 53 percent in Bavaria and 56 percent nationally.

Poll numbers in the 50s and 60s? Uh-oh.

Munich bid leaders say their own poll now shows a 75 percent nationwide approval rating.

For its part, Annecy got way better marks in this report than in a survey several months ago, the commission even citing the Annecy vision of being a "catalyst and a model for sustainable development in the mountain region."

Nonetheless, the report said, Annecy still faces basic logistical issues, including a "relatively spread out" system of athlete villages that would pose "operational and transport challenges" for coaches and athletes.

It's all right there. You just have to know how to read it.

As ever with the IOC members, however, you don't know if they do read these reports. After all, this one runs to 119 pages.

Like trying to decipher generals from potentates at the old-style parades,  there has to be a better way -- but that's a column for another day, perhaps after the vote this coming July.

Angela Ruggiero's amazing ride

Even by the standards of Angela Ruggiero's already remarkable life, she had an amazing winter. Well, and early spring. Here was Angela as International Olympic Committee member, wining and dining and flying all over the world as part of the select IOC commission evaluating the three cities in the 2018 Winter Games race -- Pyeongchang, South Korea; Munich, Germany; and Annecy, France. Glamorous? Sure. But hard work -- the commission prepared a lengthy report that was issued Tuesday rating all three. And hard on the body -- the last photo op in France took place on a Saturday night and the commission had to be peppy and hard at work in Korea early on a Wednesday morning.

Here, too, was Angela as world-class hockey player, now in late April in Zurich, capping her tenth world championships with a gold medal, a 3-2 overtime victory over Canada, Hillary Knight scoring the winner 7:48 into overtime.

"I feel so lucky to be a part of it," Angela said, meaning both worlds, adding, "They're completely different worlds, for sure. One day, I'm talking to the president or prime minister of France or Korea or Germany.

"The next day I'm in the gym, lifting weights or on the treadmill, talking to my college-age teammates about their exams coming up.

"They're just completely different worlds."

The IOC evaluation commission traditionally reserves a spot for an athlete's point of view. But it's not clear that any serving athlete has been as ever been as simultaneously engaged in both commission and athletic career as Angela Ruggiero.

As ever, Angela is something of a pioneer.

For instance, the great Russian swimmer Alex Popov served on the 2016 Summer Games commission -- but he was no longer racing competitively when the commission made its rounds in 2009.

Similarly, Canadian cross-country skiing great Beckie Scott served on the 2014 Winter Games commission that did its work in 2007. She had retired from competitive skiing the year before.

One more example: Frankie Fredericks, the track and field star from the African nation of Namibia, served on the 2012 Summer Games commission, which performed its duties in early 2005. He had retired from competition at the end of the 2004 outdoor season.

Angela became an IOC member last year, at the Vancouver Games, elected as an athlete amid a career that has seen her win four Olympic medals (one gold, two silver and one bronze) -- so far. She's only 31. Noting that the Detroit Red Wings' 40-year-old Nick Lidstrom was just nominated for the NHL's Norris Trophy, the league's best defenseman award, which he has already won six times, she said, "In hockey years, I'm not that old."

Among other accomplishments, Angela also, and this makes for just a few highlights:

-- Was among those  honored by carrying the World Trade Center flag into the opening ceremony at the Salt Lake City Games (2002);

-- Earned a Harvard degree (2004);

-- Played in a men's professional hockey game (2005, for the Tulsa Oilers of the Central Hockey League);

-- And, of course, hung tough through several rounds of "The Apprentice" (2007).

That world championship gold marked the Americans team's fourth world title in the last five events.

Oh -- just before the hockey season got underway, Angela moved. She packed up last fall, from Los Angeles and settled back into Cambridge, Mass.

For most people, moving cross-country would be enough.

For Angela -- that was just the start of that zany ride through winter, and into spring. With more yet to come. The full IOC meets next week in Lausanne, Switzerland, to review the report that was issued Tuesday. In July, in Durban, South Africa, the IOC will elect the 2018 city.

There were times this winter, Angela said, when it all seemed like a blur. But at the same time -- great fun.

"I remember going to the gym -- and there are no windows in my gym -- and it was 8 in the morning. But it was 8 in the evening in Korea," which was still the time her body was on. "My training," she laughed, "was still a little bit off."

She said, "I was asked by the IOC president to be on this very important commission. For me, it was the chance of a lifetime. It was -- it was an unbelievable experience."

On Peter Vidmar's resignation as U.S. chef de mission

As a journalist, I totally get why Peter Vidmar stepped down Friday as chef de mission of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team. As Peter's friend, I find the whole thing profoundly regrettable. Candidly, I deplore the rush to judgment amid the political correctness and the intense immediacy of the 24-hour news cycle that in many regards has overtaken our political and media cultures. I also wish we could all find a way to tone down the often-incendiary rhetoric that nowadays seems way too common in far too many conversations in the public sphere  -- even in a case such as this one, which in theory revolves around sports but underscores yet again how sports and politics are intertwined.

Again, as a journalist -- I get it. I get all of it. Believe me, Peter does, too.

Understand: Peter has been on our side of the journalists' fence. He was, for instance, a working commentator at the 2008 Games in Beijing; he and I sat right next to each other in the press tribune in the gymnastics arena for a full week. And so he knew now where this was going. As much as a distraction as this might have been on Thursday and Friday, it was nothing compared to the noise once, say, the British tabloids might have seized upon it.

Peter's participation in two demonstrations on behalf of the successful 2008 Proposition 8 ballot initiative in California, and his donation of $2,000 to that cause, was threatening to become a major distraction. He really had no choice.

Understand, too: The USOC accepted the resignation but was prepared to stand by Peter.

Peter Vidmar is one of the finest human beings you would ever want to meet. I said he is my friend -- I was proud to call him my friend before this outburst started and I'm proud to call him my friend now.

Here's what is so troubling about all this.

Roughly within just one 24-hour news cycle, Peter became a symbol of something he absolutely is not. Just because you take a position against gay marriage does not mean you're anti-gay.

"I fully respect the rights of everyone to have the relationships they want to have," Peter told the Chicago Tribune in an interview in the story that started all of this. "I respect the rights of all of our athletes, regardless of their race, their religion or their sexual orientation."

Nonetheless, figure skater Johnny Weir told the Tribune it was "disgraceful" that Peter had been named the 2012 U.S. team leader.

Johnny is fully entitled to his opinion. That's the American way.

This is the American way, too:

Peter took part in the American democratic process. The First Amendment guarantees his rights to religious expression -- his Mormon faith teaches him that marriage is between a man and a woman -- and to peaceably assemble.

It's a pretty straight line from there, amplified by coverage in the Tribune and USA Today, to his decision to step down.

When the retributive process for taking a stand for something you might genuinely believe in can be so ferocious that a profoundly decent person like Peter Vidmar has to withdraw, it has to give you serious pause.

Also: If Mormon beliefs are an Olympic disqualifier -- remind me, how did we have those Games in Salt Lake City in 2002?

Moreover, how is it that Mitt Romney, who is Mormon and who led the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, can be elected governor of Massachusetts and now finds himself a credible candidate for president of the United States, and a conservative Republican candidate at that, but Peter Vidmar shouldn't be the USOC's team leader in 2012? Really?

This is also the fact -- Prop 8 is the law of the state in which Peter and I both live. It passed in the November 2008 election, with about 7 million votes, 52.2 percent of the ballots.

It's absolutely the case that the Olympic movement stands against discrimination. It's one of the "fundamental principles" of the Olympic charter.

I'm not here to defend Prop 8. I voted against it. Peter knows that, just as he knows that I respect his position, and the basis of his stance. As a matter of logic, though, isn't it worth asking the question: is it really discriminatory to hold a position in line with some 7 million other registered voters? More -- is such a position "disgraceful"? Truly?

It's also fact that the Olympic charter doesn't say word one about marriage being between a man and a woman.

The Olympics is not per se about equality.

It's about striving for the best of who we, as humanity, are -- or can be.

The open question is what that all means. The answer: different things to different people.

One expression of that is, of course, equality. But "equality" is susceptible to an incredible variety of interpretations.

Reasonable people have to be able to disagree about big ideas, and to have dialogue without the dialogue immediately becoming what it did in this instance -- inflammatory.

Peter Vidmar has led an exemplary personal and professional life. He would have made an extraordinary team leader. He was an athlete, a double gold medalist; he has led a life of service; he knows the Olympics; he loves the movement.

It's a shame he got bit by sound-bites. As a journalist, I totally understand it. But as his friend and as a fellow American -- that doesn't mean I have to like it, and I don't.

On little girls, heroes and Lindsey Vonn

Kristina Wolff is 11 years old. She is a sixth-grader who lives in Stratham, New Hampshire. She worships Lindsey Vonn, the American skiing champion. Kristina is a true fan. She has pictures of Lindsey on the refrigerator. The whole family -- Kristina and her brother, Kyle, who's 9, and her parents, Kim and Dave -- went out to Vail, Colo., last fall and saw some of the best American skiers train, including Lindsey, of course. Lindsey, who's routinely gracious about this sort of thing, stopped for a photo with the kids, and that only made Lindsey that much more of a hero.

A few nights ago, Kristina was lounging around the living room, and the phone rang. You'll never guess who it was. Well, maybe you might. Sometimes little girls' dreams really do come true.

"This is Lindsey Vonn calling," Lindsey Vonn said.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" Kristina said, though it's kind of hard to figure out precisely how many times she said, "Oh my gosh," since she jumped up like she'd been jolted by electricity and ran from one room into another, her dad filming the entire thing on the video camera.

The rest of the conversation -- you can watch it here -- serves as a powerful reminder of just why Charles Barkley had it so wrong and Lindsey Vonn has it so right.

The world is desperate for heroes. America's Olympic athletes are absolutely role models. Little girls and little boys want to be like them.

It's all rather elegantly simple, and at 11 Kristina Wolff has it all figured out.

Lindsey Vonn is her hero. And why not?

Kristina is an aspiring ski racer. Lindsey is the best female alpine ski racer in American history, with 12 World Cup titles, including three overall crowns, and of course two Olympic medals, including gold in the downhill. Moreover, Lindsey has a history of coming back from amazing falls and spills, so she's powerfully tough. And, besides, Lindsey is blonde and pretty and when she's not skiing she gets to be in movies and on TV shows like "Law and Order."

So why did Lindsey call Kristina, out of all the people in the world? Because Kim Wolff, Kristina's mom, had been searching for a poster for Kristina, and word had gotten around to the people at Red Bull, one of Lindsey's corporate sponsors, about Super-Fan Kristina.

"For such a young little soul, it's just fantastic," Kim said of her daughter's connection with Lindsey.

Kim and Dave, who themselves are active skiers on the master's-racing circuit, actually knew all that day that Lindsey was going to be calling that night -- that's how Dave knew to have the camera ready -- but they didn't say a word.

Kristina, Kim said, has watched literally dozens if not hundreds of interviews with Lindsey on television or on Universal Sports. That's how Kristina knew immediately it really was Lindsey's voice on the other end of the line.

"I was so excited to talk to her," Kristina said in a telephone call.

"When I had gone to Vail, I talked to her for only a little bit. This time she called me and not somebody else. She called me! She chose to talk to me! She chose me to talk to! It was so cool. Out of all her millions of fans -- I was so excited."

When Kristina caught her breath again, the question was put to her -- if you had Lindsey all by yourself, what would you say?

She took a deep breath. She said, "I would probably tell her how much she inspires me and how much I want to be a great athlete like her and how she always -- she doesn't even know she helps me get through stuff, when I remember her and how she doesn't give up.

"Just thinking of her helps me through it and she inspires me to be better every day. to train like her.

"I'd probably hug her, too."

P.S.: After they talked on the phone, Lindsey sent Kristina a signed poster. It reads, "To Kristina, It was great to talk to you on the phone! Good luck with everything! Love, Lindsey Vonn"

Sport and the environment in 21st-century Qatar

DOHA, Qatar -- The International Olympic Committee gave the Japanese swim federation, among others, an award on the occasion of its "9th world conference on sport and the environment" held here over the past several days. For what? At the Japanese national championships, they used to print out race results on paper. The federation switched to a system that posts all results on its website.  Results are posted within 10 seconds after each race is done.

Sheets of paper saved: 2 million. Trees saved: 150.

When the system is put into practice at some 1,500 competitions across Japan in the near future, some 200 million pieces of paper -- 17,000 trees -- will be saved, federation officials estimate.

Let's be honest. A conference like this doesn't itself save the world.

But an initiative like that from the Japanese swim federation is not insignificant. And a conference like this one does highlight ways in which key sports, environmental and political leaders can find ways to talk to each other. And dialogue is always a good thing.

At the outset, Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations environment program, said from the lectern to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, "Our partnership with you is one of the great opportunities to give the world hope and courage."

Closing the event, Rogge vowed at a news conference to "continue our strategy of education, regulation and partnership."

The assembly marked the first time the IOC had held its every-two-years environment meeting in the Middle East.

The conference was the first major session since the IOC became a permanent observer to the UN. It thus made for a prelude of sorts to the 2012 Earth Summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro, the 2016 Olympic city.

More than 80 national Olympic committee representatives were on hand, as were delegates from some 20 international sports federations.

For those more interested in IOC politics -- some two dozen IOC members were also here, along with delegates from each of the three cities in the 2018 bid race: Munich; Annecy, France; and Pyeongchang, South Korea.  The Koreans came up just short in bids for the 2014 and 2010 Winter Games and while environmental issues made for a key theme of those bids, Sun-Kyoo Park, a culture, sport and tourism vice-minister said Monday in an interview with a group of reporters, "It is now more important because green growth has become a global issue."

That the conference took place in Doha was of course most intriguing on another level. This is, as the huge banner outside the conference center, the Sheraton hotel, reminded all put it, the new "global sport center." The golf and tennis tours make regular stops here. They're bidding for the 2017 world track and field championships after holding the first-rate world indoor 2010 championships. They put on the hugely successful 2006 Asian Games. They will put on the Pan-Arab Games this December -- an event that deserves wider attention, with 7,000 athletes.

And, of course, Qatar will stage the 2022 soccer World Cup. And it's in connection with the winning bid for that World Cup that they launched one of the most compelling environmental initiatives in recent memory.

Here they cool soccer stadiums to beat the desert heat.

They've known how to do that for a while. The Al Sadd soccer stadium, for instance, uses such technology. The basic premise is amazingly clever: Cool air is forced through pipes and onto the field to cool the pitch itself; at Al Sadd they took the design factor forward an extra step by covering the pipe exhausts with faux soccer balls.

The stands are also cooled by the same technology. Pipes deliver cool air to vents that sit under each seat.

All of that, however, uses standard air-conditioning technologies. So it isn't perhaps super-environmentally friendly.

What they did for the World Cup bid was unveil a new solar-powered system and promise a carbon-neutral event. This is what happens in a forward-thinking place like Qatar, and why an observation from the lectern from the secretary-general of the Qatar Olympic Committee, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, proved so resonant.

Last Sept. 14, the day that inspectors from soccer's world governing body, FIFA, showed up to see the purpose-built "cooling technology showcase" model stadium, it was 42 degrees celsius -- 106 degrees Fahrenheit -- outside.

Inside the showcase, it was 23 degrees celsius, or 73 Fahrenheit.

The system uses solar energy -- which is abundant here -- to heat water. That hot water is then put into a tank for an "absorption chiller" chemical reaction that cools it way down. Voila -- ready temperature control.

They didn't solve the world's environmental challenges this weekend. But what there is to learn from the Japanese swim federation, and from the Qatari soccer and Olympic delegations, is that a little imagination and ingenuity can go a long way.

"Nobody believes," Sheikh Saoud said in Arabic, speaking through a translator and referring not just to his own nation but to all of humanity and the environmental challenge we all face, "that we can be inactive or complacent."

A win for Jessica Hardy, and common sense

Jessica Hardy, who never did anything wrong but who had to sit out the 2008 Olympic Games anyway, was cleared Thursday to try to make the 2012 London Games. Good for her.

Good for the U.S. swim team, for the U.S. Olympic Committee and for the International Olympic Committee.

Finally, common sense prevailed.

"This feels great. This is, like, the best feeling ever," Jessica Hardy said in a telephone interview.

Echoed her attorney, Howard Jacobs, ""It's great for her. Finally. No question marks for Jessica."

The decision announced Thursday also marks yet another example of the warming relationship between the USOC and IOC, and comes the day after the two committees said they had mutually agreed to take the case involving the U.S. sprinter LaShawn Merritt to sport's top tribunal, the Lausanne, Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, for expedited resolution.

Here is the difference between the two matters:

Merritt, who tested positive for a banned substance found in a male enhancement product, received a 21-month suspension from competition. His ban ends this July.

Before the 2008 Summer Games the IOC enacted what's commonly known now as the "six-month rule." It  purports to bar any athlete hit with an anti-doping ban longer than a half-year from competing in the successive edition of the Games -- in Merritt's case, London in 2012, even though his ban is due to end in July 2011.

Behold the complications:

Technically, Merritt would be eligible for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials. But would he want to run at the Trials if he couldn't compete at the Games themselves? If he did run, and qualified, could an American or English court compel his position at the Games? Big picture -- is the "six-month rule" an impermissible double penalty on top of the 21-month ban or is it merely, as the IOC contends, an eligibility rule?

All these questions. Both the USOC and IOC need answers. That's why they moved together to take Merritt's case to CAS.

And now for the Hardy case.

She tested positive in July 2008 for the banned substance clenbuterol. It somehow got into a dietary supplement she had been taking.

The two-year suspension typical in even a first doping case was later cut in half.

So what about the six-month rule?

The rule went into effect on July 1, 2008; she tested positive on July 3; there was no way she would realistically have known about it.

In an April 21 letter to USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun, the IOC said it simply would not apply the rule in Hardy's case.

The very, very best thing about this is that Jessica Hardy gets to hold her head high on the pool deck. She doesn't have to worry about anyone whispering anything -- anything -- about her. She didn't do anything wrong.

It took a long time for the authorities to say so. But that's exactly what they said: Jessica Hardy did not do anything wrong. Now all she has to do is go out there and swim.

"It's really, really, really amazing," she said. "It was a long three years waiting around, hoping and training and preparing for the best. Now I can not wait for the future.

"It has been kind of hard," she admitted. "I have been emotionally fragile this whole time. To have a definite answer three years later is amazing. I am more excited than ever."

Allyson Felix: the complete package

In some parts of the country, they know it's spring when the daffodils start poking their way out of the ground.

Or when the first red-breasted robins show up from warmer climes.

In Southern California track circles, it's the arrival of the Mt. SAC Relays in way-out-there Walnut, located precisely near nowhere. Despite the geographical undesirability, thousands of high school kids, college runners and several Olympic standouts make the Mt. SACs, testament in part to the efforts of long-time meet director Scott Davis, one of the all-time good guys. Scott died last August.

Two Saturdays ago, they held the 2011 Mt. SACs. Scott surely wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Allyson Felix, who by now has her pick of meets to run in, very deliberately ran at the Mt. SACs, leading the  "Kersee All Stars" to victory in the women's 400-meter relay in 43.1 seconds.

As was Scott Davis, so is Allyson Felix.

It's Allyson Felix's relative misfortune to be great, truly great, at a sport that gets remarkably little attention in a country seemingly desperate for genuine heroes.

I mean, what else would you want?

She ran on the 2008 Games gold-medal winning 1600-meter relay team.

She is the 2004 and 2008 Games silver medalist in the 200 meters.

She is the three-time world champion in the 200 -- 2009, 2007 and 2005.

Last season, she won the inaugural Samsung Diamond League titles in both the 200 and 400 meters, and was named the Jesse Owens Award winner as the top female athlete in the United States.

One of the sport's storylines for 2011, and probably 2012, is whether Allyson will run the 200-400 double at the world championships this summer in South Korea and then, presumably, at the London Games. She said she'll decide by this summer's U.S. nationals.

A back story: One of the Kersee assistant coaches, Valerie Briscoe-Hooks, was the first to do the 200-400 double at a single Games, at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

More Allyson:

She excels in the relays. Examples: She runs the second leg (2010 Penn Relays 400-meter relay). She runs anchor (2010 Penn Relays 1600-meter relay). She executes clean passes (both). She wins (both).

Allyson will run the Penn Relays again this coming weekend; her open season gets underway next weekend, in Doha, Qatar, the first 2011 Diamond League meet. In Doha, she will run just the 400.

Allyson runs clean. No one whispers about doping, the scourge of track and field, when it comes to Allyson Felix.

She has great form. The way she runs -- it looks almost effortless, which of course it's not. "I get that a lot," she said. "You have to watch the background. It's my long legs and long stride that make it seem like I'm not moving.

She runs with character. She serves on President Obama's Council for Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.

Allyson, who is University of Southern California through and through, said, "Sports are so uncertain. You work so hard but you never want to be in a situation where you can't do anything else. We," she and her brother, Wes, "were always encouraged to put academics first.

"It's great to make sure younger kids see that. To make sure kids who aren't so serious about sports -- to let them know that they can be great at anything. Having that complete package is a great thing."

Which, in its roundabout way, is why Allyson dropped in at the Mt. SACs a couple weeks back. Allyson is the complete package. And to get to where you're going you can't ever forget where you're from.

And, like thousands of other kids in Southern California, Allyson started at the Mt. SAC Relays.

"When I was in high school, Marion was running at the meet," she said, and that would be Marion Jones, of course.

"To me, she was everything. This was right before Sydney," when Jones would win five medals,  all of which would ultimately be given back amid revelations of doping, "and I remember I stood in line with all these little kids fighting to be in front to get an autograph.

"Just to be able to get close to someone I had looked up to was such a big deal. I think it's so cool to go back and see those kids. I would never have thought," Allyson Felix said, "I would be in that position."

A band of sisters on the road to making history

It's not that Lolo Silver wasn't already a world-class athlete and in what the rest of us mere mortals would consider great shape. Among her many accomplishments, she was the leading scorer for the winning U.S. women's water polo team last summer at the FINA World Cup, with 11 goals. Then again, the American women's head coach, Adam Krikorian, had promised the U.S. women that over the course of this winter, water polo's off-season, they would -- at his direction -- come to know what it was like to get in amazingly, ridiculously phenomenal shape.

Water polo demands ferocious mental will.  That mental edge is rooted in physical toughness. It's at once that simple and that complex.

The U.S. women's water polo team has won virtually everything it could win over the past decade -- with one exception, Olympic gold.

At the close of the 2010 season, the U.S. women were the No. 1 team in the world. To be atop the podium at the close of the 2012 London Olympics, however -- that is the manifest goal, and that's why Krikorian undertook at the start of 2011 a studied journey to take this team where it has never gone before.

It is, indeed, a journey. It can't be anything but. It's essentially a new team, a younger team and -- let there be no doubt -- Krikorian's team.

Which means it's of necessity going to be a long and winding journey. And a compelling study in both coach and team dynamic.

In sports, there can be no guarantee of anything. Beyond which, water polo is just too hard. If anyone in the American camp needs a vivid reminder of how hard, there is always Sydney and 2000 for a reminder -- one goal shy, just one very late goal, from gold.

That said: Krikorian, who came to the U.S. team from UCLA, is quietly but assuredly confident in himself and his means. The players have seemingly bought into his program.  Already, there is about this U.S. women's team a buzz, a feeling, a hard-to-describe sense that they are a band of sisters on the road to making history.

Perhaps the rest of the world doesn't know it yet.

But they do.

"Definitely," Lolo Silver said at practice this past Friday at their home base, a military base -- for real -- at Los Alamitos, Calif.

"We have all been pushed past anything -- pushed mentally and physically past anything we thought possible. Even the girls who have been to previous Olympics haven't had this sort of training this far away from the Olympics.  It has us focused and it has us getting together and it has forming friendships that are going to last forever."

At the outset, Krikorian made plain that despite the team's many past successes every spot on the roster was up for grabs.

No one was guaranteed a spot -- not even Brenda Villa, arguably the team's marquee player over the past three Olympic Games. She, like everyone else, would have to earn her way onto the 2012 Olympic team.

"Brenda has done a good job. She has gotten herself in probably the best fitness level she has been in, in a very long time," Krikorian said as he monitored the team, split into squads of three doing catch-and-shoot drills in the Los Alamitos pool.

"She has put herself in a pretty good position at this point. But," he emphasized, "there's no out here that's guaranteed a spot."

Of course, Villa was not among the women in the pool that day. She was nine time zones away, in Italy, playing for her club team, Orizzonte -- though Krikorian and the other Americans had just come back from playing against her, in an exhibition in Italy, but also with her, in another exhibition, against a team in Holland.

For extra fun this week in Los Alamitos, several of the women had started wearing 7 1/2-pound weight belts during their morning practices. Understand -- that is, in the pool. They were swimming or treading water or doing those shooting drills wearing those belts.

"Those are our new little gifts," Lolo said.  "To help us improve our leg strength."

Over the course of the winter, practice started at 7 and ran until 10, running again from 1:30 in the afternoon until 4:30, with a variation in the schedule on Wednesdays, to break things up.

There was time for both basic conditioning and for strength training.

Over the course of the winter, in a 200-yard swim test, Silver shaved 40 seconds off her average time.

At that level -- that is a huge drop.

She was hardly, however, alone.

Elsie Windes, who scored five goals during the 2010 FINA World Cup, is also 40 seconds faster now.

She said, "I did things I thought I couldn't -- things you thought you couldn't do but you did, and with your teammates."

Tanya Gandy, a standout at UCLA and who joined the U.S. national team in 2009, who scored five goals at the 2010 FINA World League Super Final, cut a full minute off her time.

"I still think the clock was lying," Tanya said. "It was good to see -- I didn't think I could get that fast. and I can get faster. It's very motivating to know how far you can come and how you can be pushed. Every day you can be pushed. It's testing you. It's testing your mental state."

"Maybe," Lolo Silver said with a shy smile, referring to Adam Krikorian, "there's a method to the madness."

USOC's classy visit to Tokyo

The chairman and chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee flew to Tokyo a couple days ago, where with their counterparts from the Japanese Olympic Committee they signed a mutual cooperation agreement.

Routine stuff in the Olympic scene. Except this wasn't. Judging from the way they were greeted there by the media, with flashbulbs flashing and cameras rolling, you might have thought Larry Probst, the USOC's chairman, and chief executive Scott Blackmun were rock stars.

It just goes to show you what happens when you do the right thing -- when you act with honor, dignity and class.

Probst and Blackmun are believed to be the first senior officials from another national Olympic committee to have visited Tokyo in the aftermath of the March 11 magnitude 9.0-earthquake, tsunami and resulting nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan.

To be crystal clear:

This was no grandstanding effort, no deliberate publicity play.

This was a trip that had been many months in the making. Indeed, it had been scheduled for earlier this year and then re-scheduled for April 21-22.

On one level, all the Americans did was honor the commitment they had made to their Japanese friends to show up.

But of course they did.

This is precisely the sort of thing Blackmun and Probst have been saying they would do.

Go back to what Blackmun said the very day he was hired, in January 2010, about the formula for re-establishing the USOC's station within the Olympic world.

He said then, "Internationally, it's just a lot of blocking and tackling. At the end of the day, relationships are a function of time and commitment, and we need to start spending that time and making that commitment and becoming engaged in the movement. The IOC is the leader of that movement and we intend to become a much more regular guest over there.

"It's not something we can fix overnight but it's something," he said, "we can address overnight."

Though Probst and Blackmun often travel as a team, the focus is and has to be, truly, on Probst. As the "president" of the American NOC -- in Olympic jargon -- he is the figure protocol demands must see and be seen. In a typical month, he's on the road  for USOC-related business 10 days, maybe more, out of 30. This month: London, Israel and now Japan.

Of the trip to Tokyo, Probst said, "We didn't do anything heroic or special. We did the right thing. We made a commitment to these guys to come visit and sign a coöperation agreement and we stuck with that commitment. It's as simple as that."

It is, but at the same time it's much, much more.

The follow-up this visit might well ignite could prove powerful, indeed.

"It is our great pleasure to have our friends from the United States with us, and by signing an agreement today, the firm partnership between the two Olympic Committees was confirmed," the president of the Japanese committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, said in a statement released by the USOC.

"I would also like to thank the USOC for their kind and prompt offer of support for the devastated people and damage caused by the tragic events. I look forward to continuing our cooperation as a partner NOC for further development of the Olympic movement in both countries."

Here, then, are some unsolicited ideas for further coöperation:

Perhaps other American athletes might want to do like former U.S. bobsledder Brock Kreitzburg? He plans to spend three months in northern Japan working on recovery efforts.

If enough American athletes, some well-known, some not so much, signed up to spend, say, a month in Japan, it could well be one of the most significant projects the USOC has ever undertaken. Could such a project intrigue the White House? Sponsors, too?

Maybe the IOC would want to get involved?

This doesn't need to be just fanciful thinking. There's real potential here.

On Saturday, before the opening match of a five-game series at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., with the Japanese team, USA Field Hockey presented the visitors with a check for $11,316 -- all of it donations that had been raised for the recovery effort.

"While it's going to be a small amount in the big scheme of things, we hope that our gesture can provide some sort of relief to them," the U.S. national teams director, Kate Reisinger, said in a statement released by the federation.

To switch gears:

If it was understandable that for a whole host of reasons it might have been untenable to stage the world figure skating championships scheduled for late March in Tokyo (they get underway Monday in Moscow), now it seems reasonable to take a breath and assess whether other events due to take place this year in Tokyo ought to go on  as scheduled.

For instance -- the world gymnastics championships are due to be held in Tokyo in the fall.

In this regard, Probst's and Blackmun's trip last week ought to prove instructive. And Probst's extensive experience with Tokyo, and his observation of the scene there, ought to prove particularly relevant.

"I have been to Tokyo probably 30 to 40 times in my business career," Probst, the chairman and former president and CEO of video game giant Electronic Arts, said. "It just seems like normal, safe, comfortable Tokyo."