Aiming now for Sochi 2014

LONDON -- It's a week before the Summer Games, and of course for most Americans the focus is appropriately and properly on the runners, the swimmers, the wrestlers and all the others on the 530-person U.S. team who have worked so hard for four years to get here. But in just a little bit over 18 short months, which for most of us seems so difficult to fathom in the midst of the summer of 2012, the Olympic calendar will rush toward February 2014, and the Sochi Winter Games.

And a little-noticed announcement Friday in Salt Lake City may make all the difference in the way the U.S. team performs in those 2014 Games -- along with the vision and the strategy of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn., underway now, even as these Summer Games occupy everyone else's attention.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, along with USSA chief executive Bill Marolt, announced that the state will play host to five winter action sports events, including the announcement of the first U.S. freeskiing Olympic team, leading up to the 2014 Games.

Utah's Canyons Resorts, Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain Resort will stage events in freestyle skiing, freeskiing and snowboarding during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons. The series will end up with the announcement of the Olympic freeskiing team in January, 2014.

So what?

Here's what's at play -- a massive shift in the way medals will be given out at the Winter Games.

The U.S. ski program, anticipating that, is shifting the way it's doing business.

It's not abandoning alpine. Hardly. Not with the likes of Lindsey Vonn, Ted Ligety and Bode Miller, and young stars such as Mikaela Shiffrin.

But when confronting obvious numbers, you've got to be obvious in response:

Forty percent of USSA's medals have been won by snowboarding since it became a medal sport in 1998.

In 2006, for instance, snowboarding accounted for seven of the 10 medals USSA won at the Torino Olympics.

In 2010, if you include ski cross as a freeskiing event … plus bordercross … plus halfpipe snowboarding … plus parallel giant slalom … the count reached 24 medal opportunities.

In 2014, because of new events added last year by the International Olympic Committee in snowboarding and freeskiing, there will be 48 medal opportunities.

That's for men and women -- 24 and 24, a total of 48.

Again, to be completely obvious, these are sports in which American athletes rock. Or, to use the words of Jeremy Forster, the U.S. program's snowboard and freeskiing director, "It's a pretty special time."

Tom Wallisch, who won the Dew Tour overall cup and finished first in the AFP slopestyle World Rankings in 2010 and 2012, said, "All these action sports-style events are ruled by Americans. They are all ours for the taking."

Wallisch turns 25 soon and was named the ESPN Action Sport Athlete of the Year. Even so, he said, "The kids I hang out with these days are 17," adding, "I would almost put a lot of money on the fact that some American will win my event. There are so many competitive American kids."

Jen Hudak, also 25, was the queen of halfpipe skiing two years ago -- sweeping the X Games super pipe in both Aspen and Tignes, France, and topping the overall AFP series rankings, the freeskiing equivalent of a World Cup globe.

Early this year, she suffered a torn ACL. Now she's back at it -- aiming, like everyone else on the U.S. Ski Team, toward Sochi. Already.

She said, "It wasn't like we were working toward nothing." Even when halfpipe skiing wasn't on the Olympic program, "We were planning for these Olympics, in a sense."

And now it's really on: "I saw the whole thing coming together, eventually. I believed in it. It's all coming together. The fact that Sochi is 18 months away is nerve-wracking, exciting and shocking -- all at the same time."

Olympic security is no joke

LONDON -- Upon arrival in the Olympic city, it rained. No surprise. The newspapers were full of stories about security concerns relating to the Summer Games, which open on July 27. Also no surprise. Security is issue No. 1 at the Games. It has to be, and has been ever since Munich and 1972, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and then murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Five of the terrorists also died amid the 1972 attack; so did a German policeman.

The headlines here are very real, and urgent.

At the same time, it may well be the case that an item mostly making the rounds of celebrity shows and snarky websites back in the United States reveals the real vulnerability of Olympic security.

As U.S. women's soccer goaltender Hope Solo underscores in her recent comments to ESPN The Magazine about the avowed sex-fest at the Olympic Village in Beijing in 2008, it's who gets in purportedly off-limits Games space, and how, that is most worrisome. She alleges in part -- and this is arguably the dullest part of what she said -- that she "may have" snuck a "celebrity" into the village and back out without getting caught.

Without the appropriate Olympic credential, the rule regarding the Village in particular is simple: you don't get to go there. At the same time, the process of who might get in and out can be endlessly susceptible to human judgment. That means there's the potential for mistake. When it comes to security, any mistake can be a huge mistake.

That's the lesson of 1972. And that is the "never again" that must, really, never be again.

First, the British headlines.

With two weeks to go, it developed that the company -- it's called G4S -- charged with recruiting some 10,400 personal to protect stadiums and other sites had pretty much botched the job. The British military was being called in, 3,500 troops on top of the 7,500 already detailed to some 100 venues.

The British minister in charge of the Olympics, Jeremy Hunt, went on a Sunday talk show to say that G4S boss Nick Buckles had apologized and the company would be paying 30 million pounds, or about $46 million, for the last-minute military deployment as well as a penalty of up to 20 million pounds, or another $31 million, for not living up to its part of the deal. Some number of the soldiers have just come back from Afghanistan.

Speaking Sunday on the BBC Radio 5 Live Sportsweek program, Sebastian Coe, the head of the London 2012 organizing committee, said, "We have two weeks to get this right and we will get this right," adding he was "confident" these would be "safe and secure Games."

It is a fact of Olympic life, and especially post-9/11, that security involves a massive show of force. There will be missiles on rooftops here. That's part of what the thousands of soldiers are about as well.

It's at the point of person-to-person contact, though, that the system -- any system -- is most susceptible.

This is where Solo's remarks bear special scrutiny. In its entirety, here is the relevant passage from ESPN The Magazine:

"After the Beijing Games, the women went, well, Hollywood. Solo recounts the story: 'I probably shouldn't tell you this, but we met a bunch of celebrities. Vince Vaughn partied with us. Steve Byrne, the comedian. And at some point we decided to take the party back to the village, so we started talking to the security guards, showed off our gold medals, got their attention and snuck our group through without credentials -- which is absolutely unheard of.' And, she adds, 'I may have snuck a celebrity back to my room without anybody knowing, and snuck him back out. But that's my Olympic secret.' The best part, according to Solo? 'When we were done partying, we got out of our nice dresses, got back into our stadium coats and, at 7 a.m. with no sleep, went on the Today show drunk. Needless to say, we looked like hell.' "

The U.S. Olympic Committee, asked for a response to her comments, declined.

At least two possibilities come to mind when assessing what she had to say:

One, Solo made her comments as part of an elaborate double game, with all relevant security agencies on board ahead of time so that they knew they were plugging an obvious hole.

If that seems implausible, two:

What she, and some unnamed number of others on the U.S. soccer team, did in 2008 arguably goes well beyond the self-indulgent. It raises serious questions about judgment and accountability, and the privilege of wearing a Team USA uniform.

To be clear, there's no argument here that sex is bad, or that having sex in the Village is bad. Many other athletes were quoted in the story about that. Solo also said in the piece, "There's a lot of sex going on." And: "… I've seen people having sex right out in the open. On the grass, between buildings, people are getting down and dirty."

Don't care about any of that other than -- be safe.

Solo, meanwhile, is supposed to be a sponsor's 2012 dream, featured on magazine covers, a recent contestant on "Dancing with the Stars," her agent, Richard Motzkin, telling the Los Angeles Times in April, "Outside of Michael Phelps, I think she'll be the highest-profile U.S. athlete heading into the London Olympics. By nature that makes her sort of the highest-profile female U.S. athlete in any sport."

With that profile comes responsibility. Little girls -- and boys -- want to be like their Olympic heroes.

Drunk on the Today show? Really?

Last week, Solo was hit with a public warning by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency after she tested positive for a banned substance in a urine test. She said it was for a prescription medicine used for pre-menstrual purposes and did not know it contained a diuretic; she said it was an honest mistake.

And now this.

It's not clear from the remarks to ESPN whether, for instance, Vince Vaughn was among those who was snuck into the Beijing Village. If that was the case, maybe it makes for a funny story that Vince Vaughn -- Vince Vaughn?! -- got to party in the Village.

But what if next time it's someone with malevolent intent who gets snuck into the Village? What then?

How exactly was a security guard on the ground in Beijing supposed to tell the difference? Whoever was in on that party got in after the women on the U.S. soccer team flashed their medals. What, like this was a rope line in Hollywood?

In 1972, security was lax to begin with. But the terrorists got in because they dressed up like athletes and real athletes helped them get over a chain-link fence near Gate 25A to the Munich Village.

In the movies, Vince Vaughn can be funny. Olympic security is not funny, and it's not a game.

If the pictures of the murdered Israelis, which I have seen, are too graphic; if the idea of talking to the survivors of those killed, like Ankie Spitzer, which I have done, seems too personal; then I have an idea for Hope Solo, and as many others on the U.S. women's soccer team who also need to understand.

They should sit in front of a television and watch some of the footage from 1972, and especially the part where Jim McKay reports the dreadful news. It might spark a better appreciation of what's genuinely at stake:

"We've just gotten the final word. When I was a kid, my father used to say our greatest hopes and worst fears are seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized tonight.

"They have now said that there were 11 hostages. Two were killed in their rooms this morning -- excuse me, yesterday morning. Nine were killed at the airport tonight.

"They're all gone."

Toward a "robust" anti-doping testing program

It was with great fanfare earlier this year, upon the unveiling of the London anti-doping laboratory, that organizers said a record 6,250 doping tests would be carried out at the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. That's up from 5,600 in Beijing four years ago, an 11.6 percent jump. In opening the facility, London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton praised the commitment to a "robust testing system" and declared, "Our message to any athlete thinking about doping is simple -- we'll catch you."

All of which is entirely well-meaning.

But -- is it meaningful, or relevant?

The U.S. sprinter Marion Jones passed 160 drug tests. What, if anything, did that prove? She was later revealed to be a chronic doper.

Anyone who knows the first thing about the way the anti-doping system works knows two things:

One, you have to be a complete and utter fool to get caught doping at the Olympic Games. If you're juicing, the time to be on a program that offers max benefit is weeks or months beforehand. If you're so stupid that you've still got something in your system come Games-time, you deserve to be caught.

That's why, at every edition of the Games, for all the talk about thousands and thousands of tests, there are relatively few positives, and in the year 2012 hardly any involving significant names.

Two, there's another set of numbers out there that surprisingly hasn't gained widespread attention.

These numbers, though, are well-known among senior leaders of Olympic and international sport. And there may yet be a nexus between the Lance Armstrong case, which is due in the coming days to take its next turns, and these figures.

It should be well understood, too, that the Armstrong matter has seized the attention of the Olympic movement at the highest levels.

For the year 2010, as very publicly reported by the World Anti-Doping Agency, its 35 accredited laboratories worldwide performed tests on 258,267 samples, returning positives -- if you include both what are called "adverse analytical findings" and "atypical findings" -- on 4,820 samples. That's a return rate of 1.87 percent.

That rate was down from 2.02 percent in 2009 -- 5,610 samples from 277,928 tested.

Breaking it down further:

Table E from the 2010 report -- a caution here, the numbers don't add up to 4,820 for a variety of reasons -- details that nearly 61 percent of those caught were positive for "anabolic agents." That means steroids. Another 10.3 percent were positive for stimulants. But the third-most positive substance on the list, at 9.6 percent?

"Cannabinoids." That means marijuana.

It's a real question, ladies and gentlemen, about a system that spends a lot of money but that's not very effective and that, when it does turn up positives, turns up positives one in 10 times about a substance that a significant number of people suggest ought to be legalized and don't believe is in any way a performance-enhancer.

The anti-doping system depends, first and foremost, on credibility. These kinds of numbers, one could reasonably argue, do not especially promote credibility.

The challenge is fundamental:

The general public wants -- and by extension the governments and sports officials who fund the anti-doping system want -- to believe in tests that can detect performance-enhancing drugs. But the most sophisticated people at work in the system understand that the tests can only do so much, can only go so far.

Those people also understand that WADA does not itself do the testing. WADA may bear the brunt of the PR pressure, fairly or unfairly; WADA is trying to get the sports federations and national agencies who are out there to do their jobs as well as possible or, obviously, better.

All of this, by the way, assumes that there are more drug cheats out there; that's a thesis at the core of the whole thing. Some people are absolutely certain that's the case. Others ask, why is that a legitimate premise?

This is in part why WADA, at its May 18 meeting, launched a working group to assess what, if anything, can be done to enhance testing effectiveness. Unclear is the working group's precise mandate or time frame for reporting; uncertain, too, is its membership, although one of those under consideration is U.S federal agent Jeff Novitzky, who played a key role in both the BALCO case and in investigating Armstrong in the inquiry led by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles that was abruptly dropped earlier this year without the filing of charges.

It's not clear whether the U.S. government would even allow Novitzky to participate in such a working group; so far it's moot because he has not accepted the invite.

This is all very complex, sometimes incredibly politically oriented and nuanced stuff.

At the same time, it's reasonable to expect that if governments and sports officials are going to spend millions of dollars in an effort to promote drug-free sport, that system ought to be, truly, "robust."

It has been said by others in this context before but bears repeating here -- if you went out and did a job that came back with a one or two percent return rate, what would your boss say to you?

Would it be -- let's keep doing exactly what we're doing?

Doubtful, right?

Water polo: the start of the quest

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- Over the past week, the U.S. women's water polo team has played Hungary in four exhibitions up and down the state of California, the Americans winning all four, the last a 9-4 victory Sunday that was way more physical than the final score would indicate before a happy, flag-waving crowd of about 1,000 people at Corona del Mar High School. Afterward, the American players signed autographs and posed for photos -- there were dozens and dozens of little girls in the crowd -- and, under a postcard-perfect Southern California sky, the NBC cameras beamed it all out on live TV.

It was, as Olympic send-offs go, about as good as it gets.

Three weeks from Monday, the U.S. team opens round-robin play at the 2012 Games against -- Hungary.

Since 2000, the Americans have done it all in water polo, won everything there is to win, except for Olympic gold.

This game Sunday was, in a sense, the beginning of the end of the journey. It was also, in a way, the start of the quest.

These four games against Hungary mean everything and nothing.

When the history of this U.S. team is written, no one is particularly apt to remember this four-game set. The Americans won the first game, last Monday, up in Palo Alto, 17-8; the second game, on the Fourth of July, back down in Southern California, at Los Alamitos, 14-8; and game three on Friday in San Diego, 7-6.

The games were all different. The Americans were ahead in some games, behind in others, and figured out a way to win all four games.

Along with the undeniable benefit of being on national TV -- that, ultimately, is the value of this series: they figured out a way to win.

Sunday's game was broken open early in the third quarter, when Maggie Steffens scored twice and Kami Craig once. What was once a tight game was suddenly 7-3.

But the revealing lesson in how smart this U.S. team can be came on the sequence that led to the next goal. With time winding down on the 30-second shot clock, Brenda Villa, who along with Heather Petri has played on every American Olympic team since 2000, fired a skip shot that left Hungarian goaltender Flora Bolonyai -- a current All-American at USC -- no option but to stop it in a way that it rolled out of play behind her. That gave the Americans the ball, and another 30 seconds. Elsie Windes got off another shot that led to another re-set -- which led, finally, to a goal by Kelly Rulon, making it 8-3 midway through the third.

"It's good to play a series of four games and good to be reminded of how quickly things can change," goalie Betsey Armstrong said, adding a moment later, "You have to remember to play your own game."

Until July 22, when they leave for London, the Americans will be practicing at their home base at Los Alamitos -- with one break. On Monday night, they're heading as a group to Las Vegas; on Tuesday, they're due to watch the U.S. men's basketball team practice and meet with head coach Mike Krzyzewski.

About a year ago, Rulon had bought Krzyzewski's 2009 book, "The Gold Standard," about the 2008 U.S. men's basketball team. It has since been widely read on the water polo team, coach Adam Krikorian said.

Krikorian, who coached at UCLA and knows the John Wooden story well, said that perhaps the U.S. women will glean some "words of wisdom or any kind of inspiration" from Krzyzewski.

Then again, this meeting might turn out to be a two-way street. Seven players on that men's basketball team will be Olympic newbies. They might want to hear what Brenda Villa and Heather Petri have to say, too.

"It's really cool," Petri said, "to feel this level of confidence that our teammates have right now. It's empowering us as well," meaning the two of them. "We felt it. We know what's ahead of us. To see them acknowledging it, and being empowered by it, is really exciting."

USOC: no for 2022, go (maybe) for 2024 or 2026

Earlier this year, the U.S. and International Olympic Committees resolved a longstanding dispute over certain broadcasting and marketing revenue shares. That almost immediately prompted speculation that the USOC would get back into the Olympic bid game. Cities across the American West -- Salt Lake City, Denver, Reno and Bozeman, Mont. -- expressed interest in playing host to the 2022 Winter Games. The IOC will select the 2022 site in 2015; a bid for a 2015 Games would be due in the fall of 2013.

The USOC board of directors on Tuesday, however, opted to slow things down, and in a big way, and in so doing it made not only the logical call but the absolute right call.

The board decided not to bid for 2022 but instead to explore the possibility of hosting either the 2024 Summer or 2026 Winter Games.

Translation: It opted to do the right thing, not the fast thing. There's no rush. So why rush?

The smart money here -- there are literally dozens of variables -- is that the working committee the board appointed Tuesday comes back with a push for 2024. The committee is due to make an initial report to the full USOC board in December.

Why Summer? The Winter Games are great but the Summer Games are always going to be the franchise, and the United States can win for 2024.

The IOC will select the Summer Games site in 2017. That's so far out the IOC doesn't even know now where it's going to be meeting in 2017 to be picking the 2024 city.

San Francisco and New York figure to top the list of candidate cities. Chicago will be mentioned again. Dallas is interested, too, but a June Games, which is what they're tentatively talking about down there, would seem to fall outside the IOC window.

San Francisco is a magical name to the Eurocentric IOC.

New York has the advantage of having run a 2005 bid for 2012.

Meanwhile, there doubtlessly will be talk about how South Africa will want to mount a bid for 2024. But that country has a long, long way to go, and all the IOC members who were there for the 2011 session in Durban know that to be the case. And, like those of us in the press, they remember well the warnings not to walk outside the perimeter of the guarded IOC hotel -- even in broad daylight -- for fear of violence.

Paris will be mentioned, too. Sure, 2024 will be the 100th anniversary of Paris' 1924 Games. Big deal. How'd that anniversary work out for Athens in 1896? They held the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

Beyond which, the French are in considerably the same place the Americans were several years ago -- trying to figure out, in the wake of the disastrous single-digit vote for Annecy's 2018 Winter Games campaign, why they keep losing cycle after cycle at the Olympic bid game.

The Americans have now figured it out. It's a relationship business.

And it takes time to build relationships.

That's why Tuesday's decision makes so much sense.

USOC board chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun have been traveling the world since the start of 2010, working at the relationship thing. Since the United States is not in the bid game, there's no pressure to ask for anything. They are simply trying to be good members of the so-called Olympic family.

The decision Tuesday gives them ample time to keep being just that.

It also allows time, too, for Probst to become an IOC member. That would be enormously helpful for an American bid.

There are other dominoes that need to fall into place. Domestically, for instance, more study needs to be done on the issue of the financial guarantee the IOC demands of host cities. In other countries, the federal government steps up for that guarantee; the nature of American federalism -- a city bids, supported by state and federal governments -- renders that super-complex.

Also, there are political matters at issue. To be candid, the next U.S. Olympic bid has to wait for a new president in the White House.

That didn't come up at Tuesday's USOC meeting. But it's very much the case.

President Obama traveled to Copenhagen in October, 2009, to push for his hometown, Chicago. He was the very first American president to put not only his personal prestige but that of the office on the line before the IOC.

The IOC then sent Chicago packing in the first round with a mere 18 votes.

There simply is no way the USOC can, or would, ask President Obama to appeal again to the IOC.

If he is re-elected -- of course that's a big if -- President Obama's term would end in January, 2017. The IOC vote for 2024 will come later that year.

Another thought:

It will be eight years between the Chicago vote and the 2024 vote; that's a lot of time and distance for feelings to be soothed.

A President Romney would, of course, change the equation considerably. Mitt Romney ran the Salt Lake 2002 organizing committee and he would be welcomed, indeed, at the IOC -- whether lobbying for a Winter or Summer Games.

But not for the notion of déjà vu all over again in Salt Lake City. Amid all the uncertainties ahead, one thing remains a solid bet:

The IOC is not going back to Salt Lake, not after the scandal that shook it in the late 1990s. Not in 2026. No way, no how.

Dara Torres comes up just shy

OMAHA -- Two years ago, Dara Torres' coach, Michael Lohberg, who was dying of a rare blood disorder, said to her, "Let's go for this." They both understood. She should try to make the U.S. Olympic team for the London Games.

By 2012, Dara would be 45.

Nutty. She had made the team in 2008, even won three medals, all silver, running her overall medal count to 12, tying an American record. But at 45? With a balky left knee?

On Monday night in Omaha, Dara Torres came this close. She is possessed of not just great talent but will and soul. At 45, she finished fourth in the 50 freestyle, missing out on a spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team by nine-hundredths of a second.

Jessica Hardy, 25 years old, won the race in 24.50 seconds. Kara Lynn Joyce, 26, finished second, in 24.73; she had finished fourth in the 50 at the 2008 Trials, and immediately after the race cried what she said were tears of "shock and joy, yes, and a lot of happiness."

Christine Magnuson, 26, took third, in 24.78.

Torres came in fourth, in 24.82.

"It's OK," she said moments afterward, holding her six-year-old daughter, Tessa. "I'm used to winning,. That wasn't the goal here. The goal was to try to make it.

"I didn't quite do it."

Hardy, who also won the 100 free here, said of Torres, "I love racing Dara. I wish the best for her. I wish she could have made it here. Swimming with her the past couple years has really been an awesome treat, for sure."

That has been a widespread sentiment around these Trials.

Madison Kennedy, 24 years old, who finished fifth in the 50 final in 25.1, had said beforehand, "I remember she came and did a clinic in, like -- in Connecticut -- Dara came to a clinic when I was way younger, 13, 11, maybe, and I was like, oh, my God, I got to hold her medal! It was so cool.

"She was on a tour. I just thought it was so amazing. It's so weird that I'm swimming against her now. Like, you know, when people have idols and then they come full circle and they meet them? That's what's happening."

This time around, age was both Dara's ally and ferocious enemy.

She trained smarter. At the same time, she said, "It's much tougher this time around," meaning than four years ago. "People were saying I was middle-aged when I was 41. But I'm really middle-aged now."

The hard part, she said, was recovering after races. There was also so much recovery she could do -- only so much she could put her body through.

In the first round here, she qualified fifth, in 25-flat.

In the semifinals, she came back with a 24.8, third-fastest.

In the final, she just came up less than a tenth of a second short. As Magnuson said, "That's the 50 for you."

The curious thing is Torres swam faster here than she did in winning the 50 at the Trials 12 years ago.

"I look back and in 2000," she said, "I went 24.9 to qualify," which is dead-on right. "So being 45, 12 years later, you've got to look at it realistically. As much as I wanted to win and wanted to make the team, I mean, that's pretty good for a 45-year-old."

She also said that this is, indeed, it. She said she is done trying to make the U.S. Olympic team. No Rio 2016.

She said she is going to "enjoy some time with my daughter, have a nice summer, cheer on the U.S. team from afar."

One more thing. Michael Lohberg died in April, 2011. She said, "I really wanted to finish the story that I started with him," adding a moment later, "I know he would be proud."

He would.

Michael Phelps goes for ... seven

OMAHA -- Eleven years ago, the incomparable Ian Thorpe turned in a swim of refined beauty in the 200 meter freestyle. It was at the 2001 world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, and he swam it in 1 minute, 44.06 seconds, a world record. It took another magnificent swim for that record to fall. Michael Phelps went 1:43.86 at the 2007 world championships in Melbourne, Australia, a swim that happened in the dead of night back home in the United States.

Most Americans never really saw what Michael Phelps could do in the 200 free until the Beijing Olympics, when he went 1:42.96. There, they saw the power, the grace, the aesthetic beauty of the way he drove through the water in the simplest, most elegant stroke known to humankind.

In announcing Monday that he would not defend his Olympic 200 free title in London, Phelps and his longtime coach, Bob Bowman, are assuredly making the shrewd, tactical move.

Even so, a pause before we get there to appreciate Phelps and his place in the 200 free. In 2004, for instance, at the Athens Games, he stepped in against Thorpe and Holland's Pieter van den Hoogenband. Thorpe won, in Olympic-record time, van den Hoogenband coming in second. Phelps took third, in a then-American record 1:45.32. And he was criticized -- by some, who didn't understand -- for "only" winning bronze.

Over the years, there have been so many dozens of Phelps 200s. Some have been truly remarkable; some, naturally, less so. When he is on, there is a glide and a seemingly effortless elegance to his stroke. Even though he had just come down from six weeks at altitude in Colorado Springs, this week you could sense the glide starting to emerge, and for that reason it's melancholy to think he won't be swimming the 200 in London.

That said, logic dictates any number of reasons why he shouldn't.

It frees him up for other races. They will include both the 100 and 200 butterflys; the 200 and 400 IMs; and all three relays, and in particular the 400 free relay.

No male swimmer has ever pulled the individual three-peat -- that is, won the same event in three straight Olympics.

Meanwhile, the 400 free relay is a key marker for the U.S. team. Schedule-wise, moreover, the relay final comes on the same day as the preliminaries and semifinals of the 200 freestyle. The heats and semis of the 200 fly come the very next day, as does the final of the 200 free.

"That's a tough program Michael swims," Gregg Troy, who will serve as the U.S. men's national coach in London, said at a news conference here Monday. "It's really tough. He's a little bit older" -- Phelps turned 27 on Saturday -- "and those older guys don't recover quite as quickly, and it's hard to do."

It takes the burden off another eight-event program; including relays, Phelps will likely swim seven in London. Now he won't have to answer any questions -- not even one -- about eight events.

`It's so much smarter for me to do that,'' Phelps told the Associated Press. ``We're not trying to recreate what happened in Beijing. It just makes sense.''

Bowman told reporters Monday, "Yes, we won't hear the number eight again after this press conference. As Michael said all along, it wasn't going to be eight. He has said that for the last four years."

Moreover, and not incidentally, it means that the last 200 free he ever swims against Ryan Lochte is, for the history books, a win for Phelps, here in Omaha at the U.S. Trials, by five-hundredths of a second.

In London, Phelps and Lochte will swim head-to-head only in the 200 and 400 IMs.

You can believe that Phelps and Bowman have made four swimmers really, really happy:

-- Ricky Berens, who now gets to swim in the 200 free. He had finished third, behind Phelps and Lochte.

-- Davis Tarwater, who now gets added to the U.S. team. He had been seventh in the 200 free final.

-- Park Tae-Hwan of South Korea. Lochte, who won the 200 free at the 2011 worlds in Shanghai, is the gold medal favorite. But Park, who in Beijing won silver in the 200 and gold in the 400, has to be thrilled Phelps won't be swimming.

-- Paul Biedermann of Germany. Biedermann now holds the world record in the 200, 1:42 flat, set in Rome at the 2009 world championships, during the crazy plastic-suit era. He hasn't come close to that time since swimmers have gone back to textile suits, and has freely admitted that the suits helped his times.

Biedermann finished fifth in Beijing in the 200 in 1:46. Now, with Phelps out of the picture, he must be thinking he might be able to medal.

Two nights ago, Phelps and Bowman were sitting at the dais, and Phelps, as the news conference drew to a close, was reflecting on the Trials while also looking forward to London. He said, "There are some things that I want to finish my career with" -- as usual, he didn't enumerate them -- "and I know they're going to be challenging, and Bob and I have a couple of weeks to try to perfect those."

And that, too, is why Phelps won't be swimming the 200 free.

Anthony Ervin's fantastic journey keeps on keeping on

OMAHA -- After one of the early rounds of the 50-meter freestyle here at the U.S. Trials, Anthony Ervin came out of the water and went over for one of those quicky interviews with NBC's Andrea Kremer. Everyone knows the deal. Except with Anthony Ervin, nothing is ever quite you expect. So, Anthony, Andrea asked, what does swimming mean to you now? Andrea, a pro's pro, knew full well that he was the 2000 Sydney Games gold medalist in the 50 free and had come back to the sport after a long break during which he'd done some other stuff, a lot of which was really interesting, some hugely introspective, huge chunks of which we may never know about. That's all part of being Anthony Ervin.

"I know you want a short and sexy answer for TV," he said with a big smile. "I'd have to write a book about that one. I've had such a journey. It has been circuitous. What was light was dark; what was dark was light. And the path was wonderful."

The shortest journey between two points in a 50-meter pool is a straight line, metaphysically speaking, and takes just over 21 seconds,. For Anthony Ervin, the path Sunday night led him back to the Olympic Games.

Before 12,406 roaring fans, Ervin, now 31, both arms covered in tattoo sleeves, his head adorned in a California Golden Bears yellow-and-blue swim cap, Anthony Ervin sprinted the 50 meters in 21.60 seconds, by far a personal best.

The resurgent Cullen Jones won the race in 21.59, just one-hundredth of a second faster, and when he finished Jones raised his right hand and then punched the water.

There was no such reaction from Anthony Ervin. That's because, in part, he needs glasses to see the scoreboard. He relied on Nathan Adrian, with whom he had been training at Berkeley, who finished third, in 21.68, to tell him what had happened.

Those times -- 21.59 and 21.60 -- were the second- and third-fastest in the world this year. Only Cesar Cielo of Brazil has gone faster, 21.38.

When swimmers come out of the water, they come off the deck and go underneath to what's called the "mixed zone," where they meet with reporters. Typically, the press officers of USA Swimming gently limit the racers to answers of a few seconds.

Anthony Ervin spoke for four minutes and 51 seconds in what was immediately agreed was a candidate for the best mixed-zone speech of all time, full of joy and gratitude for his friends -- they were in the stands wearing black and pink T-shirts that read, "Tony Ervin is Rock 'n Roll" -- and several coaches.

He said he had, at points along the way, been a "very fragile mentally person" who had been nurtured and developed, whose talents had been refined and allowed to blossom.

"Competition isn't meant to be easy," he said. "It's meant to be challenging."

Anthony Ervin won his gold medal in Sydney when he was 19. A few years later, he decided he'd had it with competitive swimming. He sold his 2000 gold medal for $17,101 and donated the money to relief efforts for the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia; he now says he was a "mystic" at the time.

He played in a band. He taught swimming to kids in New York City. He slept on his friend Elliot Ptasnik's couch. He earned got his college degree.

Two years ago, he moved out to the Bay Area. After the Cal men's team won its first NCAA title in March 2011, he decided he wanted back in to competitive swimming. He asked the Cal women's coach, Teri McKeever, if he could train with her team.

Earlier this week, he explained that there were no regrets about any of it. It his life hadn't followed  the straight and narrow -- you know, life isn't always like a swimmer in a pool looking down at that black line.

"How do you move forward with one’s life if you hold on to regret? If you turn around, you’d be like Lot’s wife. You’d just be a pillar of salt. What could have been? I don’t know. All I know is what did happen and I feel lucky and privileged and glad to be here right now."

Coming into the Trials, Anthony Ervin had come nowhere near his personal best in the 50, 21.8.

In the prelims, he went 21.83, fastest in the field.

Then, in the semifinals, 21.74, again fastest in the field.

Elliot Ptasnik, before the race, declared, "He'll make the Olympics. I have no doubt."

Swimming in Lane 4, Anthony Ervin went out and slammed that 21.6 to make the Olympics.

Asked what his expectations were for London, he said that of course he hoped to win a medal.

But there was a bigger picture, and understand the connotation here, because there's nothing sinister in his words, only the joy and gratitude of a 31-year-old man who has found profound beauty in testing himself, because in that test there is deep meaning in competition at the highest level: "I just want to keep the fun train chugging."

Happy 27th birthday, Michael Phelps

OMAHA -- It was Michael Phelps' 27th birthday Saturday, and then he went out and gave himself a big present, a victory in the 200-meter individual medley over Ryan Lochte in as thrilling and big-time a swim race as you could ever want to see. With fans waving red, white and blue signs wishing Michael a happy birthday, Phelps led wire-to-wire in winning in 1:54.84. Lochte touched just nine-hundredths of a second behind, 1:54.93.

"A win is a win," Phelps said, moments afterward, still breathing hard, adding, "It feels good to be back on that side.

"I'm sure that's not going to be the end of us going back-and-forth. So I'm just happy to have a good race like that. Kind of pulled it all together."

The victory reversed the order of last year's 1-2 at the world championships in Shanghai, when Lochte not only won but set a world record in the 200 IM, 1:54 flat. It sets the stage for London and the Olympics just weeks from now.

Moreover, the race came amid a fascinating day of maneuvering by Lochte, who opted Saturday night not only to swim the 200 IM but to sandwich that swim between the final of the 200 backstroke and the semifinal of 100 butterfly, all within about an hour.

Phelps did not swim the 200 back. But he has for years been the boss of the 100 fly, and Lochte traditionally does not swim that event at major events, making it all the more intriguing that he would want to test himself in it.

Phelps is the 2004 and 2008 Olympic 200 IM champion. But in recent years Lochte has been the king of the 200 medley. He won it at the 2009 Rome and 2011 Shanghai worlds.

Phelps showed up in Shanghai in so-so shape. Lochte not only beat Phelps in the 200 IM but in the 200 free. Phelps freely acknowledged afterward that if he wanted to win, he needed to put in the work.

This past March, Lochte had told ESPN The Magazine, "Once I was able to beat Michael, it gave me a motivation, an edge. I told myself, I can do this. Once I beat someone, they won't beat me again."

Umm, OK.

Here, these Trials kicked off with Lochte defeating Phelps in the 400 IM. That was Lochte's first-ever victory over Phelps.

Then, though, Phelps beat Lochte in the 200 free.

The mental what-do-you-have-for-me-now took an intriguing turn Saturday morning when "Ryan Lochte" turned up for real on the heat sheets of the 100 fly and, indeed, Ryan Lochte swam in the prelims.

Phelps, to no one's surprise, was the fastest qualifier, in 51.8. Lochte was sixth, in 52.21.

The 100 fly is a staple on the Phelps program. Phelps is the gold medalist in the 100 fly in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and the 2007 Melbourne, 2009 and 2011 world championships.

The 100 fly is typically not Lochte's event. Yet all of a sudden he was swimming it? Because -- why? The schedule was, in a word, compressed.

At 7:15 p.m Friday, Lochte swam in the 200 back finals. He touched first, in 1:54.54, with Tyler Clary second, 26-hundredths behind.

Lochte got out of the water, waved to the crowd and walked right off the pool deck.

At 7:45, 28 minutes later, he was back up top, for the 200 IM.

Phelps went out hard from the start, saying, "I had to."

He added, "I kind of used Ryan having the 200 back before to set the pace early. You know, I know the 200 back … is a very tough race. And I know it takes a lot out of your legs. I wanted to jump on it in the first 100 and see what happened.

"But I think our backstroke we kind of let off it a little bit and we were playing a cat-and-mouse game again. And then of course the last 50 we just went crazy."

The 200 IM ended at 7:47.

At 8, they held the 200 back medal ceremony.

At 8:12, Lochte was back on the blocks for his semifinal heat in the 100 fly. He finished third, in 52.47, enough for a spot in Sunday's final.

Phelps, in the other semifinal, finished first, in 51.35.

"Tonight," Lochte said, "was probably the most pain I have ever endured in a swimming competition.

"Going back-to-back-to-back was definitely hard. You know, I was up for the challenge. It is something I have been training for -- for the last four years. I knew I was able to do it. The 100 fly was just a different event, an event I have never done before."

And, he said, "Yes, I am swimming it [Sunday]," in the final.

With all these numbers, here's one more bit of math, and perhaps the explanation behind Lochte's Saturday's triple. For reasons yet unexplained, he scratched out of the 100 back at the Trials. That leaves the 100 fly if he wants to medal in five individual events at the Games -- the 100 fly plus both medleys, the 200 back and the 200 free. Throw in three relays -- that's a big if, by the way, that he would necessarily swim in all three -- and you get eight.

Eight is precisely how many events Phelps swam in Beijing, winning eight gold medals.

Eight is also precisely the number of events Phelps is now on course to swim in London -- assuming, of course, he finishes first or second in the 100 fly Sunday night.

"I actually never thought I would ever try it again," Phelps said late Saturday.

He also said, when asked about a "rivalry" with Lochte, "You guys are going to get the same answer you always get. Sorry. Neither of us wants to lose. When we get in the water, we race as hard as we can."

Phelps said he is concentrating now on "smaller things," slamming his feet over faster on his backstroke-to-breaststroke turn in the medley, keeping his hands together during his breaststroke legs, things like that.

His longtime coach, Bob Bowman, said a couple days ago, "He is finishing everything well but he's not particularly sharp. I like that," because there are still weeks to go before London, time to hone that sharpness.

Assuming Phelps wins the 100 fly final, Phelps and Lochte will leave Omaha knowing that Phelps won three of four head-to-head here.

At the same time, they both know as well that what happened at the Trials, when they write the history books, will mean -- well, very little.

With age comes wisdom, right? Michael Phelps, 27, said, looking ahead toward London, "The next race is the one that counts."

Swimming: culture matters

OMAHA -- Matt Grevers had just come off a dominating win in the 100 backstroke here at the U.S. swim Trials. It was late at night. He was walking across the bridge that connects CenturyLink Arena to the Hilton Omaha and he was walking slowly, very slowly, because about every 10 feet a gaggle of girls was asking for autographs and photos. He was signing and posing and he could not have been more gracious, even when the girls gave way to a grown man who asked if he would pose for a photo with a picture glued to a popsicle-stick of his hometown orthodontist, apparently a swim dad. Whatever.

Grevers posed for the photo and the guy gushed, "Matt, you just saved me two-thousand bucks!"

"It's a big family," Grevers would say later. "Everyone wants everyone to do well."

Every sport has its own culture. A reason, perhaps the key reason, for USA Swimming's ongoing success at the Summer Olympics -- and why the team that's being put together here at the Trials is expected to continue that run in just a few weeks in London -- is its underlying culture.

It's no accident. It starts early, when kids start at their clubs in their towns, and it carries all the way through and to the national and Olympic teams.

Just one example of swim culture, and how it contrasts with track and field, which of course will be one of the other marquee sports in just a few weeks at the Games:

In the women's 200-meter breaststroke heats here Friday morning, 14-year-old Allie Szekely and 20-year-old Gisselle Kohoyda tied for 17th in 2:30.28.

A marked element of swim culture is that swimmers are expected to be tough. About an hour later, after the heats of the men's 200 individual medley, they held a swim-off to determine who would be the first alternate for Friday night's semifinals in the women's 200 breaststroke; with the crowd roaring, Allie won, in 2:30.03.

To be clear: she went faster in the swim-off than she had in the heat itself.

Afterward, she signed autographs and said it was "awesome."

Compare: in track and field, the dead-heat in the women's 100 meters last Saturday in Eugene, Ore., is still a dead-heat.

The two athletes involved in the 100-meter tie at the track Trials, Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh, are also competing in the 200 meters. After competing through the early rounds of the 200, both have been escorted through what's called the "mixed zone," where athletes meet reporters, with no comment. Both have declined to speak with television crews as well.

The track dead-heat has dissolved into something of a farce. While the protocol that has since been instituted since the tie calls for either a run-off or a coin-flip, the coin-flip rules demand that the 25-cent piece to be used must feature George Washington on one side and an "Eagle" on the other. So the commemorative quarters honoring each of the 50 states, which are of course legal tender and now in wide circulation through a program launched by the U.S. Mint in 1999 -- they're no good.

Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming, said he believes it's his No. 1 priority -- more than fund-raising, organizational charts, anything -- to work at culture.

On the blocks, swimming is the most important thing. Off -- no. It's understood that there's a distinct difference between who the person is as a swimmer and who he or she is as a person. Moreover, the culture in USA Swimming is to embrace accountability and responsibility and, whether winning or losing, to be humble and gracious.

No one is perfect, of course, and there are obviously exceptions and mistakes. But that's the culture.

"You can't manufacture it," Wielgus said. "It has to be ingrained."

He also said, "At the very end, it can be that extra little shot of energy, that extra hundredth of a second that can make a difference. This, all of it -- it's more than just about you."

It's all the more remarkable that it is ingrained because, obviously, swimming is an individual thing. But what USA Swimming has done is make it a team thing, too.

Swimming is hard. Not to say other sports aren't. But, as Eddie Reese, the longtime coach at the University of Texas, said, "Nobody in their right mind picks this. How exciting is it to do two to four hours a day following a black line at the bottom of a pool with no outside information or stimulus? Plus, the only way to get better is to work harder."

On top of which, as everyone in the sport's elite echelons understand well, the best way to produce

Olympic-caliber stars is to develop an aerobic base in a young athlete before he or she hits puberty -- the best example being Michael Phelps, who was essentially a miler as a youngster in Baltimore before he started sprinting.

The thing is, as young swimmers grow up in the sport, they are inevitably on clubs or teams. And there's a lot of waiting around together at meets for heats or finals. That builds camaraderie.

That group sense thoroughly informs the national and Olympic teams.

Call it corny but there are rookie skits and karaoke and team-building exercises that everyone buys into.

At the world championships last year in Shanghai, Frank Busch, the national team director, was a rookie. He had for the prior 22 years been the coach at the University of Arizona. But he was new to the national team post and therefore a rookie.

Culture is culture. At the pre-Shanghai training camp, he got up before the team and belted out his version of Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer." At the time, he was 60 years old and, as he said with a laugh, "They looked at me like I was from outer space."

Missy Franklin, the 17-year-old Colorado sensation who is expected to be a breakout star in London, not only sang, she danced so well that, Busch said, "The kids on the team, they were pulling their jaw off the ground watching her."

Because Franklin will be an Olympic rookie, she will have to do something all over again at the team's training camp before London. Culture is culture.

Besides the fun, there is a serious element to it as well, which everyone involved calls "the code." On international trips, there's a curfew, typically 10 or 11 p.m. No girls in boys' rooms or vice-versa. No tobacco or alcohol, not even for coaches when they are eating out.

"I have never been on a trip where there has been a problem," said Lindsay Mintenko, who swam at the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Games, winning three medals, two gold, and is now the U.S. national team managing director.

The way this also works is that the older athletes not only are expected to give back -- they want to do so.

Ariana Kukors, the 2009 world championship gold medalist in the women's 200 IM who qualified here to swim the event in London, said she vividly remembers Summer Sanders, who won four swimming medals, two gold, at the 1992 Barcelona Games, coming to a pool in the Seattle area -- where Kukors is from -- to sign autographs when Ariana was just 10.

"I never get tired of signing autographs," Kukors said.

Even the biggest names gladly pitch in.

In 2009, Phelps happened to be on vacation in Hawaii. The junior Pan Pacific championships were going on at the same time. Phelps called Jack Roach, the junior team national director, and said, what can I do?

Roach said, please come on over. Phelps did, and talked to the teens at length about the honor of representing team and country.

At those world championships in Rome in 2009, meanwhile, Aaron Peirsol, arguably the finest backstroker of his generation, didn't make the finals of the 100 back. He simply misjudged how fast he would have to go to make the last eight.

He didn't whine. He didn't complain. He said he would put it behind him, cheer for his teammates and get ready for his next race, the 200 back.

A few days later, right before he was getting ready to swim the 200 final, Peirsol turned to Roach, who on that trip was with the senior team.

"Jack, come here," Peirsol said. He urged Roach to take a look around at the magnificent setting that was the Foro Italico -- the olive trees, the red brick buildings, the noise and sound of 16,000 people.

"Let's not forget what we are doing," Peirsol said. "We may never experience this again as long as we live. Look at the sunset. Look at the trees. Look at the American flags. This is what it's all about.

"I knew right then," Roach said, "that Aaron was going to win a gold medal."

Which Peirsol did. In world-record time.