Anti-gay law controversy

MOSCOW -- Over the past few weeks, Russia's controversial anti-gay law has suddenly become a driving narrative in the lead-up to the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. At issue is both the power of the Games to focus attention on social change as well as the very real limits of the Olympic movement to drive such reform. Nick Symmonds, the U.S. 800-meter runner, here for the track and field world championships, put it beautifully in his blog for Runner's World magazine.

He  "disagreed" with the controversial new law, which outlaws the promotion of homosexuality to minors or holding gay pride rallies, saying our "LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) neighbors deserve all the same rights as the rest of us. However, as an American who is about to reside in Moscow for 12 days, this will be the last time I will mention this subject.

"I say this not out of fear of prosecution by the Russian government, but out of respect for the fact that I will be a guest in the host nation. Just as I would not accept a dinner invite to a friend's house and then lecture them on how to raise their kids, neither will I lecture the Russian government on how to govern their people.

"If I am placed in a race with a Russian athlete, I will shake his hand, thank him for his country's generous hospitality, and then, after kicking his ass in the race, silently dedicate the win to my gay and lesbian friends back home. Upon my return, I will then continue to fight for their rights in my beloved democratic union."

One of the wonders of the Games is that it can open up a country in ways that take time -- years -- to appreciate. Consider Seoul in 1988, and South Korea now. The city and country are very different, and the Games were a catalyst. Barcelona 1992 -- the same.

We don't know what having the Games in Beijing will mean in and to China -- the impact of having had thousands of foreign visitors there, mingling -- by 2018 or 2028.

In the same vein, it's now six months before the 2014 Winter Olympics. In no way can we judge what having the Olympics in Sochi in 2014 will mean in and to Russia by, say, 2024 or 2034.

This is a country that, as Sochi 2014 leaders consistently point out, hadn't seen a recycling program for its water bottles and didn't have a culture of volunteering before it won the Winter Olympics.

As Johnny Weir, the gay U.S. figure skater, observed in his latest blog post, "The Olympics will be 14 days of direct reporting, from the source, and shedding light not only on the best athletes in the world, but also the many ways in which we can help our fellow man in a repressive nation."

That's why calls for a boycott -- which, aside from the obvious, that boycotts only hurt athletes -- are so stupidly wrong.

In his open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, the British activist Stephen Fry said an "absolute ban" on Sochi 2014 is "simply essential." The letter, delivered this week to the IOC, also compared the "barbaric, fascist law" to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany and said of Russian president Vladimir Putin, "At all costs, Putin can not be seen to have the approval of the civilized world."

For one, barring something unforeseen and extraordinary, the Games are not going to be moved. There are six months to go. A Winter Olympics is not a middle-school ski meet that you just pick up and move on short notice to, say, Vancouver. There's sound reason the IOC awards it seven years out.

For another, this is not 1936. The parallel between Russia now and Germany then simply does not hold, and further does a disservice to the memory of the 6 million Jews and others who were slaughtered without mercy in the Nazi death camps.

For sure, rhetoric such as Fry's has its purpose. The open letter was said to have been delivered with more than 300,000 signatures. Experience reveals the IOC is often ultimately unmoved by such displays. In 2008, the Olympics were, in fact, held in China amid great pre-Games controversy over Tibet.

Moreover, isn't it perhaps a bit presumptuous for Fry to assert that Russia is not part of the "civilized world"? The country that boasts of -- just to name one of any of a number of great institutions -- the Bolshoi Ballet? That gave the world the literature of, among others, Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy? One of the world's superb art museums, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg?

The IOC, its senior vice president, Singapore's Ser Miang Ng, said earlier this week, was engaged in "quiet diplomacy" with the "highest authority" in Russia.

In that context, the IOC is obviously trying to buy time. Rogge said Friday at the briefest of news conferences -- 10 minutes, six questions in all -- the IOC was still trying to translate the law itself from Russian to English to understand it fully. Of course, why the IOC didn't already have a copy of the law in hand, translated, is confounding. Email went down? Fax machines didn't work?

President Obama said this week he had "no patience" with the Russians over the issue. With profound respect for the president, who has issues with Russia over Syria, the former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and other matters, he also said, "Every judgment should be made on the track, or in the swimming pool, or on the balance beam, and people's sexual orientation shouldn't have anything to do with it."

The last part -- dead-on right.

The rest -- it's the Winter Olympics, not the Summer, and of course here some IOC members would be inclined to take note of Mr. Obama's off-point remarks and again call up, say, the U.S. presidential security detail tying things up before the 2009 vote in Copenhagen at which Chicago got whacked in the first round, Rio winning the 2016 Summer Games.

The Russians have already spent north of $50 billion on the Sochi project. They have a lot at stake in making it work.

So, too, the IOC.

The IOC should -- as it assuredly is doing in its "quiet diplomacy" -- oppose in the strongest possible terms any move that would jeopardize the principle, laid out in the Olympic charter, that the Games should be open to all, free of discrimination.

To be sure, the IOC will have in turn received from the Russians -- again, at the highest levels -- assurance that the legislation will not affect those attending or taking part in the Games. That is the way this works, Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko urging critics Thursday at a news conference to "calm down."

Referring to criticism, Mutko was quoted Friday as saying by Interfax, according to an Associated Press report: "I wouldn't call the pressure light. Russia must understand that the stronger we are, the more other people aren't going to like it. We have a unique country."

"We don't have to be afraid of threats to boycott the Olympic Games. All sensible people understand that sports demand independence, that it is inadmissible that politics intervene."

All the same, the expectation of what is -- and is not -- possible must come through clearly:

The IOC is not a government. It is not even quasi-governmental. Its role is to inspire the best in human beings around the world -- to promote friendship, excellence and, yes, respect.

That does not mean, however, that we are all going to agree. Or that we should. Or that the way we do it this year in the United States, or the west, is the way it should be done everywhere.

Diversity means, you know, "diverse."

For instance:

A number of the states in the United States consider the death penalty sound public policy.

Weigh the following: a new law that allows Russian authorities to impose fines for providing information to minors about the gay community against American state-sanctioned execution.

The United States is seriously considering a bid for the 2024 Summer Games. Would Americans welcome a petition campaign by Russians, western Europeans, or for that matter, anyone anywhere demanding the state of Texas, for example, change its capital murder policy -- or else deny any U.S. city the right to stage the Games?

Back to Symmonds, who went out in the 800 semifinals in Beijing, finished fifth in London and who is considered a strong medal contender here this week, the world championships getting underway Saturday:

"I will say now what I said before the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, when people asked me how I felt competing in a foreign country with questionable human rights standards: The playing field is not a place for politics. In a world rife with never-ending political battles, let the playing field be where we set aside our differences and compete for national pride and the love of sport."

As Nick Symmonds would be the first to tell you, that can't happen unless everybody who is invited  shows up. The Winter Games start in Sochi on Feb. 7. You know how pin-trading at the Games is a big deal? Here's guessing the rainbow pin will be much in demand.

On the WADA presidency

MOSCOW -- Consider what just these few weeks have brought: A massive scandal in Turkey, with revelations of teenagers being doped. A rash of doping cases in Russia. Allegations that West Germany's government tolerated and covered up a culture of doping among its athletes for decades, and even encouraged it in the 1970s "under the guise of basic research."

Positive tests involving American and Jamaican track stars: Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell, Sherone Simpson and Veronica Campbell-Brown.

Meanwhile, the election for the presidency of cycling's governing body, the UCI, is, after years and years of the sport's drug-ridden history -- and to describe it this way is perhaps even too gentle -- fractious.

In the United States, Major League Baseball moved to suspend more than a dozen players because of doping violations but the biggest star of all, Alex Rodriguez, with $95 million at stake, is fighting the matter vigorously.

The reason Edwin Moses, the two-time Olympic gold medalist, is now in the running for the presidency of the World Anti-Doping Agency, is elemental: "I believe I am the right person to help protect clean athletes' right to compete. That," he said, "is what it is about, ultimately."

Moses, 57, entered the race to become the next WADA president in late July, becoming the third -- and final -- candidate for the job. Also in the contest: International Olympic Committee vice president Craig Reedie of Great Britain and former IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch of France.

Moses is indisputably one of the greatest track and field stars of all time. He won the 400-meter high hurdles at both the 1976 and 1984 Summer Games. He won 122 consecutive races from 1977-87.

Since his retirement from competitive running, he has been especially active in the anti-doping movement, serving since September, 2012, as chairman of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

The three would-be WADA presidents had until Tuesday to submit position papers to the IOC; it's now the Olympic movement's turn to nominate a successor to former Australian government minister John Fahey, who has been in the job for six years.

At a meeting here Friday in Moscow, the IOC's policy-making executive board is due to nominate one of the three. That nominee will be put up for formal election at the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Johannesburg Nov. 12-15.

Schamasch -- no one doubts for a second his technical expertise -- is considered a long-shot.

Moses got a late start. He knows that. Even so, if the anti-doping campaign is supposed to be all about athletes, who better than one of the most superb athletes of all time -- who since has virtually done it all -- looking out for athletes?

Moses earned an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. His undergraduate degree, from Morehouse College in Atlanta, is in physics. He serves now as director of the Laureus World Sports Academy, the association of sports starts that seeks to use the positive influence of sport as a tool for social change worldwide. He has served the IOC on its athlete, medical and ethics commissions and on various U.S. Olympic Committee panels as well.

"I think the position needs a person of strong will," Moses said in his first public comments since the IOC announced he was in the race, adding a moment later, "There aren't a lot of people with the experience I have had at every level."

Even so, to know the IOC is to recognize the subtle if unmistakeable signs that Reedie -- himself accomplished, sophisticated, experienced, and particularly in the ways of international sports politics and diplomacy -- may have the nomination all but sewn up.

Within the IOC, there is considerable feeling that it -- the IOC -- should play a more direct role in its dealings with WADA.

Ser Miang Ng of Singapore, currently the IOC's senior vice president, said at a press briefing Monday in London, "I feel there needs to be a shift in the IOC's stance with WADA. Perhaps the IOC should fund a higher percentage of the finance, say two-thirds, which would then justify WADA being more directly led by sport, by the IOC and by the IFs," that is, the international federations.

The IOC set up WADA in 1999. The IOC and the federations currently provide 50 percent of WADA's annual budget. Governments fund the other half. WADA's 2013 budget: $26 million.

In recent months, the federations in particular have intensified their criticisms of WADA, saying it spends millions of dollars annually on drug-testing but doesn't routinely catch the most serious cheaters. The return rate has for years hovered at about 1 percent given the usual test methods.

A more-expensive test, the carbon-isotope test, catches cheaters at a rate of about 5 percent, statistics WADA made public at the end of July suggested. But each carbon-isotope test costs about $400. Where such funding would come from is uncertain.

Moses said he understands fully and fundamentally what is what.

"I'm optimistic about it," he said. "That's the approach I'm taking …

"What I can do is lay out a philosophy: to give the athletes the confidence that the war against doping in sport is the most important aspect of competition and all the resources are being put to the task; to give these athletes the assurance that when you compete, no matter who you are, no matter what country you come from, that if you are using illegal substances you are going to be caught and sanctioned heavily."

Turkey's awful doping scandal

LONDON -- Most of the news accounts about the 31 Turkish track and field athletes hit Monday with two-year bans for doping have centered on four main points: One: Istanbul is in the race for the 2020 Summer Games, along with Madrid and Tokyo. The International Olympic Committee will choose the winner Sept. 7. To be blunt, the timing for Istanbul is not good. Lamine Diack, the president of track and field's international governing body, which goes by the acronym IAAF, has said, "They cannot bid for the Olympics if they cannot control their athletes. They need to clean their house."

Two: three of the 31 athletes competed at the 2012 London Games.

Three: one of those three, Esref Apak, is also the 2004 Athens silver medalist in the hammer throw.

Four: The bans came five days after the IAAF confirmed nine other Turkish athletes got two-year suspensions for using anabolic steroids.

Those are, of course, all relevant and material.

But here are the two central points in what is perhaps one of the biggest doping scandals in track and field history -- and, even given everything that has happened in the sport, that assertion may prove not to be an overstatement.

One: of the 31, 20 are 23 or younger.

Two: eight are teenagers.

Ebru Yurddaş, a hammer thrower with a top-10 result this year in her category, is 16.

For emphasis: she is just a teenage girl.

Thus the fair question: who is doping teenagers -- nearly a quarter of those who were named -- and on what authority?

Or did Ebru Yurddaş, at 16, have the wits, the will and the cash to obtain performance-enhancing drugs herself?

This is on a level completely and profoundly different than the headlines involving sprint stars Tyson Gay of the United States or Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson of Jamaica, all of whom recently confessing to failed drug tests.

Two-time Olympic 200-meter champion Veronica Campbell-Brown tested positive for a stimulant a few weeks back. This is way different than that as well.

Those cases represent, if you will, individual choice.

So, too, the Biogenesis matter -- which led Monday to the sanctions from Major League Baseball. It is of course an absurd joke that Alex Rodriguez can be "banned" for 211 games but then start that very same night at third base for the New York Yankees, and if you want evidence about why the rest of the world looks at the U.S. professional sports leagues and thinks something is askew -- it does not understand collective-bargaining agreements and does not necessarily care to -- that is Example A.

To be clear:

The point is not that doping is a Turkish problem. There have been plenty of doping cases in, for instance, the United States. See, for example: Armstrong, Lance. Or, Jones, Marion.

The point is that in Olympic sport the doping cases in United States have almost exclusively involved young adults, some well into their 20s and 30s, making choices -- bad choices, surely -- in, again, the exercise of individual self-determination.

This, though -- to be doping teenagers?

The news in Turkey erupted on the same day it was disclosed that West Germany's government encouraged and covered up a culture of doping among its athletes for decades, participation "conspicuously similar to the systematic doping system of [East Germany]," according to a comprehensive report.

Last week, the chairman of the Turkish track and field federation, Mehmet Terzi, resigned. He had been in office for nine years.

The IOC, or IAAF, or the World Anti-Doping Agency -- some entity -- should find him when he's out of Turkey, if he ever is allowed out again, and ask: what did he know, and when did he know it?

The president of the Turkish Olympic Committee, Ugur Erdener, who is also an IOC member, issued a statement Monday saying that the 31 suspensions should be taken as a "clear signal" of how seriously the country is responding.

He also said in that statement, "Led by the Turkish government, Turkey has zero tolerance for doping and it is our intention to have clean, young athletes competing on the international stage in the future."

Note it's his statement that invoked the government.

Thus the obvious, and reasonable, question: what, exactly, is the government's involvement in all of this?

Further, all high-level sports officials have to issue a public-relations statement that says something like that at a moment like this.

Reality check: this is not a "clear signal."

How do you know? Because the list of the 31 names provided by the Turkish track and field federation provided no other details: what kind of drugs are at issue or the dates of the suspensions.

That is simply not transparency at work. There is more, much more, to come.

For instance, those nine Turkish athletes who got the two-year bans for using anabolic steroids? Two were teenagers, a 17-year-old discus thrower and an 18-year-old hammer thrower.

Those anabolic steroids?

Six cases, according to the IAAF, involved stanozolol. That is the same substance that Ben Johnson used at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Among those six, the IAAF says, three also tested positive for oral turinabol. That's the steroid that was used in the state-sponsored East German doping programs in the 1970s and 1980s.

Beyond which, two of the country's most successful athletes are still awaiting disciplinary proceedings.

Asli Cakir Alptekin, the London 1500-meter champion, could lose that gold medal and be banned for life; abnormalities purportedly were detected in her biological passport. Meanwhile, two-time European 100-meter hurdles champion Nevin Yanit, fifth in the event in London, allegedly failed a doping test.

The 31 suspensions announced Monday stem from tests ordered by the IAAF in and out of competition amid the Mediterranean Games, an Olympic-style competition held June 20-30 in the Turkish city of Mersin.

In a neat bit of irony, the track and field events there were staged at the "Nevin Yanit Athletics Complex."

Not just one super swimmer

BARCELONA -- No, Michael Phelps did not swim even one stroke at the 2013 world championships. Yes, his presence hung over the meet -- it being a year to the day that he touched the wall for the last time in the winning medley relay in London, as was helpfully noted in a Facebook post by the U.S. Olympic Team. Is he coming back? Who knows? Whatever Phelps ultimately opts to do, keep at his golf game or again take the plunge, these championships, which wrapped up Sunday in memorable fashion, with the bang of the medley relays, will be long remembered because -- if this is indeed the post-Phelps era -- swimming now boasts not just one super-amazing swimmer.

It has a bunch of them.

Phelps has always said he wanted, first and foremost, to grow the sport. Evidence came shining through across eight days at the Palau Sant Jordi.

American Missy Franklin, 18, won six gold medals. She joined Phelps, Mark Spitz and East German Kristin Otto as the only swimmers to win as many as six at the worlds or the Olympics. Otto won six at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Last year in London, Franklin won four golds and a bronze. She is -- at the risk of understatement -- an extraordinary talent.

At a late-night news conference, she was asked: "Missy, after all you have achieved here in Barcelona, do you start feeling like the female Michael Phelps?"

She smiled. "No," she said. "I just feel like Missy. I think that's all I ever want to be, is just Missy.

"I don't ever want to want to take after someone else, because in swimming everyone leaves their own unique mark. No one will ever do what Michael did, or how Michael did it. It has been incredible watching him. But I hope to kind of have my own unique traits that make me known for just being me in the swimming world instead of anyone else."

Franklin's immediate reaction after her final medal, a big win Sunday night by the U.S. women in the medley: she is taking a break from swimming until she shows up in a couple weeks at Berkeley for her freshman year.

The U.S. team dominated the swim medal count, with 29 overall in the pool, 14 gold. Including open water, the U.S. total: 31. Even so, these worlds underscored swimming's phenomenal worldwide growth, and the emergence of stars from all over.

For some context:

At the height of the craziness that was the plastic-suit craze, the 2009 world championships in Rome, swimmers set 43 world records. There was talk then that those marks might last 10 or 20 years.

Here, swimmers set six world records -- three in one day, Saturday.

All six records, intriguingly, were set in women's races.

Lithuania's Ruta Meilutyte, just 16, set two world records herself, in the 50 and 100 breaststroke. Her mark in the 50, in Saturday's semifinal no less, came mere hours after Russia's Yulia Efimova had in the preliminaries shaved two-hundredths of a second off the 29.8 record that American Jessica Hardy had set in 2009; Meilutyte lowered the new mark, 29.78, by a whopping three-tenths of a second, to 29.48.

Then, in Sunday's final, as if to emphasize just how brutal the competition has become, Efimova won the race, touching in 29.52. Meilutyte came in second, in 29.59. Hardy finished third, in 29.8 -- which, until just Saturday, had been world-record time.

"For her to swim so fast -- this is an amazing time," Efimova said. "But today I win. And this is great."

In Sunday's night's men's 1500, China's Sun Yang prevailed, in 14:41.15. That meant he won all three distance races, the 1500, 800 and 400 -- pulling off the distance triple that Australian legend Grant Hackett did at the world championships in Montreal in 2005.

He was named the male swimmer of the meet.

The female swimmer of the meet?

American Katie Ledecky, also 16. She also set two world records -- in the 800 and the 1500, the mark in the 1500 going down by six seconds. She also won all three distance races -- again, the 400, 800 and 1500. Moreover, she swam a leg on the winning 4x200 relay.

Ledecky said she had hoped for three wins and one world record -- in any of the three races, she said.

Though "it means a lot to me to get this award," Ledecky said, Franklin "deserves it probably more than I do" and "we are all so proud of her."

This must be understood about Katie Ledecky:

Out of the pool, she is as pleasant, charming and delightful as any model teen-ager -- who plans now to head home and apply for her driver's permit -- can be.

When she steps onto the blocks, however, she acquires -- this is meant as the highest of compliments -- a cold-blooded instinct to win.

She explained on Saturday where it comes from: "I've always had it, from the time I started swimming. When you love it, you want to do well." Comparatively, it's not a big deal to her to swim against the world's best: "When you get to a [big] meet, it's nothing new. You just compete against the girls next to you. That is what swimming is all about."

At a news conference Sunday, Ledecky was asked why it is that the world records here fell only to women.

She said, "Michael Phelps just retired. He left a really great legacy. I think a lot of great people have been inspired by him. Not just the male swimmers but definitely female swimmers as well. I think the world of swimming is really fast right now. I think the women are stepping up. The men are trying to chase some of Michael's records, which are really tough. I don't know -- it's just a handful of female swimmers that are starting to do this."

South Africa's Chad le Clos won the men's 100 and 200 butterflys, coming from behind in the 100 -- he was fifth at the turn -- just the way Phelps used to.

Cesar Cielo of Brazil won the men's 50 free in 21.32 but the race produced a new star, silver medalist Vlad Morozov, who touched in 21.47. Morozov, who moved to Southern California from Siberia when he was 14 and swam for USC in college, tore up the 2013 NCAA meet, breaking the 100-yard sprint record set by -- who else -- Cielo.

The U.S. medal count in the pool, incidentally, would have been an even 30 -- and the gold total 15 -- but for an unusual disqualification Sunday night in the men's medley.

On the first exchange, with Matt Grevers finishing the backstroke leg and Kevin Cordes jumping off to do the breaststroke, the electronic timer caught Cordes jumping precisely one-hundredth of a second too soon. The U.S. team finished the race in first place, with Ryan Lochte swimming the fly and Nathan Adrian swimming the anchor freestyle, and by more than a second -- but was promptly disqualified.

The incident was evocative of an exchange at the worlds in Melbourne in 2007, when Ian Crocker jumped off in the medley prelims exactly one-hundredth of a second too soon as well. That kept Phelps from winning eight gold medals there.

Grevers said the mix-up might have been as much on him as on Cordes, a promising breaststroker expected to be one of the world's best by the 2016 Rio Games. Adrian said, "It falls on all of our shoulders. It's up to all of us to help bring it back. I have said this before. If us four ever step up again, we are never going to have a disqualification. That's for sure."

Bob Bowman, Phelps' longtime mentor who is the head U.S. men's coach here, similarly called the episode Sunday a "great learning experience."

He urged perspective: "DQ'ing a relay in the first world championships of the quad is one thing. Doing it in the Olympics … would be 10 times worse, right?" The trick going forward: to "re-think how they're gong to react to things in this environment and just do better."

Earlier in the week, Phelps had been in the stands texting Bowman when the U.S. was racing.

Asked if Phelps had sent a text or two with some thoughts on the medley, Bowman said, "Not yet."

Then again, that was just moments after.

Swimming's star power

BARCELONA -- If the men's 100 freestyle is the equivalent of a heavyweight fight, the 50 free is completely damn simple to understand. One lap. Raw power and speed. First one to the other side is the man. Thirteen years ago, two Americans, Anthony Ervin and Gary Hall Jr., tied for the gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in the 50 free, in a time of 21.8 seconds.

In what may have been the most loaded 50 free field ever, Brazil's Cesar's Cielo rocked it Saturday night at the Palau Sant Jordi in 21.32 seconds. Afterward, he cried -- and cried -- on the medals stand, the tears redemption after knee surgery and validation of his standing as one of the all-time sprint greats. The crowd roared.

The time, the field, the race, all of it underscored how swimming keeps getting better and better. Indeed, this 50 free produced a new star, Russia's Vlad Morozov, who won silver, in 21.47, even as it re-charged the career of one of the sport's leading lights, George Bovell of Trinidad & Tobago, who won bronze in 21.51, the island nation's first-ever world-championships medal.

The 50 free highlighted a day and night of extraordinary racing.

American Katie Ledecky, for instance, set another world-record, her second here, in winning the women's 800, in 8:13.86. She is so good that runner-up Lotte Friis of Denmark applauded as Ledecky got out of the pool.

Ledecky's 800 marked her fourth gold here in Barcelona. She also won the 400, 1500 and took part in the 4x200 relay. She took six seconds off the world-record in the 1500. Her 400 time was an American record.

When she gets home, she hopes to get her driver's license.

"I am thrilled," she said. "I exceeded my expectations for this year."

Her roommate at these worlds, Simone Manuel, who turned 17 on Friday, grabbed the final spot in the women's 50 free final Sunday by swimming 24.91; she is the first 18-and-under swimmer in U.S. history to break 25 seconds.

Missy Franklin won her fifth gold medal Saturday, in the 200 backstroke, her signature event, in 2:04.76. She is the first woman since Australia's Libby Trickett to win five gold medals at a world championships, and swims Sunday in the medley relay for a sixth.

No female swimmer has ever won six gold medals at a world championships. Franklin could join Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Kristin Otto of East Germany as the only swimmers to win as many as six golds at the worlds or the Olympics. Otto won six golds at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Asked about six, Franklin said it would "mean so much to me" but cautioned about the medley, "Like every single race here, we are going to have very tough competition."

In the morning heats, Russia's Yulia Efimova set a world record in the women's 50 breaststroke, 29.78. The record lasted until the evening -- when Lithuania's Ruta Meilutyte went 29.48 in the semifinals.

The world records in the women's 50, 100 and 200 have all fallen at these 2013 championships -- stunning, because the plastic suits from 2008-09 were said to have helped the breaststroke most of all. The women's 50 breaststroke final is set for Sunday evening.

Ryan Lochte, the day after winning two medals and setting a personal best in the 100 fly semifinals, finished sixth in the men's 100 fly. South Africa's Chad le Clos, closing in the second lap just the way Phelps used to, won in 51.06.

"I don't know if it had an effect, the triple last night, but I just didn't have it," Lochte said.

Cielo for sure had it.

He won his third straight world championships title in the 50 free -- this despite surgery on both knees after the Olympics, and not even racing the 100 free.

The eight lanes of this 50 free final held three Olympic champions: Ervin, from 2000; Cielo, 2008; France's Florent Manaudou, 2012.

All eight guys had an Olympic medal. In all, there were 14 medals among the group -- seven gold, four silver, four bronze. Five of the eight had an individual medal.

To illustrate how the race has developed -- owing to advances in strength-training, straight-arm freestyle technique, a change in the racing blocks themselves and other factors -- Ervin finished Saturday in 21.65.

He took sixth.

"It happens," he said, adding, "I just felt incredible yesterday. Things were a little bit apart from that when I was going through my routine today. So, you know, I don't attribute it to much other than things didn't line up perfectly. I didn't get the strike. I got the spare. Whatever."

Nathan Adrian, the London 100 gold medalist, finished fourth, in 21.6.

He said, "21.6 would medal at most international competitions but the 50 was really fast this year,"  adding, "I have been saying this all week: training has become so specific for every single event. Vlad and I were the only ones who swam the 100 and the 50. Look at the results from 2000, and that's not going to be the same. It has become so specific. The more you specialize, the better you can become at any particular event."

In the semis, Manaudou had gone 21.37. He looked like the man to beat.

Instead, the race was all about Lanes 6, 7 and 8 -- Cielo, Morozov and Bovell.

Cielo had gone 21.76 in the prelims, then 21.6 in the semis.

But, as Cielo said late Saturday, there's a big difference between swimming the 50 and sprinting the 50. He reminded himself to swim "fast and long, fast and long," and that's what he did, keeping his head down. his stroke long: "When I saw the scoreboard, I was ecstatic. I had no idea where I was."

Morozov, 21, moved to Southern California from Siberia when he was 14. He ripped up the NCAA championships this year swimming for USC, taking down no less than Cielo's record in the 100-yard sprint, then turned pro. He turned in a 47.62 in the 100 at the Summer University Games a few weeks back.

Here, in the 100, he went out in the first 50 in 21.94 -- the first sub-22 split, ever, in any major international final. He finished fifth, in 48.01. "I wish I didn't go out as fast," he said ruefully.

In the 50 prelims, he went 21.95. The semis, 21.63.

In this race, there was no back half to worry about. Just 50 meters.

Morozov's 21.47 is a new national record -- beating the mark he set in the semis. He set it in front of Alex Popov, the former Russian sprint star -- who gave out the medals Saturday night.

"I'm really stoked with these medals," Morozov said, proving that seven years in SoCal is plenty long enough to learn to talk like a native. He also won a bronze medal as part of the 4x100 relay.

Morozov, noting that this was his first long-course championships at which he was swimming individual events, added a moment later, "To come here and get a silver medal already with guys who were in my heat -- they were already Olympic champions, world champions  … I am really stoked with that. In 2016 I will do my best so that no one will be close to me."

Sprinters, it must be noted, do not as a general rule lack for confidence.

"He's going to give us a lot of trouble in the next years," Cielo said of Morozov, smiling.

Bovell, meanwhile, won a bronze medal in the 200 IM -- behind Phelps and Lochte -- in Athens in 2004. After that, he hurt his knee and could no longer swim the breaststroke.

He re-made himself into a sprinter. He turned 30 two weeks ago and, as he said, "To be honest, when you get to be my age, there is some pressure to grow up, so to speak." A trip to these worlds without a medal, he said, would have put pressure on him to stop swimming competitively.

Now, he said, he intends to keep on through Rio. "I love swimming," he said. "I did not want to give it up."

An epic swimming triple

BARCELONA -- It is Ryan Lochte's fate that he was born in 1984 -- on August 3, to be precise. The good news is that it's his birthday on Saturday. Happy 29 to a guy who is a lot -- and, for emphasis, a lot -- smarter than a good many people think, and a lot more sensitive, who is incredibly gracious with children, autograph-seekers and photo-takers, and patiently answers all manner of questions, no matter how inane.

The unshakeable challenge for Ryan Lochte is that he is not Michael Phelps (who, by the way, turned 28 in June). So even on a night at the Palau Sant Jordi in which Lochte had demonstrated anew that he is unequivocally one of swimming's all-time greats, racing a triple believed to be unprecedented in world championships or Olympic history, Lochte was nonetheless presented at a late-night news conference with a query about Phelps.

"Do you miss Michael" he was asked.

"Do I miss Michael? Of course. He's the toughest competitor I have ever had to race against. The friendship we've grown -- it's amazing. I love a challenge. Whenever I stepped on the blocks, it was a challenge racing him, and I definitely miss him."

The general rule in a news conferences is that anyone can ask anything. Surely, though, on this night, Ryan Lochte deserved singular attention. He swam three races in about an hour and a half, winning two gold medals and posting the top time at an event, the 100-meter butterfly, he's competing in at a major international meet for the first time.

Lochte won the 200 backstroke. He then posted the fastest time in the semifinals of the 100 fly. The he put the Americans ahead for good in the 4x200 relay.

This was a triple of -- truly -- epic proportions.

It's all the more outrageous considering, as Lochte has noted several times here, he did not put in his usual beast-like training -- that because of all the fun he allowed himself after the 2012 Olympics, including his reality-TV show.

"My whole body is hurting me," he said at the news conference. "There's no way about it. I'm sore. Everything."

To show you how hard it is to gin up motivation to win even one medal at a world championships, in particular the year after the Olympic Games, here is Tyler Clary, third in Friday's 200 back, winner of the event last year in London.

Lochte touched Friday in 1:53.79, Clary in 1:54.64, Poland's Radoslaw Kawecki in between in 1:54.24. Clary said his "only goal" Friday was to "have a very good race technically" and swim "1:54-mid, and that's exactly what I did."

'It's hard to find the motivation to do it, yes," Clary acknowledged, adding, "I went into that event [in London] not expecting to win. I knew I was in contention for a medal but when I touched the wall and I saw '1' and 'Olympic record' next to my name, I absolutely lost it in the next couple weeks after that race. Pure pandemonium.

"And to be able to come back, right away, get right back in the water with your heart fully into it, is really tough. I made it doubly hard on myself coming back at 220 [pounds] when I usually swim at 190."

Now throw in, like Lochte, the demands of a filming a reality-show.

French sprinter Fred Bousquet, fifth in qualifying Friday in the men's 50 free, said of Lochte, laughing, "I don't even want to talk about him. He is a freak."

Bousquet, who went to college at Auburn and is completely conversant in American culture, added,  "He's got cojones, as we would say in Spanish. The TV show, the temptations -- not to lose enthusiasm. If he's still walking tonight after that relay, it'll be impressive."

Anthony Ervin, the Sydney 2000 50 free gold medalist who posted the second-fastest time in the one-lap sprint Friday, called Lochte's triple a "Herculean feat of strength," adding, "I can barely handle doing one lap twice in 12 hours. And that man is going to be on the podium every day."

Ricky Berens, who swam the anchor leg of the U.S. relay, called Lochte's performance "absolutely one of the toughest triples you can do," adding he was himself inspired: "If [Lochte] can do all those races, I know I can pop off something good, too."

The TV show of course, is called, "What would Ryan Lochte Do?" The obvious question after the triple -- why did Ryan Lochte do it?

There are two answers.

There was the joke Lochte offered at the news conference: "I thought as you get older you do less events. In my case you do more."

And then there's the real answer, buried in the answer he gave about Phelps. Lochte loves a challenge.

Phelps, for instance, swam three races in one session at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials -- the 200 back and 200 IM finals and the 100 fly semis -- and Lochte did the same thing last year at the Trials in Omaha.

This, though, is the worlds. And Lochte's program Friday is arguably beyond compare -- not just because he was defending world titles but because the level of competition was even a notch higher.

Here was Lochte's night:

613 pm: Lane 5, 200 back begins.

615 pm: Wins in 1:53.79, 15-hundredths faster than he swam in winning bronze in the race in London. The victory is his third straight world title in the event, the eighth straight time a a U.S. man has won it, his 14th world championships gold. He goes straight to the warm-down pool and swims a few laps.

653 pm: Medals stand for The Star-Spangled Banner.

704 pm: Call room, seat 4, front row, his warm-up jacket open, Lochte is yakking it up with Hungary's Laszlo Cseh. Lochte had managed after getting his medal to swing by the massage therapist's room and get a shake to drink.

713 pm: Dives in pool for his heat of 100 fly, Lane 1.

714 pm: Wins heat in 51.48, a personal best, second-fastest in the world this year, back to warm-down pool.

745 pm: U.S. 4x200 relay team is on deck, Lochte assigned second leg.

747 pm: Dives in pool, Lane 4, with U.S. looking to make up ground because Russia's Danila Izotov had opened in 1:45.14. Lochte's effort, 1:44.98, lifts U.S. into first by 63-hundredths of a second, and the Americans go on to win in 7:01.72. It was the first U.S. 4x200 relay without Phelps since 2001; the U.S. has won the event continuously since 2004.

After all the other swimming he had done, Lochte's relay split, it would turn out, would be the night's second-fastest.

Only China's Sun Yang -- the 400 and 800 gold medalist -- went faster, 1:43.16.

The relay gold makes Lochte the first swimmer in world championships history to win two gold medals in one day on three separate occasions. He did it previously on March 30, 2007, and July 29, 2011.

No matter what happens in the 100 fly, what happened here Friday sets the stage for the world championships in Kazan, Russia, in 2015, and the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Lochte said he approaches everything day by day, step by step. Even so, he said:

"After the Olympics, my body and my mind -- it needed some down time. It needed to get away from the sport. It needed to re-charge. I took some time off. I don't know if it was the right decision or not. I do know when I was out of the pool I was having fun."

But, he quickly added, "When it came down to it, I am still an Olympic athlete. My goal is 2016. I knew I had to get back in the water, sooner than I thought."

And, he said, "The confidence I have coming out of this meet is pretty good leading up to 2016."

You think?

The team's the thing

BARCELONA -- The world knows Michael Phelps. It knows Ryan Lochte, who won his third straight men's world championships 200-meter individual medley here title here Thursday night at the Palau Sant Jordi. It knows teen sensations Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky. They each won more gold medals Thursday, too, swimming legs of the 4x200 freestyle relay.

No, Phelps isn't swimming here. Even so, this deep U.S. team is still -- with five days down, three days to go -- dominating the medals count at yet another world championships, and the story of how Jimmy Feigen won silver Thursday in the men's 100 free offers revealing insight into the American way.

The U.S. swim team has 18 medals in the pool, 20 overall. Swimming is by definition an individual sport. But at big meets, it is also -- and the Americans understand this better than anyone in the world -- a team event.

It sounds simple. But it's not.

It's not just that the Americans have considerable talent. Of course they do. But it runs far deeper than that.

It's about creating, and sustaining, a team culture that promotes and inspires best performance.

As Cate Campbell, the outstanding Australian swimmer put it in a news conference here before the meet got underway, "When you go away, the swim team becomes your family. Healthy family -- healthy swimming. I think that has been really important."

Consider the way the Americans talked about each other after Thursday's racing:

Ledecky swam her first-ever leg on a U.S. relay, leading off that 4x200 swim. When she touched, the Americans were in first. She said the experience was "awesome," adding, "It meant a lot to get up and race with three girls behind me," calling it "definitely the most fun I have ever had in a race."

Karlee Bispo, who swam third, after Shannon Vreeland, earned her leg -- her first-ever start in an international final -- after a solid preliminary swim.

Bispo said, "To be with three Olympians, and amazing people, and to be able to represent my country, and look back and hear the 'U-S-A' chant and wear our flag on our suit and cap -- to win the gold medal is something I will never forget. I was trying to hide back the tears hearing the national anthem."

Franklin, winner of the 200 free Wednesday, swam another outstanding 200 -- 1:54.27 -- to ensure the victory.

She said, "Being a part of a team is the most important part of swimming for me, which is different, because a lot of people think of it as an individual sport. But when you get out there and you have three people who are not only your teammates but your friends -- that you know are going to support you no matter what -- you just have this whole new energy about you.

"And you want to go out there and race harder than you have ever raced before."

Lochte:

"I think one of the reasons why Team USA is so dominant is because we're what I feel like is -- we're like the one team that comes together. It's not separate. It's not a men's team. It's not a women's team. We help each other out. The guys help the girls out. The girls help the guys out. I think that's why we're so dominant -- we push each other. That's what makes a team."

In a different team culture, it might have been easy for Feigen's performance Sunday night in the men's 4x100 relay to make for a longstanding disaster.

Instead, it now looks like the kind of thing that obviously not just kickstarted him here but might well galvanize him to and through both the world championships in Kazan, Russia, in 2015 and the Rio Summer Games in 2016.

Which, by the way, is just the way the U.S. coaches planned it all along.

It's called trust and faith in him, and each other. That's what families do.

The relay rewind: handed the lead, Feigen went a too-slow 48.23. The French won.

What happened next?

A little back story:

Feigen went to college at Texas, where he won the 50- and 100-yard free at the 2012 NCAAs under the direction of coaches Eddie Reese and Kris Kubik. At the Summer University Games in China in 2011, he won the 100-meter free. Last year in London, he swam in the prelims of the 4x100 free relay that would ultimately win a silver medal.

Feigen qualified for these 2013 worlds by finishing second at the U.S. nationals in the 100 free. In him, the U.S. coaches, led by men's head coach Bob Bowman, see enormous upside.

That's why they dropped him into the anchor slot Sunday night in the 4x100 relay. It was his first major-league performance.

He would say late Thursday, "I'm still kind of a rookie to the whole world-circuit thing. I got a little bit of rookie nerves when it came to that relay. I kind of felt like I let everybody down. So I felt like it was my duty at this point to step up and show I do belong, I do belong with these swimmers."

Feigen is now 23.

After the relay, one of the people he sought out is Jack Roach, the U.S. junior national team coach, who is here with the American staff. Feigen and Roach have a history. It goes back to when Feigen was 9, at the University of Texas swim camps, and Roach was a coach there.

For that matter, virtually every swimmer who has come up in the American program has a connection not just to -- but with -- Roach. Here's one of the main reasons why: "I never," he said of his current role, "consider myself more than a consultant."

In this context, that means this: Roach is keenly aware that when this meet ends, Feigen is heading back home. Yes, there's a mission now. But Feigen has relationships with his coaches back home, too. What do families do? They look after each other, even across the oceans.

Feigen initially brought up this concern to Roach: if I swim faster in the 100, will people think I didn't try in the relay?

"We got off that relatively quick," Roach said, adding it was important to recognize that of course American swimmers "do feel a relay position is an honor and they never want to drop the ball in that situation."

Then the talking got down to real strategy -- how to best prepare for the 100 itself. "The second thing we discussed," Roach said, "was how would Eddie and Kris help you strategize the race."

Roach added, "When I'm dealing with someone else's athlete, I think it's very important that I let them know that they know themselves better than I know them. I like to provide them with questions they can ask themselves."

There was some technical talk. But, really, as Roach said, at this level, the preparation is "all mental."

"Everyone," Roach said, "strives to be a champion. When you're a champion, you're worthy. Sometimes you're worthy and you aren't a champion. What do you learn from every experience to become a little more worthy so you can move into that championship state? So much of it is accountability to the athletes who are in front of you."

Feigen's best 100 time before this meet in Barcelona: 48.24.

In Wednesday's semifinals, he went 48.07.

Then, in Thursday's final, 47.82.

Australia's James Magnussen -- out-touched by American Nathan Adrian by one-hundredth of a second last summer for the gold medal in London -- won the race, in 47.71.

Adrian took third, in 47.84.

The last time the U.S. men had won a world championships medal of any color in the 100 free? 2001, Anthony Ervin, gold.

For Magnussen -- who became the third Australian to win an individual discipline twice at the worlds, after Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett -- the win was about team and family as well: "We felt a little isolated last year. I felt like I had everyone's support this year. I felt like I was representing a team I was proud to represent this year, and that made my job a little easier."

For Feigen, too: "I started out a little shaky with this whole world championships thing but I think it's coming together in the end."

Finally, here's the reason Jack Roach is on staff in Barcelona, and is so integral to the American swim team's winning culture:

"I don't really feel like I can take much credit here," he said, and he's not being self-deprecatingly humble. He means it. "It's about the athletes Jimmy is surrounded with and the coaching staff back home and the support he gets."

As Ryan Lochte says -- jeah.

Missy's world - we just live in it

BARCELONA -- With the passage of time, and granted it has only been five years, the magnitude of what Michael Phelps accomplished in Beijing in 2008 becomes ever more evident. He set out to win eight gold medals. Inside the howl of noise that was the Water Cube, he won eight gold medals.

Records are of course made to be broken. But one wonders whether that 8-for-8 will ever seriously be tested.

Missy Franklin had come to Barcelona with the idea of perhaps trying for eight golds. It takes nothing -- again, nothing -- away from her brilliance and sheer exuberance to say that she now, after winning the women's 200 freestyle Wednesday here at the Palau Sant Jordi can "only" win seven, assuming everything else here at the 2013 world championships breaks her way.

The choice, after all, was completely hers.

Franklin realized after a demanding double on Tuesday that her best chance at winning the 200 free Wednesday night was to scratch Wednesday out of the 50 backstroke.

Math works like this -- you can't get to seven without getting first to three, and Franklin made it three-for-three Wednesday night in 1:54.81.

More math: It was her first time ever under 1:55.

More still: last year in London, Franklin missed out on a medal in the 200 free by one-hundredth of a second. Absolutely, missing out weighed on her.

"That was really rough, not making the podium -- just for my team. I really wanted to be up there for them. It was a really tough swim. I learned a lot from it and I don't think I would be here now without that swim. And so to be here now, and to go 1:54 -- I'm so happy."

Federica Pellegrini of Italy, the world record-holder in the event, took second in 1:55.14.

Pellegrini, who has consistently had a knack for the peculiar, disclosed after the race that she had trained for these championships solely by swimming backstroke and that her coach had convinced her only at the last moment to do freestyle.

Camille Muffat of France took third, in 1:55.72.

It must be remembered that Franklin just turned 18 in May. She will enroll at Cal-Berkeley after these championships.

Last year in London -- even with the near miss in the 200 free -- she won four golds and a bronze.

The victory Wednesday lifts her career world championship gold total to six. She won three in Shanghai in 2011. Here in Barcelona she took part in the winning 4x100 free relay on Sunday; she won the 100 backstroke on Tuesday.

In an era when so many sports figures can be such downers, Missy Franklin is the complete opposite. She is relentlessly optimistic, hard-working, the ultimate team-player -- pretty much everything you'd want if you were saying, who would I want my middle-school son or daughter to model themselves after?

This is why longtime observers of the swim scene such as Rowdy Gaines, himself a 1984 swim gold medalist, can hardly contain themselves when it comes to Missy Franklin. Now an NBC analyst, Gaines has heard it all, seen it all. Three times after her 200 free victory, he posted exclamation-point laden tributes to her on his Twitter feed. The last: "I can't help myself….Missy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It is an article of nearly religious faith among elite-level swimmers that swimming hurts. That's because, sincerely, it does. Most come into an interview and proclaim, ohmigosh, that swim hurt so bad. Missy Franklin never says that.

Here she was literally moments after her 200 win, talking about what it's like for her flipping at 100 meters:

"That's the hard part about a 200 -- it's when you really start to feel it. You have another 100 left. So you have to stay mentally tough. That's when you have to focus on your own swim. And as soon as you touch that wall, all that pain goes away because you know you tried your best, regardless of what the time is."

Franklin's strategy Wednesday was elegantly simple. The framework of the race, she said, was to stay even with Muffat in the first 100, then keep ahead in the final 100 of Pellegrini.

Even so, she said, the only sure path to victory was to swim her own race: "A lot of it was mental .. just being able to concentrate on my own race  and not getting caught up in what other swimmers around me were doing."

Having learned from last year's near-miss, she and coach Todd Schmitz had focused on pace work. That, she said, paid off.

And, she said, after a demanding double on Tuesday -- winning the 100 back, then swimming the semis of the 200 free -- it all seemed maybe just a little too much of a push, particularly after Wednesday morning's prelims, in which she finished 13th of the 16 qualifiers in the 50 back, at 28.44, nearly a full second behind the fastest qualifier, China's Fu Yuanhui, 27.55. The semis of the 50 back went down literally just minutes before the final of the 200 free.

Franklin had won a bronze in the 50 back in Shanghai.

If Franklin was perhaps a contender in the 50 back, she is so much more a favorite in the 100 free and the 200 back. The 100 free heats get underway on Thursday; the 200 back heats on Friday. There are two more relays to come as well.

Asked at a news conference Wednesday whether it occurred to her just how "amazing" it was  Phelps had gone 8-for-8, Franklin, as ever, laughed, and said, "Of course. I don't even need to do that [myself] to realize how amazing that was.

"Just swimming seven events, eight events, six events -- I mean, swimming that was incredible, let alone winning every single one of them. Not enough can be said about what Michael did in 2008. It was absolutely incredible and, you know, watching him become the most decorated Olympian of all time in London was also an unbelievable achievement.

"To be there to witness it was wonderful."

To win five medals in London -- that was pretty special, too, especially for a teenager. And three golds already in Barcelona, with more very likely to come -- someone alert Rowdy Gaines, because he is going to need more exclamation points before this week is done.

106 tests in all of 2012

BARCELONA -- The Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission performed a mere 106 anti-doping tests in all of 2012, according to statistics made public Tuesday by the World Anti-Doping Agency in a wide-ranging report that illuminates both the challenges and progress in the global anti-doping campaign. Of the 106, 68 were performed out-of-competition; 38 were taken at meets. The 106 tests caught no one cheating.

Compare the Jamaican number -- 106 -- to the number of tests performed by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in 2012: 4,051. Or the Russian National Anti-Doping Organization: 15,854. The Chinese: 10,066. German: 8,077. Italian: 6,794. British: 5,971. Australian: 5,186. Japanese: 4,956. Indian: 4,051.

Jamaica's 106 tests were five more than Malta, two more than Slovenia and nine fewer than Iceland. The anti-doping agency in Iran performed 75 more tests than the Jamaicans.

Now ask: who is making a serious effort in trying to catch sports dopers?

The 2012 WADA report for the first time amounts to a one-stop shop. In previous years, there were two separate reports -- one for the WADA-accredited labs, another for the various national anti-doping organizations. The report collects the numbers from both sources into one document.

Further, it collects the lab and anti-doping organization data for blood tests, urine tests and the so-called "athlete biological passport" samples.

The report is filled with fascinating, compelling facts and figures.

For instance, the return rate in Olympic sports -- as it has been for years -- for what is called an "adverse analytical finding," meaning a positive test, is right around 1 percent.

Considering only the samples that cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union, which goes by the acronym UCI, submitted for its riders last year, blood and urine, in and out of competition -- the return rate was, predictably, 1.1 percent, 84 of 5,633 in-competition and 11 of 3,307 out-of-competition, 95 over 8,940 total.

Track and field's return rate, again considering only those samples submitted by the federation: 0.7 percent.

Aquatic sports: 0.9 percent.

The Olympic federations with serious challenges -- far more than cycling and track, which are widely perceived to be plagued by doping issues?

Weightlifting, with a return rate on 1,815 samples of 4.2 percent.

Curling, believe it or not -- with four out-of-competition positives out of 96 total samples, again for a return rate of 4.2 percent.

And the Olympic federation facing the most serious challenge? Equestrian. Five in-competition positives from 65 overall samples, for a rate of 7.7 percent.

Overall, there were 20,624 cycling samples analyzed in 2012; 27,836 in track and field; 13,069 in swimming; and, to the surprise of some who might believe cycling is by far the most aggressively policed sport, 28,008 in soccer.

No names or nationalities are attached to the figures.

The obvious question: what are all those tests proving?

The public wants the tests to do what they simply can't do -- show to some level of satisfaction that athletes are clean. But, as the report makes clear, it's another test produces far more vivid results.

It's called the carbon-isotope test. With it, the numbers change dramatically.

The IAAF, track and field's governing body, for instance, authorized 97 such cutting-edge tests last year; 35 were out-of-competition and turned up no positives; 62 were done in-meet, when ordinary tests would likely turn up nothing; nine of the 62 came back positive.

Using the carbon-isotope test raised the return rate in track and field to 5.75 percent overall, 34 of 591 cases, and to 4.97 percent in cycling, 27 of 543.

An even more compelling example of the use of the carbon-isotope test:

The Thai Weightlifting Federation performed an out-of-competition test on 26 weightlifters; 25, or 96.2 percent, came back positive, according to the WADA report.

If carbon-isotope testing produces "better" results, the fact is it's also expensive.

As the carbon-isotope numbers underscore, it is only the allocation of more money that would provide the level of assurance in a level playing field -- particularly in the aftermath of the Lance Armstrong matter -- that many assert they want in today's sports environment.

Where, though, would such funding come from? WADA is funded both from sport, largely meaning the International Olympic Committee, and from governments around the world. In an era of tight budgets, are governments likely -- or not -- to see funding for doping controls as a pressing priority?

Until then, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

It has for years been common knowledge that the blood-booster erythropoietin, or EPO, would be sought after by cyclists, long-distance runners, cross-country skiers -- or, for that matter, any athlete seeking a competitive edge.

So, for instance, the IAAF in 2012 authorized 1,392 EPO tests, in and out of competition. The tests caught no one.

The Russian national doping organization performed 3,063 EPO tests. Positives? None.

The UCI instituted 1,137 tests in competition, catching six, and 3,117 out of competition, catching three. In all, 4,254 tests for a return rate of 0.21 percent.

In the meantime, also sure to add to the debate, as the IOC prepares in the coming weeks to nominate one of three candidates to the WADA presidency -- former hurdles great Edwin Moses, IOC vice president Craig Reedie or former IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch -- there's this:

Worldwide, labs analyzed roughly 185,000 samples from athletes across all the Olympic sports in 2012. There turned up a total of 4,500 "adverse analytical findings" as well as "atypical findings," meaning a case that requires further investigation, for a combined rate of 2.4 percent.

Of those 4,500, 2,279, or 50.6 percent, were for anabolic steroids, topping the list.

Next: stimulants, 697, 15.5 percent.

Next, and this is why there is such discussion about whether it ought to be on the list in the first instance as a performance-enhancer, cannabinoids, meaning marijuana, 406, 9 percent.

At a meeting May 11, WADA's executive committee announced that effective immediately it was significantly raising the threshold required for an athlete to test positive.

15:36.53 to make a change

BARCELONA -- It is 29 years since Joan Benoit ran the marathon at the Los Angeles Summer Games. Women now compete at the Summer Games in wrestling and boxing. At the 2012 London Games, every national Olympic committee in the world -- finally -- sent female competitors. The U.S. team was more than 50 percent female.

And yet there remains a curious anachronism. In swimming, one of the most progressive of sports, men -- only men -- race the Olympic 1500 meters. The longest distance in the pool on the Olympic program for women is 800 meters, as it has been since 1968.

There are moments in sports when you know you are bearing witness to something special -- to a moment that may change the way things are because, simply, frankly, that change is the right thing to do. On Tuesday night at the Palau Sant Jordi, American Katie Ledecky, Denmark's Lotte Friis and New Zealand's Lauren Boyle put on a performance that was, unequivocally, the best women's distance swim race of all-time and ought to immediately spur the addition of the women's 1500 to the Olympic program.

Like, right now. Without question or hesitation. There can be no doubt.

The women's 1500 is -- obviously -- on the world championships program. It has been since 2001. Friis, 25, won the event at the 2011 worlds in Shanghai. Ledecky, 16, won the Olympic 800 in London. Boyle, 25, is a Cal-Berkeley grad who finished fourth in London in both the 400 and 800.

Friis swam Tuesday in Lane 4, Ledecky in 5.

Boyle raced two lanes over, in Lane 7.

Before the race, many here suspected the world record -- set by American Kate Ziegler in Mission Viejo, California, on June 6, 2007 -- was going down.

As Jessica Hardy, who would later in the evening win a bronze medal in the women's 100-meter breaststroke, would say, swimmers can tell when a pool "feels" fast, and she said, "This pool definitely 'feels' fast."

Ledecky, in winning the 400 on Sunday in 3:59.82, became the first female in history to go under four minutes in a textile suit. Boyle took third in that race, in 4:03.89.

That Ledecky didn't break the 400 world record is something of a footnote. Italy's Federica Pellegrini holds the record, 3:59.15, but set that mark at the world championships in Rome in 2009, at the height of the plastic-suit era. To go under four minutes was a signal something truly remarkable was at hand.

That's because the 400 is arguably Ledecky's third-best event -- there being the 800 and the 1500 yet to come here in Barcelona.

With apologies to Brooke Bennett, not since Janet Evans -- and this goes back to the late 1980s and early 1990s -- has women's distance swimming seen anyone quite like Katie Ledecky.

Evans -- who was also a teen-age phenomenon -- said Tuesday by telephone it's obvious Ledecky, who projects quiet humility and decency, has extraordinary confidence. Evans said she had that same confidence at that age as well.

"As an athlete, you know every time and race it's not a question of if you're going to win a medal, it's how much you're going to win a medal by," Evans said. "She has three years to get ready for Rio," meaning the 2016 Summer Games. "It's the greatest sweet spot there is."

Evans added a moment later, "The hard part about this .. is that she now has a target on her back. I mean that in the most positive way. Great champions deal with that pressure. And she is a great champion. How much faster is she going to get? I mean, it is awesome."

Which is the word for the race that went down. Just -- awesome.

Ledecky and Friis raced, as the authoritative website swimvortex.com would later recite, through swim history:

-- At 100 meters, Ledecky was at 58.75, Friis at 59.15. This was the 100-meter world-record pace in 1971 of Australian Shane Gould.

-- At 200 meters, Ledecky was 66-hundredths of a second ahead. Now they were racing at the 200-meter pace set by East German Kornelia Ender in the mid-1970s.

From 300 to 1200 meters, Ledecky let Friis set the pace. Always, though, Ledecky stayed close.

-- At 400 meters, Friis held a 63-hundredths lead. She turned in 4:05.26. This was at Evans' 400-meter pace in 1987.

-- At 800 meters, Friis was up by just 17-hundredths. She flipped in 8:17.16. Both were now inside British racer Rebecca Adlington's world title pace in 2011.

For most of the race, meanwhile, both Friis and Ledecky cruised along about five seconds inside Ziegler's split times. Then, at 1300 meters, Ledecky brought the hammer. She turned first for the first time since 250.

By 1450, Ledecky had -- this is almost outrageous -- built a 1.07-second lead.

She then delivered -- even more outrageous -- a final lap of 29.47 seconds.

Her winning time: 15:36.53.

The executive summary: Ledecky crushed the world-record -- which had stood for more than six years, and withstood the insanity of the plastic suits -- by six seconds.

Also, she beat her prior personal best, 15:47.15, by nearly 11 seconds.

Friis also beat Ziegler's world-record, and by nearly four seconds. She touched in 15:38.88.

"It's just really nice to be part of the big races, really exciting, nail-biting races," Friis would say afterward.

Boyle, meanwhile, finished in 15:44.71. That would have been the best swim of 2012, and by 21 seconds. Until Tuesday, it would have been the best swim of 2013, by two-plus seconds. As it is, it set an area record -- an "Oceania championship" mark.

"I was quite surprised I could see [only] Katie's and Lotte's feet the last 500 meters," Boyle said, smiling, adding, "It's really an honor to race those girls."

Bob Bowman, Michael Phelps' longtime mentor, said afterward that Ledecky's 1500 was "as good as any swim Michael ever did -- ever."

Missy Franklin, who won the 100 backstroke Tuesday in 58.42 seconds, her second gold medal here, watched the 1500 from the ready room while readying for another race, the 200 free semifinals, and said, "I knew that world record was definitely going down tonight. But six seconds was absolutely incredible," adding, "All of us were totally in awe of the six seconds."

Ledecky herself, asked at a news conference by the moderator if she was prepared to be the "queen or prince of these championships," quickly demurred, as she typically does.

She said, "I am just really honored to be here and to be a part of the great swimming that is going on here."

Excellence, friendship, respect -- those are the Olympic values, and they were on display in every regard Tuesday, punctuated by a spectacular world record. Put the women's 1500 on the Olympic program.