After four editions of the swim Trials: a love letter to Omaha

After four editions of the swim Trials: a love letter to Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. — It was 106 degrees here Thursday. Not the kind of day that makes you long for Omaha.

But I’m gonna miss it here.

Rumor is, and only rumor, that this may well be the final time the U.S. swim Trials are held in Omaha. They’ve been here four times in a row: 2008, 2012, 2016 and now 2021. Indianapolis wants 2024 and, to be honest, it kind of feels like a change of pace might well be in order, that the big field house that is Lucas Oil Stadium might well be next.

If that is the case, Omaha has had a great run -- inside the basketball arena, now called CHI Health Center, just up the street from the baseball field, TDAmeritrade Park, home of the NCAA men’s College World Series, which this year gets underway Saturday.

Critics of USATF again belie their racial if not racist animus. Enough

For more than nine years, since Max Siegel became chief executive of USA Track & Field, this space has pleaded for civility, dignity and respect in the way people in and around the sport talk to and with each other.

Too often — far too often — the rhetoric is otherwise. It has proven not just unconstructive but inflammatory.

Siegel, along with chief operating officer Renee Washington, are the only two Black executives in the U.S. Olympic landscape.

After all these years, it’s difficult if not impossible to believe there is not a racial — if not racist — undertone to the criticism. Because the substance if not the tone almost immediately turns angry and destructive, as it has in the latest crisis to beset American track and field, the doping ban handed U.S. middle-distance standout Shelby Houlihan, adjudged liable by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport after testing positive for impermissible levels of the anabolic steroid nandrolone.

Shelby Houlihan, meet World Anti-Doping Code section 10.14.3

Shelby Houlihan, meet World Anti-Doping Code section 10.14.3

Shelby Houlihan, American middle-distance standout and, now, per the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, violator of the anti-doping rules for having impermissible levels of the anabolic steroid nandrolone in her system, meet World Anti-Doping Code Section 10.14.

Specifically 10.14.3.

Houlihan announced Monday that the Athletics Integrity Unit had charged her with a nandrolone offense, and a unanimous CAS panel adjudged her liable. A CAS news release Tuesday confirmed the account. All the same, on Thursday, when the start lists for the U.S. track and field Trials were made public, there was Houlihan’s name — in both the women’s 1500 (heat 3) and the women’s 5000 (heat 1).

Intrigue! Drama! How could this be possible?

That’s not the question that matters. This is:

Will she run?

The truth about the Trials: destinies are written in hundredths of a second

The truth about the Trials: destinies are written in hundredths of a second

OMAHA, Neb. — Every four (or perchance, five) years, the U.S. Trials, swim and track, make plain one of the inexorable truths of our lives. Time is what we make of it. Destinies are written in hundredths of a second.

At the Trials, there is no getting around this truth.

There is only the making of an easy peace. An understanding that, for a glimmer, one can stretch the boundaries of what might be possible.

This is what Katie Ledecky is — has been since 2012 — doing, and what she affirmed Wednesday in winning both the 200 freestyle and, about an hour later, the 1500 free. Earlier this meet, she won the 400 free. The 800 free awaits.

This, too, is what 31-year-old Allison Schmitt, the 200 free gold medalist in London in 2012, achieved Wednesday night. In a feel-good comeback, she finished just back of Ledecky in the 200 free, earning a fourth trip to the Olympics. If she wins a medal in Tokyo, most likely in the relays, she would join Dara Torres (five) and Jenny Thompson (four) in an exclusive club: medals at four-plus Games. Schmitt already has medals from 2016, 2012 and 2008.

In the matter of Shelby Houlihan: white privilege confronts reality

In the matter of Shelby Houlihan: white privilege confronts reality

There’s an obvious point that seemingly no one else wants to say about Shelby Houlihan, the American middle-distance runner who has been suspended for four years. So it’s coming at you right here. Check your privilege, white people.

The running sites and even the mainstream press are full of stories that center on the facts of the case and the do-you-believe her or do-you-not. That’s not the issue.

All journalists — at least the decent or better ones — are trained to be skeptical, and after listening for more than 20 years now to athlete after athlete cry, sometimes literally, about circumstance and unfairness, please. Houlihan’s expressions of how much she loves running, how she didn’t get due process, all of that — that’s all noise.

Here’s why this case has struck a chord:

The running community in the United States tends to be white and middle- to upper-class. Shelby Houlihan fits that demographic precisely. The point is that seemingly no one in that circle thinks — or wants to think — that the nice, white distance runner would ever cheat. Never, ever.

With the MP Show over, now what? Where are the U.S. men?

With the MP Show over, now what? Where are the U.S. men?

OMAHA, Neb. — Here in Omaha, for the fourth time in a row, the U.S. Olympic Trials for swimming are on. This was always a big stage for Michael Phelps, and no more so than in 2008, when he qualified for five individual events and put himself in place to swim on three relays — setting the stage for the unmatched performance he would put on later that summer in Beijing, going a perfect eight-for-eight.

The Phelps Show that summer proved must-see TV on NBC. Some significant cohort of 5- to 8-year-old boys tuned in. Those boys are now 18 to 21, prime time for swimmers.

Where are they?

Girls across America back then clearly saw Michael on TV and said, let’s be like Mike. The U.S. women’s team heading for Tokyo is likely to be strong if not dominant.

The men? Did they get drawn to football? Or — since competitive swimmers tend to be tall — basketball? Or volleyball? Or what? Where are the dudes?

Ten weeks to go, and are even Hello Kitty and Super Mario wondering: really?

Ten weeks to go, and are even Hello Kitty and Super Mario wondering: really?

Every day, those of us whose lives are in some way shaped by the Olympics get asked the same question — is Tokyo going to happen?

Let’s be clear. despite any fantasy to the contrary, I am in no way, shape or form an Olympic athlete. I could blame the two shoulder surgeries in the past seven months but, nah. Not even a working left shoulder would make me world-class in anything except maybe this — typing and thinking and, believe me, many of my critics and detractors would say I am farthest thing from, and thanks as always for your thoughts and prayers.

So with admiration for the thousands of athletes whose hopes and dreams have been on hold for the past year — absent something freaky, between now and July 23, freaky in this context meaning apocalyptic, there will be Games in Tokyo.

As IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Wednesday in a video press briefing, “We are confident we can deliver good Games and we will continue working toward that.”

Epic, colossal, like -- what? IOC's latest esports misstep

Epic, colossal, like -- what? IOC's latest esports misstep

Let’s imagine the college-age version of me. I maybe thought i was something special. This was testosterone talking. The mirror said something different. So did my college friends.

Let’s imagine further that we walked into an establishment. Incredibly, at the bar was sitting the one and only Christie Brinkley.

What to say? What to do? Hey, I’m something special! “Uh, hello? What are you doing here?”

Weak, right? Smacks of desperation? Despair?

Something like what the International Olympic Committee put out a few days ago when it announced it was hurriedly getting into the esports business with a series before Tokyo 2020 — a weak, ill-thought-out, ill-conceived, desperate, dumb approach. Like, what are you doing here?

Keep it that way: the Olympic podium as sacred space

Keep it that way: the Olympic podium as sacred space

Twenty or so years ago, I had the privilege of being part of a two-year post-graduate fellowship in Jewish studies. It was there that I first learned at length about the concept of “sacred space.”

As human beings, we can make very different kinds of places and things “sacred.” A place can be religiously interpreted, such as a mountain or a river. Something can be built, like a temple, a church, a mosque.

In Jewish tradition, a bride and groom meet under what is called a chuppah — a sacred space, a Jewish home, constructed only by four poles and a cloth canopy, often topped with flowers, open on all four sides, replete with symbolism, the structure temporary and yet fit for a lifetime of memories.

There are three key players under the chuppah. It would be unthinkable for the rabbi to drop to one knee and start pontificating about Israel’s land-use policies in the West Bank, wouldn’t it?