Thoughts at tax time of $26 million budgets

The mind wanders as our friends at the U.S. tax agency, the Internal Revenue Service, prepare to say thanks ever so much for the notion of taxes being the mark of civilization, or something. In that spirit, here are 10 things to think about: 1. You want to get serious, really serious, in the anti-doping campaign? Let’s see governments step up their financial support of the World Anti-Doping Agency. WADA's annual budget is roughly $26 million. For comparison, that’s annual revenue of the sort the university athletic departments at Texas-San Antonio or New Hampshire work with, according to a USA Today survey. Let’s see what might happen were WADA to run with money along the lines of annual athletic department revenues at Oregon ($196 million), Texas ($161 million) or Michigan ($157 million), the top three in that survey. And here’s a telling stat: Ohio State’s athletic department received more in donations than WADA’s entire budget — $28.2 million of its $145.2 million annual revenue.

2. Who believes the tennis star Maria Sharapova? Really? With now more than 100 positive tests for meldonium in all kinds of sports?

3. You hear over and again that the role of anti-doping agencies is to protect the rights of clean athletes. If that’s true: how do you bar the entire Russian track and field team from Rio when, presumably, some on that team are clean?

4. They open the Main Press Center in Rio. But — is this a sign of how these Games are going to go  — the press isn’t allowed in to cover the opening?

5. Outside the 1992 Dream Team, is Kobe Bryant — whose last game as a Los Angeles Laker is Wednesday — the most important figure in USA Basketball’s Olympic history? Or is it Doug Collins, with those clutch free throws at the 1972 Games? Or — who?

6. With apologies to the creators, who purportedly have “poured their hearts and souls into their designs,” all four would-be Tokyo 2020 emblems are legitimately terrible. One looks like the conflation of hallucinogenic mushrooms and someone’s brain (“D,” “flowering of emotions”). One of the Paralympic logos evokes — unfortunately — nothing so much as Donald Trump’s hair (“B,” “connecting circle, expanding harmony”). Please, can the soulful designers keep at it?

https://twitter.com/Tokyo2020/status/719824639204012032

7. It is now a year since SportAccord imploded. Isn’t it time to acknowledge the obvious — that Marius Vizer was right? Disagree all you want — if you want — with the way he said what he said. But who quarrels with the substance?

8. The Australian swim Trials just went down. Look out, Rio: 21-year-old Cameron McEvoy went 47.04 to win the men’s 100, the fastest time ever in a textile suit. That is just 13-hundredths outside Brazilian Cesar Cielo’s world record of 46.91, set at the plastic suit-dominated 2009 world championships in Rome. Check out a video of the race:

REPLAY: Here it is again, @CameronMcEvoy's record breaking swim. Don't blink or you'll miss it. #7Olympics https://t.co/17u7zsRLEN

— 7Olympics (@7olympics) April 11, 2016

9. Alysia Montaño, the U.S. 800-meter runner, went off at the recent U.S. Olympic Committee media summit, saying, “Once a doper, always a doper.” Then, when asked by the veteran Chicago-based sports writer Philip Hersh if Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay — both of whom have served time for doping — should be allowed to compete in Rio, she said, "No.”

Besides the sweet team spirit that ought to engender, there’s this: what about the notion of redemption? Further, doping matters tend to be complex; they do not necessarily lend themselves to a binary, all-black or all-white, sort of resolution. At issue, typically, are different — 50? — shades of grey. If it’s one thing for Athlete X or Y to do time for, say, illicit steroid use, what about the case of LaShawn Merritt, the U.S. 400-meter champion, who was busted for ExtenZe, a different sort of performance enhancer? He bought ExtenZe at a neighborhood 7-Eleven. “I spent $6 and it cost me millions of dollars,” amid a 21-month suspension, Merritt once said. Putting aside the legal formalities and the practical realities — these include double jeopardy concerns and human rights considerations noted by tribunals in rejecting the idea of most lifetime bans — there are moral and ethical matters, too: on what grounds should Merritt be out forever? Answer: none.

10. The underlying big-picture purpose of the Olympic movement is to move the world, little by little, day by day, toward peace. What does it say about the terrible, awful disconnect in our broken world when a teen-age suicide bomber blows himself up at a boys’ soccer game in Iraq? What, if anything, is sport to do when sport itself becomes the target? The death toll: 43, 29 of them boys who had been playing in the game or watching their friends. “It was a children’s soccer game. Of course he knew he was going to kill children,” said a local sheikh. Please read this harrowing account from the Washington Post. Then ask: how do we — all of us with a conscience — stop our children from killing and being killed?

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."

Most drug-tested: Ryan Lochte

BARCELONA -- Amid statistics strongly suggesting that American star Ryan Lochte is the most-tested swimmer on Planet Earth, the chairman of the doping control board of swimming's international governing body, FINA, issued a blunt warning here Saturday to all racers on the eve of the swim competition at these 15th world championships: don't take nutritional supplements. Just don't do it, Dr. Andrew Pipe said. Too many supplements are made or marketed in the United States, where the unregulated environment means elite athletes can have no guarantees whatsoever that what's on the label is really what's in the can or bottle, he said.

Pipe said nutrition "gurus" and others suggest that supplements are not only helpful but necessary. For many, he said, "Nutrition isn't a science. It's a religion."

Reality: the anti-doping code makes plain, as track stars such as American Tyson Gay and Jamaican Asafa Powell have learned anew in recent weeks, that athletes bear ultimate responsibility for what's in their systems.

Without making explicit reference to the two sprinters, Pipe said swimming wants to be free of the "scourge of doping that surrounds so many other sports," adding, "We want to demonstrate to the world that we're swimming in clean waters." Racing gets underway Sunday at the Palau Sant Jordi.

The fact is, of course, swimming has in recent years seen its share of notable supplement-related cases.

Two years ago, Brazil's sprint champ Cesar Cielo and three others tested positive for furosemide said to have been included in a supplement. Cielo and two of the others got warnings; the fourth, Vinicius Waked, was suspended because it was a second offense.

Five years ago, American Jessica Hardy lost out at her chance for the 2008 Beijing Games after a positive test for clenbuterol; after proving she had innocently ingested it in a supplement, her suspension was reduced from two years to one, and she would go on to swim at the London 2012 Games.

Pipe's comments come amid the publication of revealing anti-doping statistics from both track and swimming's governing bodies. These facts and figures are readily available on the websites of both federations.

FINA, for instance, conducted 1,859 tests in 2012. Of these, 1,240 -- exactly two-thirds -- were out-of-competition.

Anti-doping authorities love to boast about how many tests they conduct at a major meet. Why? It makes it seem like they are being aggressive.

The truth is, such in-meet tests -- while of course useful as a deterrent -- have to be considered in context. The more sophisticated doper is busy doing his or her thing during training season. That's when the time is optimal to use performance-enhancing drugs to help in recovery or to build mass or strength.

To FINA's credit, it spells out not just who it tested out-of-competition but the actual dates.

That tells you perhaps who is not just high-profile but who might be on FINA's watch list -- for whatever reason. The list does not offer any explanation why a particular athlete might be subject to more tests, or fewer.

So, for instance:

Cielo got tested three times last year: Feb. 14, April 22, Nov. 18.

Hardy, three times, too: Jan. 25, April 12, June 2.

Michael Phelps -- who made a career of saying he absolutely, unequivocally raced clean? Four. Feb. 9, April 14, May 21, June 11.

Missy Franklin -- Four. May 21, June 11, July 12, Dec. 4.

Lochte? Six -- making him FINA's most-tested swimmer in the world. Jan. 18, Feb. 9, March 19, April 17, June 11 and Nov. 28. (He was tested five more times during the short-course championships in Istanbul in December.)

Lochte, it should be noted for the record, has similarly proclaimed that he swims clean and has never offered even a hint of doping-related misconduct. It's unclear why he is the subject of such out-of-competition attention.

France's Yannick Agnel, who swam the stunning last laps in the men's 4x100 relay at the London Games to beat back Lochte and the U.S. team? Four. Feb. 16, March 12, May 10, June 20.

Australian sprint star James Magnussen? Four. Jan. 30, March 7, May 21 and June 25.

Fellow Australian Ian Thorpe, trying to make a comeback? (He announced this weekend it was, finally, over.) Five. Jan. 30, April 11, May 21, July 3, Dec. 19.

Chinese teen Ye Shewin, who won gold in London in the 400 individual medley (in world-record time) and the 200 IM (Olympic-record), her last 400 IM lap drawing comparisons to Lochte? Three tests, two before the Games and intriguingly just once after: Feb. 26, March 10 and Dec. 6.

In all, FINA performed those 1,240 out-of-competition tests on 692 athletes; 64 were in China, and 120 of the 1,240 tests, just under 10 percent; 65 in Japan, and 116, about the same percentage; 68 and 131 in the United States, just over 10 percent; 74 and 146 in Australia, nearing 12 percent.

These figures do not, of course, include testing at the London 2012 Olympic Games, done by the IOC, or any tests carried out by national anti-doping agencies or the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Track and field's governing body, which goes by the acronym IAAF, on July 25 published its own table showing it had conducted more of its tests on Kenyans -- 348, 14.7 percent -- than athletes from any other nation.

As a point of comparison, FINA tested only one Kenyan swimmer, Jason Dunford, on Jan. 23 and again on April 13. A Stanford grad, he finished fifth in Beijing and 12th in London in the 100 butterfly.

Back to track:

Russians were the second-most tested -- 336, 14.2 percent.

Then Americans, 222, or 9.4 percent.

Jamaicans? Fifth on the list, 126, 5.3 percent.

The IAAF does not break down test dates the way FINA does. Instead, in a list updated July 19 it noted only whether an athlete was tested out-of-competition "one to three" times or "four-plus."

Gay? One to three.

Powell? Four-plus. Just like Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Veronica-Campbell Brown, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Kerron Stewart -- other mainstays of the Jamaican sprint program.

Another Jamaican gold medal-winning sprinter, Sherone Simpson, who, like Powell, has also registered a positive test? One to three.

Campbell-Brown -- who has long been friends with Gay -- recently failed a test, too.

London 800 meter world-record setter David Rudisha of Kenya? Four-plus, just like several other Kenyan standouts, the list of Kenyan names running across four pages.

The list of Russian names spills onto five.

Turkey's Asli Cakir Alptekin, provisionally suspended in May after abnormalities reportedly were detected in her blood profile and now facing a lifetime ban because she served a two-year suspension for a 2004 doping offense? She was tested four-plus in 2012.

The very first name on the IAAF list, meanwhile, is surprise men's London 1500 meter winner Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria. How many tests for him? One to three.

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."

Setting the scene for the 400 free relay

OMAHA -- Garrett Weber-Gale was back in the pool Thursday, swimming rounds of the 100 meter freestyle. Cullen Jones, too. And, of course, Jason Lezak. Michael Phelps was at it, too, in the 200 fly, winning his signature event in 1:53.65.

It was all enough to evoke memories of that electric moment in Beijing in 2008, when those four guys, and especially Lezak, summoned one of the most incredible performances in Olympic history, winning the 400-meter freestyle relay.

The huge challenge now awaiting the 2012 U.S. team is to bring back relay gold again. It took a miracle four years ago. Bluntly, and everyone involved with the U.S. swim community knows so, even if they won't say so publicly, it may take more in London.

Why? Because the Australians have gotten that good. The French are good, too. The Italians, Russians and South Africans have gotten way better.

And the Americans, who have tradition and pride and history on their side, all of that -- it's not clear who the Americans are going to put into that relay beyond Phelps and the current No. 1 American sprinter, Nathan Adrian.

The prelims and the semis of the 100 free Thursday, of course, aren't the finals, which go down Friday. But rest assured that after reading the times the leading Americans posted Thursday the Aussies probably weren't breaking into a cold sweat.

Adrian led the semis with a 48.33. Jimmy Feigin was next in 48.48. Matt Grevers, who won the 100 back the night before, came third in 48.71.

Weber-Gale? Seventh, in 48.98. Jones? Eighth, in 49.03.

Lezak finished ninth, in 49.05. That left him out of Friday night's final -- for all of about a moment. Ryan Lochte, who had finished in a tie for fifth, with Scot Robison, told Lezak on his way off the pool deck that he would be scratching out of the final, to concentrate on his Friday night double, the 200 IM and the 200 back.

So Lezak lives to fight on, at least for one more day.

Grevers, meanwhile, also scratched out of the 100 final, again to concentrate on the 200 back. That  gave a spot in the 100 final to David Walters, who had finished 10th, in 49.34.

Again, the semi times are not likely to be the finals times. Even so, all involved well understand the complexity of the situation as it relates to the relay.

"We'll put together four good guys and hope for a Lezak-type swim," Bob Bowman, Phelps' coach, said with a smile.

The 2008 400 free relay was awesome and awe-inspiring and to watch it, no matter how many times you watch it, is an occasion for chills. Even if you're French.

To watch Lezak's anchor leg is to take in the power and potential of human will. Lezak swam 100 meters in an other-worldly 46.06 seconds, overtaking France's Alain Bernard at the very end, the Americans winning in world- and Olympic-record time, 3:08.24.

Phelps swam the lead-off leg on that relay. He won eight golds, of course, in Beijing. He went eight-for-eight in Beijing in measure because of Lezak.

If you want to know why, among other reasons, Phelps has consistently downplayed any eight-for-eight talk at the 2012 Olympics, it's best to understand how significantly the sprint scene has changed since four years ago in Beijing.

The Americans had won the 400 free relay at the 2005, 2007 and 2009 world championships -- Adrian bailing them out in Rome in 2009 with a stirring anchor leg -- and in Beijing in 2008.

Swimming can sometimes be an intensely technical sport. A breakdown here of the American Beijing relay splits:

Phelps swam his lead-off leg in 47.51 seconds. Weber-Gale followed in 47.02. Jones went next, in 47.65. Then Lezak, in 46.06.

At the 2011 world championships in Shanghai, the pre-race focus within the American camp was Eamon Sullivan, the Australian anchor. He had gone a then-world record 47.05 in Beijing, at the Games.

The Aussies' lead-off guy was James Magnussen. No one knew much about him except he was tall and 20 years old.

Everyone learned fast.

Magnussen went 47.49. Compare that to Phelps' Beijing lead-off leg.

Phelps, who was in decent but not tip-top shape in Shanghai, turned in an eminently solid 48.08. That put the Americans in second place.

The Americans never did lead in that race. In Shanghai, Weber-Gale swam second; Lezak, third; Adrian, anchor. The Americans dropped to third during the second leg; fourth with Lezak; Adrian pulled them back up to third at the finish.

Final standings: Australia, in 3:11 flat. France, 3:11:14. United States, 3:11.96.

Along with Magnussen, each of the four Aussies on that relay swam in the 47s: Matthew Targett, Matthew Abood, Sullivan.

The Austrialians are just flat-out loaded with sprinters. There's another Australian guy on the scene: James Roberts. At the Aussie Trials this past March, he swam a 47.63 in the 100.

Magnussen is a cool customer. Asked in Shanghai what it was like to swim against Phelps, he said, "No biggie."

Magnussen went on to become the first Australian in history win the open 100 at the worlds, going 47.63 in Shanghai.

Earlier this year, he swam a 47.10, fourth-fastest ever. The world record is 46.91, held by Brazil's Cesar Cielo. You can bet that Magnussen has his eyes on that record in London.

The French, meanwhile, have a young gun of their own, 20-year-old Yannick Agnel. In March, he swam a 48.02 open 100. Fabien Gilot typically anchors for the French; in Shanghai, he swam a 47.22 anchor leg.

Asked late Thursday how the U.S. team is likely to stack up against the world, Phelps said, "I mean, you can look at times but you'll never know until … we all get together. We look fairly decent; I think some of the things we'll probably have to work on and get ready for. I think the 400 free relay and the 400 medley relay are going to be very challenging events.

"But I think we'll be able to come together as a team. We always have. We have been able to do that very well, I guess, throughout my experience on the international level. I have no doubt we'll be able to come together and get behind one another and prepare ourselves the best we can to represent our country."

UPDATE, Friday 5 p.m. Central: USA Swimming, which on Thursday announced Grevers had scratched out of the 100 final, has posted a sign in the media workroom saying that's not so. He's in the final. Lochte is out. Grevers is in.

Women's 100: let's have a run-off

EUGENE, Ore. -- There's a simple and elegant solution for USA Track & Field as it wrestles with the dilemma posed by the dead heat in the women's 100 meter Saturday between Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh. It's right there in the other marquee Summer Games sport, swimming, and it happens all the time.

It's a swim-off.

USATF should put Felix and Tarmoh to a run-off. It's the only fair way to settle this. It's the American way.

Carmelita Jeter won the 100, in 10.92 seconds. Tianna Madison finished second. They're both going to London.

Originally, Tarmoh was declared the third-place finisher and Felix fourth. The official scoring sheet said Tarmoh had edged training partner Felix by 0.0001 seconds. Tarmoh was even brought to a news conference, where she said she was "so thankful" to make the London team.

She also said, however, amid rumblings that something might be going on, "I have no idea what happens if it's a tie."

As that news conference was ending, USATF communications director Jill Geer took to the dais to announce that, in fact, the two runners had ended in a dead heat, both timed in 11.68 seconds.

What happened, Geer said, is that two cameras are used to determine photo finishes. One is on the outside of the track. The other is on the inside.

The outside camera in this race proved inconclusive because both runners' arms obscured their torsos.

The inside camera is shot at 3,000 frames per second. It was analyzed by timers and referees. They simply could not separate the two racers, and declared a tie.

USATF has no procedure in place to break such a tie.

This, let's be candid, is a major flaw.

This is the kind of thing that leads to litigation.

This is the kind of thing that leads to absurdities that the matter be settled with rock, paper, scissors; or the drawing of lots; or dice; or a hand of poker.

It also lends itself to observations that Felix is a three-time world champion who has two Olympic silver medals and the support of major corporate sponsors, while Tarmoh has two NCAA second-place finishes. In the abstract, which of the two do you think those sponsors would like to see pursue her much-publicized double?

Further, it puts enormous, and unfair, pressure on Felix to be magnanimous by stepping aside in favor of Tarmoh and let her rival and training partner take the spot. Doing so might earn Felix considerable public goodwill. But this is the Olympics. The Games come along every four years. Why should Felix, who ran a 10.92 earlier this year in the 100 in Doha, give up a medal shot?

This is why the only fair solution is a run-off.

Don't bother with any noise that Olympic sprinters can't be bothered with running an extra race, that doing so would put an unfair burden on their bodies.

Olympic swimmers do it with regularity.

Just last year, for instance, Josh Schneider and Cullen Jones, SwimMAC club teammates, had a swim-off to determine who would claim the final 50-meter freestyle spot on the 2011 world championships team in Shanghai.

The swim-off was required because they had tied, at 21.97 seconds, at the 2010 nationals. The swim-off was held in May, 2011, in Charlotte, N.C.; Jones finished in 22.24, Schneider in 22.28, and that was that.

Schneider didn't complain afterward, saying of Jones, who won a gold medal swimming with Michael Phelps in the 2008 Beijing 400-meter freestyle relay, "He is a gold medalist for a reason. It's hard to topple a giant like that."

Similarly, in 2009, Jones tied for second with Garrett Weber-Gale (who also swam on that Beijing 400 free relay) in the 50 free, at 21.55. They swam it off two days later to see who would swim in Rome at those Rome world championships. Jones swam 21.41 to break Weber-Gale's American record, 21.47. In Rome, Jones finished fifth, the top American in the event.

In December, 2010, meanwhile, at the world short-course championships in Dubai, Schneider's semifinal time of 21.29 tied him with Australia's Kyle Richardson for eighth place. At the end of the session, the two guys swam it off. Schneider went 21.19, Richardson 21.28. In the final, Schneider, swimming in the outside lane, Lane 8, got off to a great start and won a bronze medal, behind Brazil's Cesar Cielo and France's Fred Bousquet.

If they can do it in swimming, and they not only can but they do, they not only can do it in track and field but they must. It's the only fair solution.

Passion and purpose -- the AIPS 'young reporters' program

SHENZEN, China -- The 60 "young reporters" from all over the world had spent their first two mornings in "school" listening to and then asking questions -- lots of questions -- of the secretary-general of sport's top court, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and then the senior media manager of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Heavy, heady stuff from and for Matthieu Reeb of CAS and Terence O'Rorke of WADA.

Now it was my turn, as program director of this first-ever AIPS "young reporters" Summer University Games program, to ask the questions -- not only to see what they had learned but what they could teach us, all of us, amid so much concentrated talk of legal maneuvering and doping jargon.

In a couple weeks, I said, the track and field world championships will take place in Daegu, South Korea. How many of you, I asked, believe the eight guys who ultimately make it to the starting blocks in the men's 100-meter dash finals will be doping-free? Not one hand went up.

I looked around the room. The 2011 Tour de France ran last month, I said. Some people believe it was cleaner than previous Tours. How many of you believe the 2011 Tour was clean? Maybe three hands went up.

And yet -- here's the remarkable thing.

There isn't in this group even a hint of cynicism.

Indeed, on Day One of this program, before "school" launched, we asked each of the 60 young people to take the brave step of getting up on stage and saying a few words into our camera, with all the others watching. Most everyone in the group is in their early 20s; a couple are still in their teens; a few are still in university; others are already working at print and broadcast outlets.

Predictably, some were shy. And then there was Julio Bonnin Cadogan of Paraguay, who got right up and said, you know what, sport is a force for good -- it can do no less than help us all overcome racism in our world, and that's why I'm here, to write stories as an agent for change.

The idealism, the enthusiasm, the curiosity that these young people have brought with them to Shenzhen offer great reminders of why journalism matters -- despite the profound elements re-shaping journalism, and the business of journalism, in these early years of the 21st century.

Too, why a program such as this one can make such a difference in the years and careers of young journalists, and in the legacies of hosts such as Shenzhen 2011.

Here were just a smattering of the smart questions that O'Rorke got asked:

Why isn't Major League Baseball part of the world doping code umbrella?

What is WADA's relationship with Interpol?

What is WADA's view on the propriety of a national Olympic committee entering into a deal with a supplement company?

Reeb, among other matters, was asked to explain in detail the case involving the South African Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee popularly known as the "Blade Runner." (Since being cleared to run by CAS against able-bodied competitors, Pistorius has now met the qualifying standards to compete in the 400 at the forthcoming Daegu championships.)

Similarly, Reeb also was asked to explain the background and reasoning about the case involving the Brazilian swimmer Cesar Cielo, cleared by a CAS panel to swim at the just-concluded 2011 swimming world championships in Shanghai. (There, Cielo won gold in both the 50-meter freestyle and butterfly.)

It's not just idealism, energy and enthusiasm that's on display here in Shenzhen. There's one further element, and it's the ultimate difference maker.

It's passion.

As I write this, it's 12:45 in the morning.

Kelsey Wingerak of Canada is herself in the midst of writing three stories about tonight's Serbia-Canada men's basketball game (won by Canada in a big upset -- the Serbs won the University Games title four years ago).

Jonathan Mishal of Israel just sat down in our 11th-floor workroom here at the Shenzhen Shanghai Hotel to bang out his story. The piece he wrote the day before for his hometown paper -- he just sent that to me as a .pdf, in full-on color.

Thorkell Sigurbjornsson of Iceland, who is a TV guy, just tried his hand at a newspaper-style piece. It just dropped into my e-mail inbox.

A few moments ago, Ozan Can Sülüm of Turkey filed not just one but two stories. "Not sure they need editing," he assured me in a side note.

And then there is Alex Bendaña of Nicaragua, who after just these few days is already a legend. He has cadged more free taxi rides than one would have imagined possible in this sprawling city. How he has done so, because his first language is Spanish and his English is quite good but his Chinese is non-existent -- no one is quite sure.

Alex announced he is staying up, or waking up, at 4 this morning to catch the Real Madrid-Barcelona soccer game, the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup at Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid.

Class gets underway again at 10. At best, Alex will be working on three hours sleep. He promised he would be there.

Passion.