A decathlon record but more U.S. relay woe

BEIJING — For this world championships year, 2015, the U.S. 4x100 men’s and women’s relay teams had one objective, and one objective only: get the stick around. Really. The trick was not to fall prey to the dropsies, oopsies and bumps in the night that have for far too long at major meets have plagued American entries. With several young runners on the track and and the idea of using the 2015 worlds as an end unto itself but also a means of preparing for the 2016 Rio Olympics, the verdict Saturday: oops, again!

At first, it appeared the Americans had pulled second-place finishes in the 4x1, both times behind the Jamaicans.

The U.S. women turned in a season-best effort.

But then the U.S. men were disqualified for a gruesome-looking third pass, Tyson Gay to Mike Rodgers -- out of the zone.

To win at this level, everything has to go right. It's very complex. But at the same time, very simple. Veronica Campbell-Brown, the Jamaican veteran, offered the summation of what they do right and the Americans consistently find a struggle: "We executed well, we finished healthy and we won."

This next-to-last night of the 2015 worlds offered great performances not just on the track but in the field events as well.

In the decathlon, the American Ashton Eaton went into the last event, the 1500, needing a 4:18.25 or better to break his own world record, the 9039 points he put up at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon.

Beyond pride and records, don’t think he didn’t want the record, even if this is a non-Olympic year; it would mean, given bonuses and roll-overs, six-figures plus.

His wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, the Canadian silver medalist heptathlete here and at the Moscow 2013 worlds as well, tweeted about an hour before he would run:

Last talk with @AshtonJEaton before his 1500m. He said, "Bri, I'm nervous." 1 hour until go time. 4:18.25 or faster and it's a new WR.

— BrianneTheisen-Eaton (@btheiseneaton) August 29, 2015

To go 4:18, Eaton would have needed to keep to this pace: 1:08 at 400 meters; 2:17, 800; 3:26. 1200; 4:18, finish.

In Eugene in 2012, Eaton had run a personal-best 4:14.48.

Michael Schrader of Germany hit 400 in 1:09.34, Eaton back in the pack; Larbi Bourrada of Algeria 800 in 2:21.56, Eaton one step behind; Bourrada at 1200, stretching it out, 3:31.61; Eaton ran hard down the homestretch, chasing Bourrada, who crossed in 4:16.61.

Eaton, 4:17.52.

Clear by 73-hundredths of a second.

Eaton fell to the track, then got up and staggered toward the sidelines, hands on knees, before climbing over the rail to give his wife a hug. The picture of exhaustion, he literally needed help getting back over the railing.

The new world record: 9045 points.

His performance included a decathlon event world record 45-flat Friday in the 400; Bill Toomey had run 45.63 in 1968.

He said later about Brianne, "She’s — it can’t be summed up in words but I now I would not have done what I did today without her."

He also said about the emotion that welled up after his victory, "The older I get," and he's 27, "the more I realize we're making choices to have the experience we're having. Those choices involve giving up a lot of stuff.

"You just feel like you miss a lot, friends, family ... it is just an accumulation of those feelings, and when you do something you just realize, I am doing it for a reason, and when that reason manifests itself it's pretty emotional."

Canada’s Damian Warner took decathlon silver, 8695, a national record; Rico Freimuth of Germany third, in a personal-best 8561.

"When Ashton broke the world record, the feeling on my skin was unbelievable," Freimuth said, adding, "I told him he is the greatest athlete."

Breaking the world record by less than that one second carried with it a slight irony. At the 2014 world indoors in Sopot, Poland, Eaton missed breaking his own heptathlon world record in the final event, the 800, by — one second.

"That was a gutsy 1500, huh?!" Harry Marra, who coaches Eaton husband and wife, said later -- and the results both put up underscore what a world-class coach that Marra, after many years in the sport, continues to be.

Eaton said that before the 1500, "I was doubting myself in the restroom, thinking, I don't know if I can run that." Then he thought, "I have a lot of people who believe in me … and they were all saying, you can do it. I was like, yeah, think I can."

Earlier Saturday evening, Britain’s Mo Farah completed the distance triple double, winning the men’s 5k with a ferocious kick to cross in 13:50.38. He won the 10k earlier in the meet.

With the victory, Farah became the 5 and 10k champion at the 2012 Olympics, 2013 worlds and, now, here.

The winning time, 13:50.38, was the slowest in the history of the world championships, dating to 1983. The previous slowest: Bernard Lagat, 13:45.87, at Osaka, Japan, in 2007.

Farah ran the last 400 meters in 52.7 seconds, the last 200 in 26.5. "The important thing," he said, "is to win the race, and I did that."

Americans in the 5k: 5-6-7.

For the first time ever at a world championships, the women’s high jump saw six athletes go over 1.99 meters, or 6 feet, 6-1/4 inches.

Russia’s Maria Kuchina won at 2.01, 6-7, the 0ft-injured Croatian star, Blanka Vlašić, taking second, also at 2.01 (she had one earlier miss, at 1.92, 6-3 1/2), tearfully blowing kisses to the crowd after her last jump.

Vlašić now has two worlds golds and two silvers; she took silver at the Beijing 2008 Games. This was Kuchina’s first worlds; she registered an impressive six first-time clearances Saturday before being stymied at 2.01. Another Russian, Anna Chicherova, the London 2012 gold and Beijing 2008 bronze medalist, took third, also 2.01 but with two earlier misses.

"Today I showed that I am still there, that it is not over," Vlašić said.

Since 2003, meanwhile, there had been 13 major sprint relay competitions before Saturday night — Olympics, world championships and, the last two years, World Relays.

At those 13, U.S. men had botched it up — drops, collisions, falls, hand-offs outside the zone — seven times.

Add in a retroactive doping-related DQ from the Edmonton 2001 worlds, and the scoreboard said eight of 14. Dismal.

U.S. women: five no-go’s going back to 2003, four in the sprints, one collision in the 4x1500 in the Bahamas in 2014.

There’s a women’s retroactive Edmonton 2001 doping-related DQ, too. So that would make it six.

It’s not as if the athletes, coaches and, for that matter, administrators at USA Track & Field are not aware of the challenge.

Indeed, after the 2008 Summer Games here at the Bird’s Nest, USATF commissioned a thorough report on the matter, dubbed Project 30; in those Olympics, both men’s and women’s 4x1 relays dropped the baton on the exchange to the anchor, Torri Edwards to Lauryn Williams, and Darvis Patton to Tyson Gay.

The Project 30 report identified a host of institutional and structural challenges, and potential reforms, including more training camps.

What followed that next summer, at the Berlin 2009 world championships: the women’s 4x1 team DNF’d in the heats,  the men’s 4x1 effort got DQ’d in the rounds.

It hasn’t, of course, been all bad.

At the 2012 London Games, the U.S. women 4x1 ran to gold and a world-record, 40.82.

The U.S. relay program has this year been under the direction of Dennis Mitchell, the Florida-based former sprint champion who is now coach of, among others, Justin Gatlin.

He is so in charge that when, at a pre-meet news conference, U.S. team coaches Delethea Quarles (women) and Edrick Floréal (men) were asked about who might run in the relays, each said, it’s up to Mitchell.

It wouldn’t be a championships without some measure of, ah, observation from many quarters — fans, agents, press reports — about which Americans are doing what, or not, in which relay.

For instance, Tori Bowie, the bronze medalist here in the women’s 100, in 10.86, didn't run. Why?

Bowie is sponsored by adidas; the U.S. team by Nike. At the Diamond League meet earlier this summer in Monaco, to run in the relays you had to wear team gear. Some adidas athletes chose not to -- meaning they chose not to run. For emphasis, the U.S. team did not say, don’t run because you are sponsored by adidas; indeed, the U.S. team said please do run, in national-team gear.

The predictable upshot, this quote from Bowie’s agent, Kimberly Felton: “Of course, she would love to run the relay and support her country.”

Well, sure. But a little context, please, because, as always, things just aren’t black and white.

In Monaco, Bowie attended one practice, according to USATF. Her representatives then informed USATF she would not be competing there and would not be part of the relay pool going forward, including the camp in Japan. To not stay part of the program — that was all from Bowie’s side.

This statement, in full, earlier this week from USATF:

“Our men’s and women’s sprinters were invited to Team USA relay camp in Monaco in mid-July and to Team USA’s overall World Championships training camp in Narita, Japan, this month. In order to ensure quality relay performances and success in Beijing, athletes were required to attend both camps and to actively participate in all practices. With a relatively high number of new, talented sprinters emerging this year, these practices were especially important for practicing exchanges and determining relay position. Tori Bowie’s representatives informed us that she would not compete in Monaco and later said she would not be moving forward with the relay process or attending camp in Narita. We moved forward, practicing with and planning for the athletes in attendance. We look forward to our relays taking the track on Saturday.”

If this all seems like something new, consider:

At those Osaka 2007 worlds, the American sprinter Carmelita Jeter won bronze in the 100, in 11.02, behind Jamaica’s Campbell (not yet married) and another American, Lauryn Williams, both in 11.01. Jeter ran in the 4x1 relay heats; U.S. coaches opted not to use her in the final, believing a different line-up gave the Americans their best chance; the U.S. women’s 4x1 team, no Jeter, won in 41.98.

In Saturday’s prelims, the U.S. women went 42 flat, second only to Jamaica, which went a world-leading 41.84.

The U.S.: English Gardner, Allyson Felix, Jenna Prandini, Jasmine Todd.

Jamaica: Sherone Simpson, Natasha Morrison, Kerron Stewart, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

In the finals, the Americans put out the same line-up; the Jamaicans, Campbell-Brown, Natasha Morrison, Elaine Thompson and Fraser-Pryce.

Felix ran a big second leg. But the Jamaicans had the lead by the time the stick got to Fraser-Pryce. Game over: the Jamaicans won in a world championship-record 41.07, second-fastest time in history, the Americans next in a season-best 41.68. Trinidad and Tobago pulled third, in a national-record 42.03.

On the men’s side:

At the World Relays in May in the Bahamas, the Americans figured out a formula for taking out the Jamaicans: get a big-enough lead so that even Usain Bolt, who ran anchor, couldn’t catch up. In the Bahamas, given a big lead by Justin Gatln and Tyson Gay, running legs two and three, Ryan Bailey held off Bolt for the victory.

Bailey is not here; he false started in his 100 heat at the U.S. nationals and so did not qualify; he then pulled out of the 200.

He would be missed.

In the Bahamas, the U.S. ran 37.38, and Bailey afterward made a throat-slash motion, emphasizing no fear of the Jamaicans.

The U.S. four here: Treyvon Bromell, Gatlin, Gay, Rodgers.

Jamaica in the prelims: Nesta Carter, Asafa Powell, Rasheed Dwyer, Nickel Ashmeade.

Prelim times: Jamaica 37.41, U.S. 37.91.

For the finals, the U.S. lineup stayed the same; for Jamaica, Carter, Powell, Ashmeade, Bolt.

Before it all got underway, Bolt did a little dance on the track, laughing and smiling, as always.

The Americans ran in Lane 6, Jamaicans in 4.

Inexplicably, Bromell almost missed the start; he was just settling into the blocks when the gun went off. He recovered and executed a slick pass to Gatlin, who, again, ran a huge leg two.

But the gap closed, and Bolt powered to victory in 37.36, best in the world this year.

The U.S. appeared to finished second in 37.77 despite that ugly-looking third pass, Gay to Rodgers. Rodgers actually stopped short for just a moment to try to be sure to grab the bright pink stick in the zone.

Rodgers said, "I knew that I had to slow it down a bit because I still did not have the baton. I wanted to stay in the zone."

Job not done.

More practice, more camps -- maybe more Ryan Bailey, it would appear, for 2016.

Scoreboard for the U.S. men since 2001 in the sprints: 15 races, nine fails. That's a failure rate of 60 percent.

Take out the 2001 doping matter and since 2003 it's eight fails-for-14. Still not good.

"It was very hard to get focused because of all the noise," Gay would say later, an odd thing for a veteran like him to say, adding a moment later, "We are all very upset because of the disqualification."

China, to a great roar, was moved up to second from third, in 38.01. Gatlin earlier in the week had noted the emergence of Chinese sprinters, including Bingtian Su, with a personal-best 9.99 in the 100. It was Su's 26th birthday Saturday, and after the race the crowd at the Bird's Nest serenaded him with a rousing version of "Happy Birthday."

Canada was jumped to third, 38.13.

For Bolt, this relay made for yet another championships triple -- with the exception of his false start at the Daegu 2011 worlds, and that relay in May in the Bahamas, he has won everything at a major meet, Olympics or world championships, since 2008: 100, 200 and the 4x1.

Bolt, later, on the Americans: "It is called pressure. They won the World Relays and the pressure was on them. I told you -- I am coming back here and doing my best."

Echoed Powell, "We came out very strong and I think the U.S. wanted it too bad. They made mistakes," he said, adding,  "We got the stick around, and we won."

To quote Lenin, what is to be done?

It is good to be the king, and it is good -- unless and until there is evidence of doping, which it must be said could be tomorrow and could be never -- to be Usain Bolt. Because when you are Usain Bolt, you win, and when you win, you celebrate like he did Sunday at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, after yet another dominating performance by the Jamaican 4x100 men's relay team to close out the 2013 track and field world championships.

He shouted, "Moscow!" into the microphone. He threw his spikes into the crowd. Barefoot on the track, he did his "to the world" pose and performed his take on a Cossack dance.

Most important, later in the evening, Bolt -- perhaps alone among all the figures in track and field - has the gravitas to say what needed to be said about these championships. On a scale of 10, he said, they deserved a seven.

"It has been a different championships," he said. "But it has not been the best. It got better over the days. More people got more relaxed. More people started smiling. There were more people in the stands. It picked up at the end but at the start it wasn't as good."

He added, referring generally to the Russians, "They don't smile a lot but they're cool people … and there are lots of beautiful women."

The Russian journalists wanted more. "The food," Bolt said, "was always the same. And I'm used to going to the 100-meter final with a stadium that's packed, so that was different.

"So there were little things but nothing major and it was stuff that took me a while to get used to."

If Bolt weren't using the athlete access, he could have added that one entrance to the stadium was through a grass path by a parcourse set-up that was being used -- despite security restrictions -- by the locals. Or that access to the IAAF tent required going through not one, not two but three separate security stations -- all 20 feet apart.

Or that the wireless access in the press seating was completely worthless. And that the main press center was a half-mile away from the journalists' entrance to the stadium. The press bus stop was even farther.

Because Bolt doesn't have to worry about such things, it's not his problem that eating and drinking in Russia -- we're not talking alcohol, just regular stuff -- is super-expensive. A bottle of water can run 170 rubles. That's nearly $6.

Not to mention the controversy over Russia's anti-gay law, which erupted over Swedish high jumper Emma Green Tregaro's rainbow-painted fingernails and Russian pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva's comments about Russians considering themselves "like normal, standard people," and Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko saying Sunday the law won't infringe on the private lives of athletes and fans at next February's Sochi Games.

In ways large and small, these championships set the stage for Russia to play host to the world in Sochi -- and, as they always do, fixed track's place in the world of sport for the here and now.

So -- what of track and field?

Track geeks know that the sport's next big thing is the world championships, in Beijing, back at the iconic Bird's Nest, site of the 2008 Games, in 2015.

That is two years from now. Two years is a very long time.

Until then, track and field will be pretty much -- at least for the casual fan -- off the radar.

That is, to be obvious, nothing short of a disaster.

Yes, track's governing body, the IAAF, puts on the regularly scheduled Diamond League series of meets, mostly in Europe, in the spring and summer. The IAAF deserves credit for that. But the meets are mostly relegated to -- to use a newspaper analogy -- the sports-section back pages.

Consider:

Soccer is on, and on television, pretty much somewhere in the world seemingly every day, and the World Cup will go down next year in Brazil. The NBA has made tremendous inroads all over the globe with a season that runs from October until June. American football has already started and won't conclude until February. Even the American baseball season runs from February until late October, sometimes early November.

The 2013 Diamond League will feature three more meets -- Stockholm, Zurich, Brussels -- but, unless there's a lightning strike like last year's 12.8 world-record by American 110-meter hurdler Aries Merritt at the Brussels meet, track won't get much worldwide attention absent -- regrettably, yet another -- doping scandal.

The best thing track has going for it is Bolt.

He says he is thinking about running at the Commonwealth Games, next year in Glasgow.

To be, once again, obvious: the more Bolt is on the track, the more track is on track.

To be even more obvious: every sport needs stars.

It would make for a great bar bet to see if the average person anywhere in the world could name even five athletes not named Usain Bolt who competed in the Moscow championships.

Here's the corollary to that bet: if asked to name a track or field star, that average person would probably say ... Carl Lewis ... or Michael Johnson. That shows you how much work track and field must do to bring itself out of its glory days and into the 21st century.

What Bolt didn't say about the Moscow meet, because it's not his job:

Great meets tend to produce world records. It just so happens that the swimming world championships in Barcelona immediately preceded the track meet in Moscow.

It is just four short years since the craziness of the plastic-suit era at the 2009 Rome world swim championships, when swimmers set 43 world records and experts were wondering if those marks would ever be threatened.

In Barcelona, the swimmers set six new world records, all by women. They set three in one day, the final Saturday of the meet. Katie Ledecky of the United States set two world records herself.

In Moscow -- no world records.

Sure, there were world-class performances in Moscow: three championship records, 16 world-leading bests, 48 national records. In all, 18 nations won gold medals, 38 won a medal of some color.

Those totals are all the more intriguing considering who didn't show because of injury (the likes of London 2012 men's 800 gold medalist David Rudisha) or doping (significant cases before the meet in Russia and Turkey as well as failed positives involving U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay and, among others, Jamaicans Asafa Powell, Sherone Simpson and Veronica Campbell-Brown).

FINA, swimming's governing body, introduced high-diving at the Barcelona championships. It was a huge hit -- action sports, if you will, for the water crowd.

The track championship is still the same meet it is, and has been, for years.

A few thoughts:

There's no rock or hip-hop music at a track meet the way there is at a baseball game, when a reliever is introduced in the late innings. What if, for instance, each of the sprinters in the 100, 200 and 400 was allowed to pick a riff by which he or she was introduced?

What about putting wireless in the stands -- in a robust way -- so that fans could really follow along on their cellular phones or tablets? The IAAF iPhone and iPad app, introduced before the Moscow worlds, was genuinely great. Who actually knew about it?

For that matter, nine days is too long -- way, way, way too long -- for this meet. Make it six, max. That's long enough still for the marathons, the distance events, everything. And if it's not, then it's time for some creative thinking about how to do this championship differently.

Every sport has to change, and grow. There are sound reasons swimming and gymnastics were elevated this year into the top rank of the International Olympic Committee's financial tier, along with track and field -- a slot the IAAF had for years occupied, alone.

Outside Luzhniki Stadium stands a statue of Lenin. Thus he -- in a matter of speaking -- oversaw everything here. So he and perhaps his most famous aphorism are worth bearing in mind as the IAAF and its stakeholders pack up and begin the two-year trek to Beijing, some serious thinking in order between now and then about what its proponents believe is -- and could again be for all -- the finest sporting endeavor humankind has ever dreamed up.

As Lenin said: what is to be done?

Lightning strikes in 9.77

MOSCOW -- A few minutes before the men's 100 meter final here Sunday night, lightning began flashing in the sky over Luzhniki Stadium. Just in time for the Bolt show.

As the rain came down hard and fast, Usain Bolt rocked to victory Sunday night in the men's 100-meter final in a season-best 9.77 seconds.

Lightning flashed, literally, as Bolt crossed the finish line. Some things are just too fantastic for even scriptwriters to dream up. "I need to get that picture right now," Bolt said later. "That is pretty cool."

Track and field is, right now, in many ways, Usain Bolt. It made no difference that his winning time Sunday was not close to his world record of 9.58, not even close. Indeed, it marked only Bolt's sixth-fastest time. His time was, in fact, two-hundredths of a second slower than the fastest mark in the 100 this year, 9.75, run in June by American Tyson Gay, who has since reportedly failed more than one doping test. Gay has acknowledged that he has failed at least one test.

Just imagine if Tyson Gay had won this race. What if his doping matter had come out not before these worlds but -- after? What then for track and field?

American Justin Gatlin, who took second Sunday behind Bolt in 9.85, is the 2004 Olympic 100 champion but then served a four-year doping ban. What if Gatlin had won? What then for track and field?

The sport woke up Sunday to a report that Trinidad and Tobago's Kelly-Ann Baptiste, the  2011 world championship bronze 100 medalist with 2013's third-fastest time in the women's 100, reportedly failed a doping test and had withdrawn from the championships. "Drug Blow," screamed the front page of the Sunday Express, the West Indies' islands main paper.

The list of high-profile sprinters now known or believed to have failed doping tests this year alone: Gay, Baptiste and Jamaicans Asafa Powell, Sherone Simpson and Veronica Campbell-Brown.

Baptiste, as the newspaper noted, trains in Gay's group in Florida. Campbell-Brown and Gay are longtime friends.

Last week, Australian javelin thrower Jarrod Bannister was suspended for 20 months for missing three out-of-competition tests; French hurdler Alice Decaux has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for a supplement.

Forty Turkish track and field athletes have been suspended in recent weeks for doping. Several are just teenagers.

And then there is Bolt -- who has said up and down, this way, that way, every which way that he is clean.

Marion Jones said she was clean, too. So did Lance Armstrong. Everybody says they're clean -- until they're proven not.

“If you’ve been following me since 2002, you would know I’ve been doing phenomenal things since I was 15,” Bolt said last month in London. “I was made to inspire people and made to run. I was given a gift, and that’s what I do.”

Is Bolt the real deal? Is he, finally, the one star the world can believe in?

Or -- like so many other big names who have been unmasked -- too good to be true?

Time ultimately reveals the truth. Always.

Four of the five top finishers in Sunday's men's 100 were Jamaicans: Nesta Carter, who took third behind Bolt and Gatlin in 9.95, as well as Kemar Bailey-Cole and Nickel Ashmeade, both in 9.98.

This from a country that saw its national anti-doping agency perform a total of 179 tests in all of 2012, according to a letter published Aug. 7 in the Jamaica Gleaner. That letter, from the former executive director of the agency, sought to update the figure published in late July in the World Anti-Doping Agency 2012 global statistics database. That 106 figure, R. Anne Shirley said in the letter to the Gleaner, was mistakenly low, due to a reporting error.

All tests carried out by the he Jamaican agency, which goes by the acronym JADCO, were urine tests; JADCO performed not even one blood test, according to the letter.

Arguing that 179 is "somewhat better than what has been previously reported," the letter also said it's still "not as much as the agency or the Government would have/might have wished for …"

At a news conference late Sunday night, Bolt was asked about his connection with the German doctor Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, and whether he -- Bolt -- had ever used Actovegin, an amino acid preparation derived from calves' blood.

Actovegin is not on the WADA banned list.

Even so, WADA "closely monitors" its use. In part, that's because, for instance, Lance Armstrong and his team were regularly administered it on the grounds it was believed Actovegin would enhance a rider's performance, according to the brief against Armstrong filed by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

"I don't know," Bolt said. "I really don't know the name of any substance. We just give that to my team. My team checks out any doubt. They clear it with everybody, make sure it's not on any IAAF, WADA [list] -- they have no problems with it."

So far, Bolt has had no testing problems.

Which leaves us with what we had Sunday in the rain:

Bolt, as ever, got off to a slow start. After the fiasco at the world championships in Daegu two years ago, in which he was disqualified for false-starting, it is his now way to stay in the blocks and make sure he starts safely.

Ashmeade, for instance, got out in 0.142 seconds. Bolt -- and Gatlin, too -- 0.163.

Gatlin went out hard. But anyone who has watched Bolt race since he burst onto the international scene big-time in 2008 knows that the last 50 meters are his for the taking, and that was the case Sunday as well.

Gatin acknowledged "feeling Bolt next to me" at about 45 meters. For his part, Bolt said, "I had to do what I do the last 50."

It was the sixth world title of Bolt's career -- two in the 100 (2013, 2009), two in the 200 (2009, 2011, with the 2013 race yet to come), two in the 4x100 relay (again, this year's relay still to go).

Of course, Bolt is the 2008 and 2012 Olympic champion as well as world record-holder in the 100, 200 and the 4x100 relay.

It is not just that Bolt wins but that he does it with such dominance. Here are the margins of his 100-meter Olympic and world championship victories:

2008 Beijing Olympics: .20.

2009 Berlin worlds: .13.

2012 London Games: .12.

2013 Moscow worlds: .08.

"I'm going to try to continue with these championships," Bolt said. "I want to be among the greats after I retire from track and field.

"Pele, Maradona, Muhammad Ali, all these guys -- I want to be mentioned among these greats."

For all that he has done on the track, Usain Bolt absolutely, unequivocally deserves to be mentioned among the greats. The challenge for Usain Bolt is that he is the best in his sport, and his sport greatly deserves special scrutiny.

"If he tests positive, he tests positive," Lamine Diack, the president of track and field's international governing body, which goes by the acronym IAAF, said recently of Bolt. "It would be a disaster for our sport but we would have to say he is positive.

"But I hope that doesn't happen because we don't need that."

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."

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.

Bubka, entourage issues up front

When he was a pole vault star, Sergei Bubka said he was so careful about what he ate and drank that, for instance, he would never sip from a bottle with an open seal. Now Bubka, who broke the pole-vaulting world record 35 times in a career that includes the 1988 Seoul Olympic gold medal, is a senior member of the International Olympic Committee and, since 2010, chair of its Entourage Commission. Now he is, as well, a vice president of track and field's governing body, which goes by the acronym IAAF.

Now, too, he is one of six candidates running for the IOC presidency in an election set for September, and if anyone figured to have keen insight into Sunday's news that some of the world's top sprinters, including American Tyson Gay and Jamaican Asafa Powell, had failed doping tests, it figured to be Bubka.

If you were looking for someone to make nice or to be an apologist, you mistook Bubka for the wrong sheriff in town. He was clear, decisive and direct, calling it "imperative" that "all athletes" take "total care and responsibility for what food, drink and other supplements they are given."

He also said, "While no one wants to create an atmosphere of mistrust, there is a lot at stake at the highest levels of sport and anyone who claims to support clean sport must ensure that they set an example by avoiding any possibility of taking something that is banned."

What makes the Gay and Powell cases so compelling is that they figure to prove fascinating studies in entourage -- shining a spotlight on this heretofore under-appreciated corner of the Olympic scene, perhaps with implications even for the IOC presidential race, with Bubka obviously smartly positioned.

Sometimes, that's just the way circumstance plays out.

Bubka's remarks came as Associated Press reported police raided a northeastern Italian hotel where Powell and another top Jamaican sprinter, Sherone Simpson -- who also failed a doping test -- had had been staying, and as Adidas suspended its sponsorship of Gay.

The German company had backed Gay since 2005. It invoked a clause in Gay's contract relating to doping, saying it was "shocked" by the allegations, adding "even if we presume his innocence until proven otherwise, our contract with Tyson is currently suspended," AP reported.

Gay, who had run a 9.75, the fastest 100 meters in the world this year, said he had tested positive for a banned substance in an out-of-competition test on May 16. The substance at issue has not been identified. He is still awaiting confirmation of his backup "B" sample.

Gay said Sunday he had "basically put my trust in someone and was let down," declining to identify that "someone."

Gay immediately sought to accept responsibility, saying Sunday he did "not have a sabotage story" nor "any lies," adding, "I don't have anything to say to make this seem like it was a mistake or it was on [the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's] hands, someone playing games. I don't have any of those stories."

Powell, a former 100 world-record holder, and Simpson, a three-time Olympic medalist, both tested positive for the stimulant oxilofrine.

AP reported police seized unidentified substances in a raid at the Fra i Pini hotel in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy, where Powell's room, Simpson's room and the room of physical trainer Christopher Xuereb of Canada were searched.

The New York Times, in a story published late Monday, reported that Paul Doyle, Powell and Simpson's agent, was blaming Xuereb for the positive tests. An email Doyle got Sunday from Xuereb said the trainer had provided the two sprinters with a combination of about 20 supplements and injections, and had injected Powell with actovegin, made from calves' blood extract. Doyle told the newspaper it was "pretty obvious where we needed to look" in trying to "figure out what went wrong."

The paper asserted that none of the substances is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

In a statement issued before Monday's police action in Italy, Powell said, "My team has launched an internal investigation and we are cooperating with the relevant agencies and law enforcement authorities to discover how the substance got in my system. I assure you that we will find out how this substance passed our rigorous internal checks and balances and design systems to make sure it never happens again."

He also declared he was "not now -- nor have I ever been -- a cheat."

Last month, Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown, the 2004 and 2008 200 meter champion, tested positive for a banned diuretic.

Gay and Campbell-Brown, meanwhile, are longtime friends.

Perhaps as many as 30 doping cases are awaiting resolution in Turkey -- on top of a number of high-profile others that have already come down there earlier this year.

The news Sunday broke about a month before the IAAF world championships in Moscow. The sport, and indeed the wider Olympic movement, found itself Monday confronting -- yet again -- the issue of doping among high-profile athletes.

Spokesman Nick Davies issued a statement saying the IAAF's anti-doping commitment was "unwavering" because it had an "ethical obligation" to clean athletes.

"The credibility of our anti-doping program, and the sport of [track and field], is enhanced, not diminished, each time we are able to uncover a new case and we have the committed support of every athlete, coach or official who believes in clean sport."

IOC president Jacques Rogge said in a statement issued to AP, "I am naturally disappointed, and I would like to reiterate our zero-tolerance policy against doping.

"Clearly, the fight against doping can never be totally won, but these cases do once again show the effectiveness of the strong, sophisticated and continually evolving battle against doping in sport being waged by the International Olympic Committee and its partners in the Olympic movement."

Bubka, meanwhile, observed, "Doping and corruption are two of the biggest challenges facing the Olympic movement and we must do all we can to stay one step ahead of those who seek to threaten the purity of sport.

"The fact that there have been so many positive tests in recent weeks is a good thing. It means that anyone who is caught using banned substances is one less athlete able to compete and gain an unfair advantage."

Track's dirty day

When people ask, and they ask all the time, is track and field clean, there's only one answer. It came on a day like Sunday, when sprinter Tyson Gay, once among the poster boys for a U.S. Anti-Doping run-clean program, tested positive for a banned substance, and five Jamaicans, including gold medal-winning sprinters Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, also returned positive samples.

Those developments followed by just days word that the sport's governing body, which goes by the acronym IAAF, had stepped up its drug-testing program in Turkey amid reports of dozens of positive cases there, perhaps as many as 30, ahead of last month's Mediterranean Games in the city of Mersin.

Results in Turkey remain ongoing; under IAAF rules, a doping case can be announced only after a "B" sample confirms the initial positive finding of a failed "A" sample. Turkey has been hit by a rash of recent cases -- eight in June, including 2004 Olympic hammer silver medalist Esref Apak, and in May, allegations against London Olympic 1,500 meter champ Asli Cakir Alptekin and two-time European 100-meter hurdles champion Nevin Yanit.

The rash of positives Sunday comes just weeks after 2004 and 2008 200 meter Jamaican Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown tested positive for a banned diuretic. Gay and Campbell-Brown are longtime friends.

Powell and Gay, to be clear, are among track and field's biggest names. For them to be busted, and on the same day, is -- there's no way around this -- a double dose of ugly news for a sport that just can't escape the perception that doping remains the fast lane to victory.

The world championships will be run next month in Moscow. Now they surely will go off under a shadow. A thread on the letsrun.com message boards proclaimed: "Admit it, we are all now waiting to see if [Usain] Bolt is positive … "

Bolt, the multiple Olympic champion, self-proclaimed "legend" and world-record holder in the 100 and 200 meters, has maintained to all skeptics that he is running clean.

As Adam Nelson put it in a Twitter post Sunday, "Drug testing detects the symptoms. We have a lot of work to do to fight the cause."

Nelson would know. He was made the 2004 Olympic shot put champ earlier this year after the guy who for nine years had won, Ukraine's Yuriy Bilonog, was finally caught. Bilonog had been doping.

Gay, 30, has run a 9.69 100 meters, the second-fasted ever -- tied with Yohan Blake, behind Bolt's 9.58.

A three-time world champion in 2007, Gay had often been plagued since by hamstring and groin problems. He came in fourth in the 100 at the London Games by one-hundredth of a second. This year, he had run the world's fastest 100, 9.75 in Des Moines at the U.S. nationals in June.

A few years ago, he was part of USADA's "My Victory" program, in which athletes pledged to complete clean. In his testimonial on that website, Gay said, "I compete clean because I really believe in fairness, and besides that, my mom would kill me! Just being honest."

He told Associated Press on Sunday that he had been notified late last week that a sample came back positive from a May 16 out-of-competition test, adding that he will have the "B" sample tested soon, possibly as early as this week. He said he had voluntarily withdrawn himself from Moscow.

It remained immediately unclear what Gay had tested positive for.

"I don't have a sabotage story," he said. "I don't have any lies. I don't have anything to say to make this seem like it was a mistake or it was on USADA's hands, someone playing games. I don't have any of those stories. I basically put my trust in someone and was let down."

Asked by AP who that was, Gay said, "I can't really say it. Sometimes a human being naturally, generally trusts somebody. That's what people do."

USA Track & Field chief executive Max Siegel said in a statement, "It is not the news anyone wanted to hear, at any time, about any athlete."

Powell, for his part, held the world record -- running a 9.74 in 2007 -- before Bolt started his assault on the mark. Powell is still the fourth-fastest man all time and holds a gold medal as part of the Jamaican 4x100 2008 relay team.

Powell has run 9.88 this year. Even so, he did not make the Jamaican team for Moscow.

He and Simpson reportedly tested positive for the stimulant oxilofrine, and Powell issued a statement in which he denied being a "cheat."

It said, "I want to be clear in saying to my family, friends and, most of all, my fans worldwide that I have never knowingly or willfully taken any supplements or substances that break any rules."