Doping and the problem of cheap, easy narratives

RIO de JANEIRO -- Lilly King is a great swimmer. But a good sport? One who lives — in her gold-medal moment — the key Olympic values: friendship, excellence and respect?

Much of the English-speaking media proved all too eager Monday evening to latch on to an easy — and false — narrative that abruptly cast King as a virtuous American hero, striking a blow for drug-free sport in winning the women’s 100m breaststroke while slaying the notorious Russian, the sudden villain Yulia Efimova.

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Coe in charge, track at an inflection point

PORTLAND, Ore. — Let’s get the joke out of the way early. For a sport savaged by months of doping stories, it turns out there’s a legal marijuana store literally across the street from the Oregon Convention Center, site of the 2016 track and field world indoor championship, which features a groovy, granola-crunchy green track. Can’t make this stuff up. Seriously, now: track and field arrives for the 2016 world indoors, a four-day run that got underway Thursday night, at an inflection point.

Since Sebastian Coe was elected president last August of track’s world governing body, the International Assn. of Athletics Federations, the headlines have mostly been grim. Claims of rampant corruption in the regime of former IAAF president Lamine Diack — allegations that Diack's administration was ripe with conflict of interest, graft, money for cover-ups. And, of course, doping, doping, doping. Russians, Russians, Russians. Oh, and how about the Kenyans, Ethiopians, Moroccans and more?

Wait — what’s this? UK Anti-Doping announces Wednesday a life ban against a track coach there, Dr. George Skafidis, in the wake of nine, count them, nine anti-doping violations, all relating to sprinter Bernice Wilson. In Britain? What?

The focus Thursday shifted to the sport itself, with the IAAF and local organizers, led by Vin Lananna, giving the first night of the championships over entirely to the pole vault. France's Renaud Lavillenie won the men’s event, setting a world indoor championships record, 6.02 meters, or 19 feet 9 inches. The world record, which Lavillenie set two years ago, is 6.16, 20-2 1/2. On Thursday, he made three attempts at a new world record, 6.17, 20-2 3/4. No go. American Sam Kendricks took second, clearing 5.80, 19-0 1/4. On the women's side, the U.S. went one-two, Jenn Suhr winning in a championship-record 4.90, 16-0 3/4, Sandi Morris taking second in 4.85, 15-11. As evidence of the upswing in women's pole vaulting, Thursday's competition marked the first time four women in the same competition cleared 4.80, 15-9.

"I think the Summer Olympics are going to be pretty crazy," Morris said afterward.

As the vaulters did their thing, KC and the Sunshine Band could be heard belting out their mid-'70s anthem, “That’s the way (I like it),” just one of the musical numbers featured on a loop that played over the convention speakers. In another twist, the vaulters got individual introductions — each athlete running in turn into the arena down a ramp, his or her name in lights.

Medal ceremonies: back downtown at Pioneer Courthouse Square, with more music and that Portlandia hipster vibe.

Attendance Thursday at the convention center: a robust 6,924.

It's like track and field was, you know, making a genuine effort to be more interesting. And, even, innovating.

This is the reality of what is happening with Coe, in particular, and that is particularly worth noting at the start of these championships, the first world indoors in the United States since 1987.

“The USA has historically been the powerhouse of track and field,” Coe said earlier Thursday at a sun-splashed news conference in that square. “Yet given its great economic power, it is still a country where the general perception of track and field is low. The regeneration of that is taking place here in Oregon and I genuinely believe this will be a reawakening of track and field in this country. This is a new and exciting chapter in the history of our sport."

Let's be real: that's going to take time.

Things were broken. Now they have to get fixed. Coe is the guy to fix them. New chapters, regeneration, reawakening — whatever label you like — don’t just happen overnight.

Which is why the many cries for Coe’s resignation are seriously misplaced.

As Coe said at that news conference in that square, “Our sport is still strong. Not to deny we haven’t gone through challenging, dark days.”

Later, asked specifically whether he believes there are clean Russian athletes, a ridiculous question in its own right, as if an entire country of 140 million people can’t produce one soul that competes without drugs, he said, “I’m sure there are. But the reality is we need to get the athletes,” wherever in the world they might be, “back into systems that people are trusting.”

That's half of what's what. Here is the other: doping is not just a track and field problem (hello, tennis star Maria Sharapova, swim champion Yulia Efimova and others now looking at meldonium issues). It is not just a Russia problem.

“We are responsible for our sport,” Coe said. “We are not the world’s policeman.”

A World Anti-Doping Agency-commissioned report — the first part delivered in November, the second in January — suggested that Diack ran a closely held conspiracy to cover up certain doping results, mostly in Russia.

Diack and his longtime lawyer, Herbert Cissé, are said to be facing criminal inquiry in France.

Last week, the IAAF’s policy-making council met in Monaco, the federation’s longtime base.

Process isn’t sexy. Process takes time. The press loves (even a hint of) negativity.

At the same time, Coe was duly elected after a hard-fought campaign, defeating the former pole vault legend Sergey Bubka. That means Coe earned — better, deserves — the opportunity to effect change.

The council was met with 51 measures. It approved 51.

It’s a measure of how into-the-21st century the IAAF has to go, alternatively an indicator of how Diack ran the federation for 16 years as more or less a personal fiefdom, that a good number of the 51 deal with basic, albeit essential, governance items.

For instance, things like getting double signatories on checks. Or job descriptions. Or standard HR controls.

Any institutional change is a combination of change wrought from without and within. Coe is — this is key to understand — a change agent.

So, too, Stephanie Hightower, the USA Track & Field president who was elected last August to the IAAF council.

As the USATF board said in December 2014, in a statement when it went with Hightower instead of the longtime U.S. representative to the IAAF, Bob Hersh:

“Change is difficult for any organization. It is especially difficult when it involves long-serving officials. In 2015, there will be significant, structural change at the IAAF – with their leadership, with their direction, vision and politics. This is a different era and a different time. We think Stephanie Hightower provides us with the best chance to move forward as part of that change.”

From 2011-15, Hersh had been the senior IAAF vice president, Coe one of three other vice presidents.

Once Coe was elected, he immediately turned in part to Hightower and to Frankie Fredericks, the former sprinter from Namibia who for years has been making a new career in sports administration.

Some have groused, and loudly, that as an IAAF vice president, Coe “must have known” what was going on with Diack.

Using that same logic, why aren’t the many critics of the USATF process by which Hightower was selected to run for the IAAF council asking the same about Hersh?

This, understand, is a rhetorical question — not what Hersh did or did not know. But those who have been often been the loudest in their criticism are not being consistent. You want to criticize Coe because he was vice president — but think it was somehow wrong for USATF not to re-appoint Hersh, who as the No. 2 man, the senior VP, should have been most closely involved with the organization and with Diack?

Indeed, the suggestion that Coe “must have known” itself betrays logic.

The IAAF council met maybe three or four times a year. That’s roughly 10 days of 365. Coe had been an IAAF vice president since 2007; from 2005-12, he was thoroughly occupied as boss of the London Olympics.

It’s a little bit like being vice president of a school board and getting asked why you didn’t know the high school basketball coach was stealing from the travel fund.

Was there talk at the council during Diack’s latter years about doping in Russia? Obviously: there were public records of sanctions. But if the word from the top was that Russians were being caught because of advances in blood passport work, precisely what more should any of the roughly two dozen on the council have done?

To reiterate a point made in this space before: the point of a conspiracy, which is what Diack alleged to have run, is to keep it hidden from those not part of it.

Coe’s “must have known” is one of four apparent points of objection that have been raised over these past several months, in tiresome fashion.

Objection No. 2:

When he succeeded Diack last August, Coe called Diack the “spiritual leader” of the sport.

Given what we know now, Coe could have used a different phrase, for sure. Hindsight is always 20/20.

But three notes here:

One, when you succeed someone, you generally say nice things.

Two, Coe would never — repeat, never — have used those words if he’d had even an inkling of what is alleged to have gone down. Coe is not only a smart guy, he has had a career in the hard-knocks school of British politics.

Three, there has been zero suggestion from law enforcement linking Coe to any misconduct or wrongdoing, and you can believe he has been in contact with French agents.

Objection No. 3:

Again in Beijing upon election, Coe gave a legalistic response, rather than one more PR-savvy, when asked about his longtime ambassadorial role with Nike, saying in essence his relationship was well-known and -documented. Coe has since relinquished the position.

This was an optics problem, and nothing more.

Those who would savage Coe cried, conflict of interest! Coe was affiliated with Nike for nearly 40 years. That run included the years he oversaw the London 2012 effort. Where were the critics — particularly in the British parliament, where he regularly appeared for status reports for 2012 — during all that time?

Objection No. 4:

Upon the publication early last August of a story in The Sunday Times that claimed more than 800 athletes, and a third of all medalists in endurance events at recent Olympics and world championships had suspicious blood results not followed up by the IAAF, Coe called the allegations “a declaration of war” on the sport.

In turn, that more or less prompted many, particularly in the British press, to declare a war in print with Coe.

Here it is worth referring to Part II of the WADA-commissioned report:

The “database” on which the story revolved was “in reality, no such thing,” but a “compilation of various test results.” The three-member panel, headed by Canadian lawyer Dick Pound, the first WADA president, said it “would not have been legally possible to bring a successful sanctioning process against any athlete based on the values in the IAAF database.”

Also: “The [commission] was provided with no explanation for the differences in approach and cautions expressed … in previously written scholarly publications on the subject matter and the opinions expressed in the work commissioned by The Sunday Times. The differences are quite significant.”

Going forward, it’s worth emphasizing that in significant measure the announcement of new doping cases — specifically in Kenya and Ethiopia — marks the results of basic anti-doping standards finally being applied to, or adopted by, the rest of the world.

Which, in its way, is what Coe observed at that sunny news conference.

He said, “People want immediate action. People want immediate results. People want immediate change.

“It takes time.”

Of fear, failure and world-record brilliance

KAZAN, Russia — Bobbing in the warmup pool before the start of Tuesday night’s finals, a black-and-red swim cap bore this declaration: “Your own worst enemy is your fear.”

For years and years, swimmers from other nations — even if they didn’t want to admit it and would never say so in public — feared the mighty U.S. swim team. This 2015 world championships is only three days old, and there is plenty of racing to go, but one thing, more than anything, is already clear: the fear is gone.

The rest of the world has for sure caught up to the United States.

Indeed, swimmers from other countries have proven themselves better than the Americans, and in a number of disciplines, a dramatic trend that has emerged as the No. 1 story at Kazan 2015, and could hold significant consequence for next year’s Rio 2016 Olympics.

On Monday, the U.S. went medal-less in three finals.

On Tuesday, American swimmers came up empty in the men’s 200 freestyle — Ryan Lochte, fourth — and the women’s 100 backstroke — Missy Franklin, fifth, and Kathleen Baker, eighth.

The Americans did salvage one non-Katie Ledecky medal — Matt Grevers’ third-place in the men’s 100 backstroke. Grevers had been the defending champion in the 100 back from Barcelona 2013 and the London 2012 Games.

His bronze marked the first medal of the meet for U.S. men.

The 18-year-old Ledecky has stamped herself at these championships as the No. 1 swimmer in the world. Zero question. Every race is a chance at a world record.

On Tuesday night, Ledecky demolished the world record in the 1500 free final that she herself had set in the prelims the day before.

Monday: 15:27.71.

Tuesday: 15:25.48, 2.23 seconds faster. She won the race by more than 14 seconds over Lauren Boyle of New Zealand, 15:40.14.

That made for her ninth world record — in the 1500, 800 or 400 — since 2013. Ninth!

Ledecky’s stats verge on the outrageous.

Her time Tuesday is a full 24-plus seconds under the qualifying mark for U.S. men for the 2016 Olympic Trials, 15:49.99. A Belgian journalist, Philippe Vande Weyer, who knows the Olympic scene well, said on his Twitter feed that Ledecky’s time Tuesday would have won the Belgian men’s championships by 52 seconds.

Some 29 minutes after the 1500 final, Ledecky was back into the water for a punishing double, bidding to qualify for Wednesday night’s 200 free final. Eighth at 100, seventh at 150, she raced the last 50 meters hard, finishing third in her heat for the sixth-best time over the two semis, 1:56.76.

Franklin advanced as well, with the second-best time, 1:56.37.

Of the 1500, Ledecky said afterward, she thought during the race about both her grandfathers, both passed away, mindful that her two grandmothers were “watching carefully” back home: “I thought about my grandpas at one point in the race, and dug deep.”

Before the 200, she said, her “legs kind of felt like jello,” surprising because, as she said, “I barely kicked in the mile,” what swimmers call the 1500.

Jello, for those intrigued by what someone with Ledecky’s cool uses for fuel, had not been on the menu beforehand. At noon, she’d had pesto pasta, rice, green beans and some bread. At 2:45, more pasta: “I always have pasta before a final.”

In the 200, she said, “I dove in and my arms felt really really sore and my legs felt better than my arms, so I knew I had to kick. I toughed my way through that race and I couldn’t be more pleased with how that went.”

She also said of her brutal double and world-record 1500 swim, “I wasn’t afraid to fail.”

The U.S. medal count after three days: four, two gold, two bronze.

Ledecky has both golds: the 1500 and 400, which she won Sunday in setting a meet (but not world) record. The bronze medals: Grevers and the women’s 4x100 relay team.

Great Britain and Australia lead the medals count, each with five.

Britain’s emergence offers emphatic proof of how the world has changed. At the Barcelona 2013 worlds, the British won one medal, a bronze.

You have to go back to 1986, and the days of Communism, to find a swim worlds in which the U.S. did not win the overall medal count. That year, the East Germans won, with 30; the Americans came in second, with 24.

There is zero doubt that over the decades the U.S. has been the dominant power in world championships swimming. Coming into Kazan 2015, the U.S. had won the most medals (and by far), with 418; Australia had 152. Same goes for the gold-medal count: U.S. 231, Australia 58.

The Americans’ real edge has come in world championship years the year before an Olympics. See, for instance, 2011 Shanghai (29 medals, 16 gold); 2007 Melbourne (36 medals, 20 gold, as Michael Phelps geared up for Beijing 2008); Barcelona 2003 (28 overall, 11 gold).

Phelps is not in Kazan as part of the fallout from his drunk-driving case.

Meanwhile, evidence of how much better the rest of the world has become was all around Tuesday:

— Seven world records have already been set at Kazan 2015, bettering the mark set by the end of  Barcelona two years ago, where there were six. Ledecky has two; the rest of the world, five.

— Before Tuesday, no female swimmer from New Zealand had ever won a gold or silver at the worlds in any event. Boyle and Zoe Baker had been the only women from New Zealand to win a worlds medal — bronze, five in all. Boyle’s silver in the 1500 made for a first.

— In Tuesday morning’s prelims of the men’s 50 breaststroke, South Africa’s Cameron Van Der Burgh broke the world record. At night, Britain’s Adam Peaty — in the first of two semifinals — lowered it again, down to 26.42.

American Kevin Cordes set an American record in the semis, 26.76. Peaty, in the next lane, went a full three-tenths faster over a mere 50 meters.

Peaty, afterward: "The morning swim was easy, and I knew this was just the 50-meter race, not my main event," the 100, which he has already won here, "so I didn’t have any pressure. This made this semi also really easy for me."

— The top three in the men’s 200 free: James Guy of Britain, 1:45.14; China’s Sun Yang, 1:45.20; Germany’s Paul Biedermann, 1:45.38.

Guy’s victory not only denied Sun the chance for a four-peat: the 400 (which Sun won on Sunday), as well as the 800 and 1500, in which he is a strong favorite.

The win also established Guy as one of the middle-distance favorites for 2016. He took second, behind Sun, on Sunday in the 400.

Guy is 19 years old, and will now hold forever the distinction of being the first British male ever to win a worlds freestyle title. He said of winning, “I’ve never thought I could reach that -- beyond making the final. With so many great swimmers around, Chad [le Clos] ... Ryan, Sun who are my idols … My tactics were just swim my own race, concentrate on myself and that worked.”

For his part, Lochte’s fourth matched the fourths he registered in the 200 from Barcelona 2013 worlds as well as the London 2012 Olympics in the 200 free. He said afterward he just needed to train harder.

— Grevers' third-place Tuesday, in 52.66, came in a tight race. He finished behind Mitchell Larkin of Australia, 52.40, and Camille Lacourt of France, 52.48.

Grevers, after: “I’m very surprised I lost the back half of that. That’s not how I train. I train to finish. I don’t train to die. I practice living, not dying. So dying there was very disappointing.”

— Franklin is the gold medalist in the 100 back at London 2012 and Barcelona 2013 (as well as gold medalist in the 200 free two years ago). On Tuesday night’s in the 100 back, she managed 59.4, more than a second behind winner Emily Seebohm of Australia, 58.26. Second, another Australian, Madison Wilson. Third, Denmark’s Mie Oe Nielsen. Fourth, China’s Fu Yuanhui.

Franklin said, “I have literally done everything I could have possibly done the past two months to be prepared for this meet. No excuses. I was at 59.4 and that’s obviously where I am right now.”

— Here was the field for the women’s 100 breaststroke final: Italy, Japan, Jamaica, Russia, Lithuania, China, Sweden and Iceland. Jamaica! Iceland!

Russia’s Yulia Efimova won the race, in 1:05.66, and Kazan Arena rocked hard a few minutes later as the crowd sang the national anthem.

It’s well-known in swim circles that Efimova trained in Los Angeles, at USC. Iceland’s Hrafnhildur Luthersdottir trained in Florida, at Gainesville.

This sort of thing has been going on for years and years, and it’s not going to change, nor should it — athletes from all over the world coming to the United States for opportunity.

At the same time, a variety of factors might explain why the Americans find themselves looking up at the end of races and not finding the familiar “1” next to the red, white and blue:

— Phelps isn’t here. He’s not only the best swimmer in U.S. history but had emerged in recent years as a genuine team leader.

— The Americans have long had a disdain for non-Olympic events such as the 50 sprints (everything but free: fly, breast, back) and new events such as mixed relays. The conversation should be had, and soon, about whether that focus deserves intense review.

Outside of Nathan Adrian, it’s hard to pick anyone in the U.S. sprint program who seems like a sure lock for a medal, men or women.

— The U.S. team for Kazan 2015 was picked a year ago. There were athletes who raced at the recent Pan-American Games in Toronto who should have been here, and vice-versa.

Such a selection policy deserves, again, review.

— And, perhaps most of all, there’s the fear factor. Or, better, the lack of it.

Tyler Clary, the 200 backstroke gold medalist from London 2012, finished 12th in the 200 fly semifinals Tuesday, an event in which one American — Tom Shields, eighth — qualified for the finals.

For years, Phelps ruled the 200 fly. Now, until proven otherwise, le Clos is the man. The South African turned in a solid second-place effort in Tuesday’s semis, behind Hungarian veteran Laszlo Cheh.

Clary said after the race that, big picture, Kazan 2015 ought to be considered a “rehearsal” for Rio 2016, that results here “ought to be taken with a grain of salt.”

He said, “Regardless of what the medal counts might look like, and we’re not having the most excellent meet Team USA has ever had … at the end of the day, all that matters is how we do next summer.”

Asked if the rest of the world had caught up with the Americans, Clary said, “I can agree with that.”

The next question — did swimmers from everywhere else no long fear the mighty Americans?

“It’s not my place,” he said, “to comment on the psyche of other swimmers. Maybe, maybe not.” He paused. “They certainly don’t swim like it.”

16 months for a supplement, and now?

Russian swim star and world-record holder Yulia Efimova got a 16-month ban for taking a supplement that included a banned substance. She tested positive for DHEA. That’s for sure a no-no.

Odds are, most of you have never heard of her.

Fair enough.

Moreover, doping cases tend to be repetitive, indeed mundane.

This one is actually interesting, and on a number of different levels.

Here’s why:

Efimova will sit out 2014 and the first two months of 2015, meaning she will likely be back in time for the 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia, before a home crowd, and to make a run for Rio 2016. Thus she had ample incentive to get this over with.

It's another example of leniency for supplement use. Which on the one hand is entirely appropriate. Supplement use is not, for instance, the same as injecting EPO. On the other, it makes you wonder — when is the message going to get through to elite athletes that supplement use can be reckless and irresponsible?

It’s also another victory for noted lawyer Howard Jacobs of Westlake Village, California. Look, if you have a doping problem, it’s like Ghostbusters — who you gonna call? Howard Jacobs, obviously.

Efimova didn’t even bother to have the B sample tested. She didn’t contest the lab finding. She knew what she had done. Again, this was an issue of negligence and then, for the authorities, seeking to measure liability with common sense.

The three-person FINA Doping Panel ruling was dated Monday.

Efimona competes for Russia but trains at the University of Southern California.

She is now 22. She has been a first-rate swimmer since her teens. She moved to USC when she was 18. At the 2012 London Games, she won bronze in the 200-meter breaststroke. Last year, at the world championships in Barcelona, she would win the finals of both the 50 and 200 breast and set the world-record in the 50, 29.78, in the heats - a mark that Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania then lowered in the semifinals to 29.48.

She tested positive after last year’s worlds — on Oct. 31, in an out-of-competition test.

She loses four gold medals at the European short-course championships in Denmark. She also loses two short-course world records set late last year, including one pending mark. Two of those four were individual races; two, relays.

The source of the positive was a supplement, Cellucor CLK, that she bought Sept. 16 at a GNC near where she lives in California. She said she relied on the advice she got at the GNC store, alleging that she believed “salespersons at vitamin stores in the United States were well-educated and knowledgable concerning the products they sold.”

She said she was “more inclined to question the qualifications of individuals selling supplements in Russia than in the United States.”

The level of her naiveté, frankly, borders on the breathtaking.

We are now 15 or so years after the creation of the World and U.S. Anti-Doping Agencies, and both have spent much time and energy reaching out to athletes in a bid to make clear they have to know what goes into their bodies.

And here is a world-class swim racer, indeed an Olympic medalist and world champion, relying on the advice of a clerk at a GNC?

From the decision: “Ms. Efimova testified that although she is an elite swimmer who had been through numerous doping controls and although she is aware that she is responsible for what she puts in her body, Ms. Efimova has never been given specific anti-doping education and has never been taught how to be a wise consumer of supplements, a problem her lawyer contended was compounded by the fact that her English is self-taught and by her relative unfamiliarity with the supplement market in the United States.”

How can it be she had never been given specific anti-doping education? Seriously?

Just so everyone understands the responsibilities here — though she has been training for the past four years primarily at USC, the party bearing the burden for educating her is the Russian Swimming Federation.

The panel, apparently being diplomatic, said “the fact that no anti-doping education was provided to Ms. Efimova by the RSF is disappointing and put her at a disadvantage in fulfilling her responsibility to be a savvy consumer.”

Is she alone in that regard? If not, how does that get fixed? If she is not alone, that is a significant problem, particularly since, again, next year’s worlds will be in Kazan.

A quick look at the label, as the decision noted, would have clearly shown DHEA listed as an ingredient.

As for her English-language abilities:

Efimova has been in the United States for roughly four years. Nobody is asking her to write like Faulkner. But four years? For sure she should be conversant.

Again, the level of the naiveté at issue surely must give the reasonable person pause.

At any rate, all of this is in its way prelude to what may well be the most intriguing part of the matter.

Some context:

Before moving to LA, Efimova had been coached by her father, Andrey. For the five years before that, she had been coached by Irina Vyatchanina. Efimova moved to SoCal to swim with the Trojan Swim Club, headed by coach Dave Salo.

Salo is, simply put, one of the great coaches in the world.

Here is the thing, though:

Two others, Jessica Hardy and Ous Mellouli, had positives while at USC, Hardy for a supplement, Mellouli for Adderall.

Side note: Howard Jacobs represented them both.

Now Hardy and Mellouli are both Olympic medalists and, yes, absolutely, positive role models. For sure. If you were a seventh-grade teacher, you totally would want Jessica Hardy or Ous Mellouli to come to your class and tell your kids their story of achievement.

Two other notes:

Salo had nothing to do with either positive test.

And he had nothing to do with Efimova’s positive.

In swim circles, however, there have been whispers — like, what is going on there under all that California sunshine?

That’s why perhaps this is maybe the most compelling excerpt in the entire decision, the panel devoting an entire paragraph to it, because what is more essential than someone’s reputation?

“According to Ms. Efimova, her coach at the Trojan Swim Club, David Salo, is adamantly opposed to the use of supplements of any kind. She said her coach frequently tells his swimmers that they can get all the nutrition they need through a well-balanced diet and that supplements are unnecessary.”

If you move halfway around the world … to place your trust in your coach … and your coach is one of the best … and he says don’t use supplements … and you do, anyway … it’s appropriate for the right people to stand up for the coach, in black and white, for everyone to see, when that coach is showing appropriate leadership.

So let’s everyone recognize, as the FINA Doping Panel did, too, that Dave Salo did the right thing here.

And Yulia Efimova made a mistake.

And — despite the fact that USADA, WADA and other responsible agencies — are screaming from the rooftops not to take supplements, that message is somehow not getting across fully and completely.

So, where are we, and — to quote that most famous of Russian aphorisms — what is to be done?

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."