Katey Stone: a woman's place is behind the bench

A woman has run for president and vice-president of the United States. Women have been running the marathon at the Olympic Games since 1984. There will be female boxers this summer in London and female ski jumpers in Sochi in 2014. There will come a time, surely, when those of us in the media no longer have to write columns that say so-and-so is the first woman to do such-and-such.

That time, though, is not yet upon us, and so the symbolism is inescapable with the announcement Friday that Katey Stone will be the American women's ice hockey coach in Sochi. She is the first woman to lead a U.S. Olympic ice hockey team.

Stone, 46, the longtime Harvard coach who knows what it takes to win on the biggest stage, understands that she is -- even in 2012 -- a pioneer. She also has the pitch-perfect answer to the obvious question about being the first woman, all the better because like everything about her it's direct and transparent, not canned or the least bit packaged for media consumption.

"I have been involved in sports for so long that I know that the most important thing, the No. 1 ingredient, is competency," she said. "I certainly hope I am not the last female. I know I am the first. But I don't want to be the last."

She also said, "I'm one of those kids who just keeps doing the job in front of them. I have to be honest … it's starting to get to me. My friends and family keep reminding me: you're the first woman. I obviously want to be the best at it. It is significant. There is no question. I understand that. It comes with the responsibility -- that there is an extremely high level of competency."

That's what you get with Katey Stone. Extreme, if not extraordinary, competency.

Don't misunderstand. That is by every measure a compliment.

In 18 years at Harvard, Stone has coached nine Olympic athletes and six Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winners, the trophy given annually to the top player in NCAA Division I women's hockey. One of those award winners: Angela Ruggiero, a member of the 1998 gold medal-winning U.S. women's team, now an International Olympic Committee member.

Stone's Harvard teams have a record over those 18 years of 378-164-32; she is the all-time wins leader in women's college hockey.

Stone said she will take a leave of absence from Harvard, beginning in July 2013 and returning in April 2014, emphasizing that the university has been "extremely supportive," and that her "incredibly competent" -- there's that word again -- coaching staff will see the team through the 2013-14 ECAC season. For emphasis, during that season she will not be on the Crimson bench.

"I don't believe that would be a fair thing to do," she said.

Stone has been involved with the U.S. national team program since 2006. She has served as head coach of a U.S. team on four occasions, including the 2011 International Ice Hockey Federation women's world championship in Zurich, Switzerland, which saw the American team's third straight world championship gold medal.

The Canadians won the 2012 worlds, and 39-year-old Dan Church, who led that team, was this week named the Canadian coach for the Sochi 2014 Olympics. Church has coached the women's team at York University in Toronto for nine years.

The 2012 worlds title was Canada's first since 2007. The Canadians, however, have won gold at the last three Olympic Games.

IOC president Jacques Rogge has emphasized the need to grow women's hockey beyond the powerhouse American and Canadian teams, and though significant efforts are indeed being made to do just that, it figures that in Sochi the Olympic gold medal game may yet again come down to the U.S. and Canada.

Again, the obvious question: what will it take for the Americans to prevail in 2014?

"Commitment to little things," Stone said. "It's not a complicated answer. It's commitment to little things and everyone buying into a 'team-first' mantra, which encompasses little things. It's not a complicated game. We are just trying to get everyone to play their best when they need to play their best."

Shawn Johnson: "Time ran out"

Two and a half years ago, the gymnast Shawn Johnson went on a ski trip to Beaver Creek, Colo. On the very last run of the day, everybody else in her group went down an expert run. Shawn, who by then had become a pretty good skier herself, opted to go down a super-easy trail. Everyone else made it down safely.

About halfway down her run, though, Shawn lost control. The safety release on her ski didn't work; her ski caught in the snow; and she rolled over on her left knee. At that instant her knee popped.

That pop led directly to the announcement Sunday that pretty much everyone in American gymnastics knew was coming, had even already accepted but had nonetheless been dreading: Shawn Johnson, 20 years old, was retiring.

She said on a conference call with reporters: "Time ran out. I had to accept the fact it wasn't a possibility any more."

The timing here is everything. The U.S. nationals get underway this week. Shawn wanted this announcement out there so that the spotlight would, appropriately enough, be on those competing, not on her.

She'd had a conversation Friday with her longtime coach, Liang Chow; there had been ongoing conversations with Martha Karolyi, the U.S. team national coordinator. Everyone was assessing the upsides and, at the same time, the hard truths:

Shawn Johnson was an able, gutsy competitor. She won four medals in Beijing, three silver, one gold. She was the 2007 world all-around champion. As Steve Penny, the president of USA Gymnastics, would put it on the call Sunday, Shawn "always delivered ... she was always going to be there with tons of guys and ready to go."

After taking two years off from gymnastics, after winning "Dancing With the Stars," after the ski wipe-out, she came back to the sport and made the Pan Am team last fall with her eye on London.

But the knee just would not cooperate.

It was a "constant fight" all along with the knee, she said, adding at another point in the call, "Talking to Chow and talking to Martha and coming to reality, I couldn't push myself any further."

Asked about making the 2012 team, she said: "It would have taken everything I had, and it would have taken luck."

What's next remains immediately unclear. Shawn is dead-set to go to college. Moreover, she doubtlessly will continue to have sponsor opportunities because her agent, Sheryl Shade, has done a terrific job behind the scenes over the years and she is, as Penny said, the embodiment of the "girl next door."

In the near future, Shawn predicted that the U.S. women's team -- whoever is ultimately on it -- will be the one to beat in London. She said she intends to be their "biggest cheerleader."

Who knows why somebody with unbelievable balance fell down and popped her knee on a ski run she surely should have had no trouble handling? Life works in mysterious ways.

To Shawn Johnson's credit, she has always been extraordinarily gracious in dealing not just with the injury but the aftermath and the inquiries about it. Of which there was, naturally, one more on Sunday.

No surprise, she was a class act: "Everything happens for a reason. I can't take it back. I can't regret it."

LaShawn Merritt makes a statement

EUGENE, Ore. -- There was a moment when it could have been déjà vu all over again for LaShawn Merritt and Kirani James, just like last year at the world championships in Daegu, coming down the stretch in the 400. But it wasn't.

Instead, this was a clear case of role reversal.

Which means it's really on heading into London. Because, as Merritt observed, this was a field so loaded it sure looked like an Olympic final Saturday at the Prefontaine Classic.

Last year in Daegu, James caught Merritt about three meters from the finish line, then passed him to become the first-ever medalist from Grenada. Now 19, James is a two-time NCAA champion at the University of Alabama.

On Saturday, Merritt, the 2008 Olympic champion, clearly showing that he has returned to form, caught James coming down the stretch. He poured it on for a decisive victory, finishing in 44.91 seconds.

James finished in 44.97.

You won't find that 44.97 in the official records of the race.

Officially, James didn't even run.

He false-started, and then ran the race under protest, a protest that was promptly denied.

James -- this is an amazing statistic -- has never lost a race run outdoors. Because this race will show in the books as a DQ, it won't count against that mark.

To James, however, it felt like a loss. Which, let's be real -- it was.

"Of course, it's a loss," he said. "I actually ran the race."

He said of the false-start, offering no excuses, "It's entirely my fault," adding he was simply "anticipating too much."

And he said, "It's a learning experience. I'd rather have it happen here" than, say, the Olympic final.

Christopher Brown of the Bahamas was upgraded to second. He finished in 45.24.

Angelo Taylor of the United States was moved up to third. His time: 45.59.

American Jeremy Wariner, the 2004 400 Olympic champ, was not a factor. He was bumped up to fifth in the final standings, at 45.58.

Oscar Pistorius, the South African "Blade Runner" who needs to run under 45.30 one more time to meet his nation's qualifying standards for the London Games ran 46.86.

He ran 45.20 in March.

"Today, there is nobody to blame but myself," he said.

Usain Bolt is far and away the best-known name in the world in track and field. No one else -- for emphasis, no one -- is close. Pistorius is arguably second; all over the world, people are rooting for him to make it.

He has two, perhaps three, more chances, including next week in New York.

"It's not nice as an athlete when you've worked hard and the times aren't coming but that's part of the game sometimes," Pistorius said. "I have to re-focus after this and get some fuel in the tank for the next race."

It is of course conceivable that Pistorius does not meet the 45.30 time again. If not?

"I guess then I won't go," he said. "They haven't given us that side of the coin. The requirement is that we have to run the time twice."

For Merritt, it's all coming together. Last year, he was just coming back from a lengthy suspension served after taking a male-enhancement product. "In Daegu," he said, "there were a lot of things I did that my mind and my body didn't connect."

That is, he would tell himself to go faster -- but there was no there there.

This year, it's there.

"It's a matter of your mind and your body connecting," he said. "I've worked on some things. I came here and I knew what that race was going to be."

He also said, looking forward to the Trials, "I'm coming to run." So, too, are the others: "Everybody's coming to run this year," LaShawn Merritt said, with a smile that said he was ready for anyone and everyone to bring it on.

Liu Xiang is most definitely back

EUGENE, Ore. -- If all had gone according to plan, of course, Liu Xiang would have repeated as Olympic champion in the 110-meter hurdles before a delirious home crowd in 2008 in Beijing. Fate had other plans. The image that lingers still, nearly four years later, is Liu, in the morning glare, pulling out of the heats, injured.

It is so desperately difficult to recover from an injury as severe as the torn Achilles tendon that sidelined one of the great hurdlers of this, or any, time. But Liu served notice Saturday, and emphatically, that he is back.

Liu not only won the Prefontaine Classic against a stacked field -- essentially everyone expected to be in the Olympic final save Cuba's Dayron Robles -- he did so in a wind-aided 12.87 seconds.

That equaled Robles' world-record time, set four years ago in the Czech Republic.

Liu is not especially given to public displays of emotion. But here, given the dominating nature of what he had done, given the time, he went windmilling around the track.

It wasn't showboating. It was more child-like glee.

"I love Eugene," Liu said later, speaking through a translator. "I like all the crowd here. So I am happy not only because of my time."

American Aries Merritt, the 2012 world indoor champ, finished second, in 12.96. The 2011 outdoor champ, Jason Richardson of the United States, finished third, in 13.11.

Dexter Faulk, another American, finished fourth, in 13.12.

David Oliver, the 2008 Olympic bronze medalist from the United States who came to Eugene last year having won 18 of 19 races, who won here last year in 12.94, took fifth, in 13.13. He insists he is fully recovered from the injuries that slowed him during the latter part of 2011.

Robles had been due to run here but, on Thursday, it was announced that he would be a no-show, purportedly because of visa problems. It was also announced that he would make the race this coming week in New York.

The Pre is a Nike event. This New York race is an adidas event. Robles is sponsored by adidas. Whether it was geopolitics, or shoe politics, that kept Robles out of Oregon -- such things are as unknowable as grassy knolls.

If Merritt was considered by some a sleeper -- no more. He had said in the lead-up to this race that he expected it would take a 12.93, or better, to win, adding, 'I have training sessions when I'm running world-record pace."

Richardson was named 2011 world champion after a bang-bang sequence near the finish line in Daegu. Robles crossed the line first. But he was then disqualified, video showing that he had twice touched Liu's arm going over the ninth and 10th hurdles. That elevated Richardson to first, Liu to second.

At the 2012 world indoors in Istanbul, Robles didn't run. Merritt won. Liu finished second.

A few weeks ago in Shanghai, Liu won in 12.97. That night, Oliver ran second, Richardson third, Merritt fourth.

"He's just amazing," Richardson said Saturday of Liu. "It almost goes without saying."

What makes Liu's performance in Eugene all the more amazing is this:

The wind was "wind-aided" because, at 2.4 meters per second, it was a tailwind. Hurdlers hate this. This is simple logic. A tailwind pushes a hurdler closer to each of the hurdles. So the fact that Liu equaled the world record under these conditions is even more impressive, not less, as "wind-aided" might otherwise suggest.

Roger Kingdom, the 1984 and 1988 Olympic gold medalist, has a wind-aided 12.87 in the books as well -- in Barcelona, on Sept. 10, 1989. (The wind that day: 2.6.) What that means, in plain English: it's not a world record but no one has ever run faster than Liu ran Saturday in Eugene.

Liu understands English reasonably well. But when he meets the press at meets such as these, he typically answers Chinese reporters first and then responds to English speakers through a translator. The answers delivered in translation are necessarily filtered and more bland than they might, perhaps, be in the original.

Even so, you know he knows he's back. Come London, watch out for Liu Xiang.

"Of course I am happy," he said. "But it is just a race. For me, I need to look forward."

Allyson Felix: "... right where I need to be"

EUGENE, Ore. -- The signs were there last month, when Allyson Felix blasted to a 10.92 to win a 100-meter Diamond League sprint in Doha, Qatar, defeating both the reigning Olympic champion, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and the 200-meter champ, Veronica Campbell-Brown, both Jamaicans. Here Friday, she had said, "I feel like I'm right on schedule, right where I need to be."

She showed up Saturday for her baby, the 200, in a black bodysuit that evoked comparisons to something Cathy Freeman might have worn back in the day. And then Allyson Felix went out and made everyone else in the field look slow, and in particular the 2011 world championship silver medalist, Carmelia Jeter.

Felix won in 22.23 seconds, just one-hundredth off the year's best time, run by LSU junior Kimberlyn Duncan at an NCAA regional meet last week.

Jeter, who has a personal best of 22.20 in the 200, a season's-best of 22.31, managed only 22.78. She finished fifth.

American Jeneba Tarmoh finished second in 22.61, Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria third in 22.63, and another American, Bianca Knight, fourth, in 22.64. The times don't tell the true story. If it's possible to jog to the line in a 200, Allyson Felix kinda sorta did.

An Allyson Felix who is right on schedule, right where she needs to be, means big things.

It's big for the United States track program. She could -- should? -- win four medals. Some number -- four? -- should be gold.

It's big for NBC. (Let's face facts.) The network needs to build story lines around all those nights of television programming. Allyson Felix is everything you'd want: she's well-spoken, and the camera loves following her around the track, even in a black bodysuit.

Plus, she's on a mission: she has done everything in the sport. Everything. Won it all, done it all.

Except -- except the one thing she has always wanted, Olympic gold in the 200.

Twice she has won Olympic silver in the 200, in 2004 and 2008, both times behind Campbell-Brown.

The issue on the table, as it has been for months, is what events Felix will run in London -- that is, besides the 200.

Start with the relays. Those are a given.

She has long said she wants to double up her individual events.

Last year, in Daegu, she ran the 200 and 400.

This year, could it be the 100 and the 200?

For starters, the 400 comes first in the Olympic program. It's way more taxing.

If the 400 came after the 200, Felix said here Friday, "it would be very, very easy," meaning she would for sure do a 200-400 double.

Complicating the decision, perhaps, is the resurgence of American Sanya Richards-Ross. Hurt in 2011, fully healthy now, Richards-Ross ran a world-best 49.39 here Saturday for the win, defeating Amantle Montsho of Botswana, the 2011 400 champ; it was Montsho who defeated Felix last year in Daegu by a mere three-hundredths of a second.

Montsho's winning 2011 Daegu time: 49.56.

The challenges in the 100 are who she's running against -- Jeter, Fraser-Pryce, Campbell-Brown -- and herself. "The start has always been my issue," she said, and in a race that quick, a bad start and it's all but over.

Felix had said Friday that both the 100 and 400 were "still on the table." She said she intends to run next week in New York and then sit down with her longtime coach, Bobby Kersee, to make a decision.

She left here Saturday feeling strong. "I feel," she said, "like I'm in a good place."

Two "gods" delight kids at Eugene Family YMCA

EUGENE, Ore. -- Maybe David Oliver wins the 110-meter hurdles here Saturday at the Prefontaine Classic against a stacked field. Doesn't matter. Perhaps Leo Manzano wins the Bowerman Mile against a loaded field here at the Pre. Again, doesn't matter.

They're both heroes already.

Quietly, David Oliver and Leo Manzano spent a half-hour Friday afternoon with about three dozen kids at the Eugene Family YMCA. The kids, ages 2 1/2 to 9, were awestruck to be in the presence of two guys who were, in fact, Olympians.

Asked to describe what an Olympian was, JJ Anderson, 9, said, "A professional player -- the best of the best!"

Ryan Coplin, also 9, went even further: "A god!"

Oliver and Manzano are two of just some of the good guys -- and gals -- who make up the U.S. Olympic scene. Their appearance Friday at the Y was part of two distinct programs that get little attention but deserve more because, let's face it, it's the idea that little kids want to be just like David Oliver and Leo Manzano that keeps the entire Olympic enterprise going day after day, year after year, in these United States.

The U.S. Olympic Committee's "Team for Tomorrow" initiative, launched in 2008, is now in its third cycle with 10 Olympic and Paralympic athletes and hopefuls. Among them: triathlete Gwen Jorgensen, swimmer Jessica Hardy, water polo player Tony Azevedo and Paralympic standouts Rudy Garcia-Tolson and Anjali Forber-Pratt. Volunteer time includes visits to hospitals, schools, YMCAs and other community institutions.

USA Track & Field's "Win With Integrity" program dates back to 2004. It aims to stress the benefits of an active, healthy lifestyle and making decisions -- on and off the field -- with integrity.

Some of that was obviously a little much Friday for pre-schoolers. Sierra St. Johns, 5, was a little distracted because she lost a tooth (only her second!) while Oliver and Manzano were talking. To her credit, she didn't make any fuss -- just went out to the bathroom and came back clutching her prize in a bag for the tooth fairy to visit Friday night.

As Oliver, who does a lot of these reach-out programs, said in an interview, "It's best at high-school age. You try. You may only reach one kid out of 100. But these are the future leaders of our world. If I can just tell them something positive, maybe it sinks in."

A Howard University grad, Oliver said, "Look, I'm a good athlete. But I didn't take the 'student' out of 'student-athlete.' The two go hand in hand. I did not to go school to be a professional athlete."

Manzano struck much the same notes. He said, "For me, growing up I never saw a Hispanic role model. It's important to show these kids they can anything want to do. Not just running. Anything."

He said, "A lot of kids go home from a place like the Y, it might be kids like David Oliver or myself. My family couldn't afford to buy me shoes or the best clothes. Sure, there were coaches or other people to look after me, who motivated me. And, lo and behold. I do feel very lucky."

When it came to question and answer time, the kids wanted to know what these two gods liked to eat.

Oliver said he liked vegetables, steak, chicken and fish.

Everyone thought that was ok.

Manzano said he liked apples and broccoli.

Broccoli?

Even gods, you know, can't win at everything.

"My question," Emma Nordahl, 7, wanted to know right after that, "is when is this gonna end?"

Lopez Lomong, and "all the things people in the world dream about"

What Lopez Lomong does when he runs is fantastic stuff. But that, of course, is just the start of all there is to tell when the telling revolves around Lopez Lomong.

"I am a voice for people who never told their story," he says. "I have to tell their stories."

When most Americans checked in on track and field four years ago, Lomong was the flag bearer for the U.S. team marching into the opening ceremony at the Summer Games in Beijing.

He was one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, born in southern Sudan, forced to flee when he was just 6 years old to avoid an attack by the militia group known as the Janjaweed. He and his family ran for three days until they crossed into Kenya. After being separated from his family, he lived in a refugee camp run by Catholic missionaries for 10 years. An essay he wrote in 2001 about what he would try to do in the United States got him that chance; he was placed with a foster family in upstate New York. He went on to run in high school and college, became a naturalized U.S. citizen and made the 2008 U.S. Olympic team in the 1500 meters.

In Beijing, he made it to the 1500 semifinals. He posed for pictures with President Bush.

Fast forward to April 2012 and the Peyton Jordan meet at Stanford. Now the 27-year-old Lomong is every bit the professional track athlete. Now he is training in Portland, running 80 to 85 miles per week under the direction of Oregon Track Club coach Jerry Schumacher.

This night, Lomong, running the 5000 meters, not only unleashes a powerful kick but blows away the field. He crosses the finish line and stops, an easy winner.

Just one problem.

He has miscounted laps. He has one to go.

Oh.

He fires up the jets and takes off again.

This is a supremely difficult trick. But Lomong manages it, anyway. And wins the race again. Twice, as it were -- and, as it turns out, in what was then a world-leading time, 13:11.63.

"My body felt so good," Lomong said, laughing and adding, "We train so hard that racing is easy. Every time we have a race coming up in a couple weeks it's like I can't wait -- that's an easy day."

This weekend, Lomong will race the mile at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., against a world-class field. The mile isn't an Olympic event; maybe it should be, but that's a discussion for another day. The Pre is "another indicator" of where he is and what race or races he ought to aim for at the Trials.

As Lomong eases back into the spotlight, he paused this week to reflect for just a moment:

"I love the United States," he said. "This is the country that gives me a second chance. This is my gift, to give back to this country that has given me a second chance. I owe this country so much. I owe the fans. I love it so much. I wear the uniform with pride. I hold my head high and say, 'I am an American.' "

Assuming Lomong makes the U.S. Olympic team again, and if his Stanford kick is any indication you have to think he's a solid bet, he will be reunited in London with his longtime girlfriend, Brittany Morreale, 24, of Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.

She is a Rhodes Scholar now doing her work in Oxford as well as a first lieutenant in the Air Force.

They met when she was on the track and cross-country teams at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs; he was in the area, where the U.S. Olympic Committee maintains a center, training; half a season later, he asked her out while they were both recuperating from a hard workout in an ice bath. How's that for romance?

They have been an item now for four years.

At Oxford, Morreale is studying anthropology -- specifically, the role of traditional authority at the community level in South Sudan, which last July became an independent nation. "Originally it was inspired by Lopez," she said. "It has become really personal."

The day after the closing ceremonies in London, the two of them will travel to the town where he was born and spent his first six years. It's called Kimotong, in a state called Eastern Equatoria. There, in concert with World Vision, the Christian relief agency, they intend to launch a long-term project -- it's dubbed "4 South Sudan" -- with, naturally, four areas of focus: clean water, health care, education and nutrition.

Through appearances at the Chicago and Los Angeles marathons, Lomong has helped raise just over $100,000 -- enough, they figure, to drill several boreholes and wells in Kimotong.

It's critical, he said, to find a well or wells to deliver water. Three years ago, his younger sister, Susan, just a teen-ager, was sexually assaulted as she was en route one day to find water. Lomong has written about the incident previously and when asked will talk about it, saying it has become a key motivator for him in trying to effect change not just in Kimotong but elsewhere in the developing world, where girls often find themselves vulnerable simply because they're trying to find water to drink or to use for cooking.

A village with water frees its girls from that fear and from the burden of walking hours to find it; when that burden is lifted, that opens up the possibility of going to school; with school comes endless possibilities.

In Susan's case, the assailant's identity remains unknown. Susan became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, whose name is Choper.

"I look at this," Lopez Lomong said, "and I am so blessed to be in America.

"I ran through all these obstacles to get to America. In my house, I have a faucet and clean water. I don't have to go to a river or a lake. And $50 will provide clean water for a family for life. That's incredible. I just want to be able to bring clean water so that girls like my sister don't have to walk all these miles and along the way they can overcome all those hardships. We want them to be able to go to school and continue in their lives and dream big. Be teachers and doctors and pilots and all the things people in the world dream about. All the things that were pushing me forward."

"Hello, partner": USOC, IOC resolve financial differences

QUEBEC CITY, Canada -- It was about an hour after the U.S. Olympic Committee and International Olympic Committee had announced they had signed the agreement that had ended seven years of talks over how to split certain key revenues, and USOC board chairman Larry Probst was standing in the hall of the sprawling convention center here when up came Thomas Bach. An IOC vice president, the president of the German Olympic committee, Bach is one of the most influential senior officials in the movement.

As he approached Probst, Bach had a big smile on his face. He said, simply, "Hello, partner."

Such a remark would have been literally unthinkable a few years ago -- as recently as October, 2009, when Chicago was unceremoniously booted out of the voting in Copenhagen for the 2016 Summer Games, won by Rio de Janeiro.

But not Friday. Bach wasn't the only one seeking out Probst and, as well, Scott Blackmun, the chief executive of the USOC. Here was Rene Fasel, the Swiss president of the international ice hockey federation, sliding up to Probst to talk up the Stanley Cup finals and to inquire whether Probst -- who lives in Northern California -- might be around because Fasel was for sure going to be down in L.A. to catch the Kings.

It has been said many times before when explaining the way the Olympic movement really works but on the occasion of the deal signed Friday that re-arranged the financial ties between the USOC and IOC it bears repeating: relationships are everything.

The USOC and IOC jointly announced Friday that they had signed a new revenue sharing agreement between them that runs from 2020 until 2040.

The deal resolves a longstanding dispute over the USOC's share of television and marketing revenues that had undermined the American committee's standing in the Olympic movement and played a key role in sinking Chicago's 2016 and New York's 2012 bids.

Now the USOC will weigh whether to bid for the 2022 Winter or 2024 Summer Games.

New York and San Francisco would seem to top 2024 possibilities, with Chicago of course under consideration as well, maybe even Los Angeles. Though Dallas and Houston have floated interest, there's little to no suggestion they can win internationally.

Denver, Reno-Tahoe, Salt Lake City and Bozeman, Mont., have indicated 2022 interest.

There are arguments to be made for 2022 or 2024. That said, it's plain the Summer Games are, and always have been, the IOC's big prize.

The USOC board intends to meet next month in the Bay Area, and the bid game figures to be a big topic. "Our strategy is to develop a strategy at this point," chief executive Scott Blackmun said at the  news conference announcing the revenue deal.

Rogge was at that conference, too. He said, "This is a very happy moment for the IOC as well as for the USOC. This agreement will definitely strengthen both sides."

The genesis of Friday's announcement is a deal that was signed in 1996 designed to run for -- honestly -- forever. It gives the USOC a 12.75 percent share of U.S. broadcast revenues and a 20 percent cut of Olympic top-tier marketing revenues. Over time, key IOC officials came to believe the USOC share was excessive. That led first to resentment and then outright hostility.

Talks aimed at striking a new deal began in 2005.

In reality, this deal started on Oct. 3, 2009, the day after Chicago got smacked down in Copenhagen, and Probst was left to figure out how the situation had gotten this bad, why no one on the American side had seen a first-round exit and, maybe worst of all, why the president of the United States had been invited to stump for Chicago in person, President Obama's hometown, only to have the IOC reward the Americans with a mere 18 votes. Four years before, New York had gotten 19.

Probst vowed to become more engaged, and did. He hired Blackmun. The two said they would work at the relationship thing. They did. Big-time. They traveled the world. They didn't ask for anything special. They played it humble and low-key and said the USOC was simply trying to be one NOC among many, just another member of the Olympic family.

It took some time, naturally, for Blackmun and Christophe de Kepper, now the IOC director-general, to get to know and trust each other. They emerged as the point people on the deal, which essentially got done in a marathon session in recent days.

The deal essentially features three component parts:

- The USOC will pay a share of what's called Games costs;

- The USOC will take a lower share of incremental revenues for top-tier marketing revenues, 10 percent, according to the Associated Press, which first reported the figure.

- Same for TV, 7 percent, according to AP.

A working example:

Let's say the baseline television revenues for the four-year Olympic period, which in Games-speak is called a quadrennium, are $250 million. Let's also say inflation bumps that up to $270 million. The USOC will take its usual 12.75 percent share up to that $270 million. That would equal $34.425 million.

If, however, revenues for the quad actually end up being $300 million, the USOC will take that lower percentage, 7 percent, of the difference, the $30 million. That would equal $2.1 million.

Total (again, these numbers are totally made up): $36.525 million.

What isn't made up is that NBC paid $4.38 billion to broadcast the Games from 2014 to 2020. The USOC gets 12.75 percent of that. Do the math.

This is critically important to understand: the USOC is the only Olympic committee in the world that is self-sufficient. Everywhere else, the Olympic committee gets government funding. Not the USOC. Through the 1978 law that set it up, Congress said the USOC must be self-sufficient. That's why the USOC can't -- and couldn't -- give up its broadcast or marketing revenues.

Philosophically, the IOC understood all along that the USOC is a leading contributor to the Olympic scene. It also understood that NBC agreed to pay $4.38 billion in part because the U.S. team wins a boatload of medals and because the likes of Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte and Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White plant viewers in front of television screens. That's inarguable.

At the same time, the IOC might now go about and make deals in emerging market -- China, India, Brazil. It's fair for the USOC to give on those deals.

The obvious question: why did it take seven years to get to Friday?

Because Probst and Blackmun inherited ill will and, as Blackmun put it, "It's all about relationships, and you can't build relationships overnight."

Probst on Friday recalled his first meeting with Puerto Rico's Richard Carrion, who along with Gerhard Heiberg of Norway and de Kepper formed the IOC's negotiating team. This was at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. "More of a lecture," Probst said, laughing, saying that since then he and Carrion -- and their wives -- have become genuine friends: "It's all about friendship, partnership, relationship."

"In Copenhagen," Probst said, "I was a deer in the headlights. Things have changed."

In Copenhagen, many of the words directed at and about the Americans were unpleasant. Things have changed.

Another IOC vice president, Singapore's Ser Miang Ng, called Friday's announcement a "historic moment," saying it was the "start of a new relationship between the USOC and the Olympic family, not only the financial aspect but the goodwill it is creating and the opportunities it is creating for everybody."

Denis Oswald, a Swiss lawyer who is on the 15-person IOC executive board, declared, "It's very important. It was our wish that the USOC comes back as a full member of the family and understands they have to be a part of it. I think it's a good solution."

"It's a real milestone," Bach said.

"It's a win-win situation. For everybody. For the IOC, for the USOC, for everybody. It's a great success for Jacques Rogge," Bach said, adding a moment later, "For him personally, it's a great day. Now the way is free for many things."

Three for 2020 in, Doha and Baku out

QUEBEC CITY, Canada -- In cutting the 2020 Summer Games bid city field Wednesday from five cities to three, the International Olympic Committee eliminated both Baku and Doha, immediately raising the provocative question of whether Doha -- which, let's face it, is due to put on soccer's 2022 World Cup -- is ever going to get its chance to make its case before the full IOC. The IOC's 15-member policy-making executive board, meeting here amid the sprawling SportAccord assembly, passed Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul through to the so-called "candidate city" phase.

The IOC will select the 2020 city at a secret vote in September, 2013, in Buenos Aires, a congress marked also by an election to succeed Jacques Rogge, who because of mandatory term limits will be stepping down after 12 years as IOC president.

The contours for the 2020 election are plain:

Will the Eurocentric IOC, after electing Pyeongchang, South Korea, for the 2018 Winter Games, want to return to far-away Asia for Summer 2020? This is Tokyo's second-straight bid, Madrid's third, Istanbul's fifth overall.

The IOC report released Wednesday that assessed all five would-be 2020 cities called Tokyo's application "very strong." Tokyo typically has graded out terrifically well in such so-called "technical" reports. Now comes the hard part:  the political sell.

"We have to explain to the members our planning … the excitement … [why] it would be the best Olympic Games and a model for the future," asserted Tsunekazu Takeda, the president of Tokyo 2020 and the Japanese Olympic Committee.

The report called Madrid's file "strong." Obviously, Spain is currently beset by economic woes. At the same time, much of what's needed to stage an Olympics is already built; that's the advantage of two prior bids. But can the Madrid 2020 team deliver a winning message?

Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., a key Madrid bid official, said, "The IOC, by coming to southern Europe, would be giving a new generation of youth hope and opportunity, and we can afford to do it  because the infrastructure is already in place."

Can Istanbul run the gamble of bidding for the Games and the 2020 European soccer championships simultaneously? The IOC report, noting that Istanbul's file offers "good potential" but needs to be "refined," stressed that the notion of not only bidding for but actually staging the Olympics and soccer so close together -- they would be held just months apart -- presents "significant risks."

Ugur Erdener, an IOC member as well as president of the world archery federation and the Turkish Olympic committee, said the Games were his country's "first priority," adding, "That is very clear."

The announcement Wednesday follows Rome's February withdrawal from the 2020 race. Some had considered it a favorite. The Italian government said it simply could not provide the financial guarantees the IOC demands.

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, was never going to win for 2020 -- Azerbaijan doesn't even have an IOC member -- and so whether they were passed through was always more a matter of passing interest, no more. Make no mistake: a Baku bid is to be taken seriously because they have abundant resource and will. But Baku is for future editions of the Games.

The intrigue in this 2020 election was always Doha, the capital of Qatar.

Then again, the intrigue in the early stage of the 2016 election involved Doha as well.

Four years ago, the IOC cut Doha at this same stage, even though the 2016 technical review had it rated ahead of Rio de Janeiro, which then went on to win.

This time, after a ferocious internal debate at the IOC's executive board session meeting last summer at the time of the world track and field championships in Daegu, South Korea, Doha was allowed to jump into the 2020 race amid the proviso it hold the Games from Oct. 2-18 to avoid the desert heat.

Doha has successfully staged the 2006 Asian Games and, last December, the Arab Games. Doha has won the right to stage, among other significant events, the 2014 swimming world short-course championships and the 2015 men's world handball championships; last spring, it put on the IOC's sport and environment conference.

Overwhelmingly, the summer sports federations said ok to the Doha bid.

The Qataris are adamant about the use of sport as one of the four "pillars" of both a "national vision" plan that aims to achieve concrete goals by 2030 and, as well, to cement Qatar's role as a "leading nation in bringing the world together," the Qatar Olympic Committee's vision statement.

Here in Quebec City, there was more debate.

In Olympic politics -- as in all politics -- perception is as important, if not more so, than reality. It may or may not matter that the issues confronting Doha are on-the-ground real. What matters is that some number of key Olympic stakeholders believe they are real enough.

Is the country big enough for the Olympics? The soccer World Cup is big. But the Olympics are a completely different scale: 28 simultaneous world championships. The financial aspects might pose no difficulty, the IOC report said, but building, coordinating and testing transport, housing, competition and non-competition venues as well as identifying, training and housing a Games workforce, all within seven years "presents a major challenge and risk."

What about the idea of the 2020 Olympics as dress rehearsal for the 2022 World Cup? That's not the way the IOC works. In Brazil, the World Cup is coming before the Olympics -- in 2014, two years before the 2016 Summer Games.

There's this, too, and it's impossible to pretend this isn't part of the dynamic: it wasn't going to happen that Rogge's final months in office were going to be marked by questions at news conferences relating to whatever did or didn't happen in the 2022 FIFA election that gave Qatar that World Cup.

If in Baku they have resource and will, that can be said time and again in Doha. Anyone who has ever been there knows how patient, persistent and committed they are in the emirate to achieving their goals.

"We will continue and we will not give up. Sport is in our DNA," Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a Doha 2020 vice-chair and secretary-general of the Qatar Olympic Committee, said after the IOC announcement.

Echoed the other Doha 2020 vice chair, Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, "We're good learners. We're good listeners. We'll be back."

It all begs the question: when are they ever going to get the chance to least get a vote before all 115 members of the International Olympic Committee? That, rest assured, would be a most interesting vote.

Which brings the underlying issue squarely into focus, doesn't it? Is that really why Doha got cut?

USOC finances: stability rules

The U.S. Olympic Committee was a lot more fun, reporting-wise, when it was embroiled in chronic turmoil. For many years, the USOC could be counted on to be the sports writing version of the Soap Opera Full Employment Saga. Oh, for the days gone by when there would be hastily arranged meetings of the USOC at, say, the O'Hare Hilton or the Antlers in Colorado Springs and the chief executive would be sending looks of love (not) to the assembled scribes.

Those tender feelings washed over me yet anew Friday while reading the USOC's tax return, which is called a Form 990, for 2011.

The U.S. government makes the USOC file the Form 990 once a year, of course. It is made publicly available each May.

This year's version, like last year's, underscores the fundamental point about the USOC as it is now:

It is, thanks to board chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun, stable.

From a management viewpoint, stable is really, really good.

From a journalism standpoint -- stable is really, really boring.

Just kidding -- stable is excellent.

Here's what the Form 990 says, and for the USOC to be able achieve these results in a down economy is testament to the way Probst and Blackmun have been steering the ship, and the culture they have created, which in the 14 years I have been covering the Olympic movement, and in particular the USOC, is distinct, and I mean that in the most connotatively positive way:

Revenue (page 9): $140.7 million.

That's down from $250.6 million in 2010. What?!

No need to freak out. This is the way the Olympic cycle works. Broadcast revenue is recorded only in a Games year, and in 2010 the Winter Games went to Vancouver.

Expenses: (page 10) $185 million, down from $191 million.

Note: that's $6 million less in expenses than the year before.

Again, over a four-year cycle, the revenue and expense sides tend to even themselves out.

Blackmun's compensation package (page 7) totaled $742,367, higher than the year before because he didn't work a full year in 2010 and wasn't eligible that year for a bonus; moreover, his 2011 number also includes a long-term performance bonus that has to be counted for tax rules even though Blackmun hasn't been paid it yet. If it  does get paid to him at all, it will be in 2014 and then doubly counted in that Form 990 but in a different line item -- tax forms always an accountant's dream and a journalist's nightmare.

Before anyone jumps to criticize a long-term performance incentive, think about the instability of the CEO position and what that has cost the USOC over the past several years, in sheer salary dollars and reputation.

Unlike many other years, the USOC reported one -- only one -- person in the chief executive's position. How boring. It's like people enjoy working there.

Former chief operating officer Norm Bellingham's compensation package (page 8) was reported out at $655,219. His compensation, salary part of the year, was moved to a consultant's role, as he worked on high-performance planning and funding and other strategic projects, typically with Blackmun. Note: 2011 was his final year with the USOC.

In another area: the USOC's top five contractors include four direct-mail vendors and one hospitality company (page 8). That's in line with previous non-Games years.

Also: Schedule I, toward the back of the form, detaIls the amounts the USOC pays out to, among others, the national governing bodies. US Ski & Snowboard got the most in 2011, $3.45 million. USA Track & Field got $2.7 million, US Speedskating $2.5 million and USA Swimming $2.49 million.

In just a few weeks, American athletes will compete at the London Summer Games. There it is expected that they will vie with the Chinese and the Russians for supremacy in the medal count.

The USOC is locked in a messy and longstanding dispute with the International Olympic Committee over the USOC's shares of certain broadcasting and marketing revenues.

There are many things the USOC does imperfectly. But to its credit, it is transparent about its financial details.

Feel free to argue that it is transparent because the U.S. government makes it be so. But -- every spring we know what the USOC is up to, and who gets paid what, and how much it is spending on what, and anyone anywhere in the world can make judgments about whether all of that is in the public interest.

As we head toward London, don't you wish the same could be said of our friends at the Russian and Chinese Olympic Committees? Indeed, of all the national Olympic committees in the rest of the world?

Indeed, of the IOC?