On the lookout for shiny Eagles over Hayward

EUGENE, Ore. -- The way this is most likely going to end up is that Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix are going to have a run-off, probably Sunday, the day after the women's 200 meters, to decide who gets the third and final spot in the 100 meters on the U.S. team that goes to London. It's not a done deal, of course. A jillion things could happen between now and then. But that's the most probable. After all, it was improbable enough to see a dead heat that ended with both runners timed in 11.068 seconds, and more improbable yet that USA Track & Field didn't have a process in place to resolve this kind of thing.

So while looking forward, let's pause to look back and see how it all happened.

And a coin flip -- how did a coin flip even remotely come to be part of the deal?

The coin flip has subjected USA Track & Field to relentless ridicule from all quarters, nationally and internationally, and I use the word "quarters" deliberately, because the protocol for the coin flip goes into the most ridiculous, pedantic, obviously overwritten and lawyer-written nonsense imaginable.

To wit:

USATF "shall provide a United States Quarter Dollar coin with the image of George Washington appearing on the obverse hub of the coin and an Eagle appearing on the reverse hub of the coin."

Note that "Eagle" is capitalized, as if that makes a difference.

It goes on from there, with this insipid ridiculousness: " … [T]he USATF representative shall bend his or her index finger at a 90 degree angle to his or her thumb, allowing the coin to rest on his or her thumb. In one single action, the USATF representative shall toss the coin into the air, allowing the coin to fall to the ground."

Really? That's how you flip a coin?

But we're not done.

If the quarter with the picture of the first president on one side and the "Eagle" on the other doesn't land flat, the procedure calls for a do-over.

This is the sort of thing that deserves to be mocked.

But -- and this is important -- the idea of the coin toss itself does not.

There's sound reason for it.

The international governing body for track and field, the International Assn. of Athletics Federations, has a provision in its rules for breaking ties. You can find it in IAAF Rule 167.

Rule 167 says that ties for the last qualifying position in a given race shall ultimately be broken by the drawing of lots.

That's right -- lots.

And that's where USATF officials started when deliberations began after it was clear that the cameras, inside and out, had failed to break the tie in the women's 100.

It's instructive at this point to note that while we live in a thoroughly technologically advanced society and some of the cameras at issue fire at 3,000 frames per second -- this case proves yet again that there's still no substitute for human decision-making.

Meetings began Saturday about 7 p.m. They lasted for roughly six hours, until about 1 in the morning.

A consensus emerged fairly quickly around the coin-toss -- as a better notion than lots -- and the run-off. Track officials knew full well that swimmers swam swim-offs on a regular basis.

Even so, a steady thread during the talks that night, and as well Sunday with the U.S. Olympic Committee, was athlete safety.

Discussions with the USOC -- which had to sign off on any process -- picked up steam Sunday, beginning as early as 7:30 in the morning. Some were on the phone; others, in person; and carried on throughout the day, until USATF spokeswoman Jill Geer made the announcement of the new process late in the afternoon.

The process calls for a coin flip if both athletes agree to it or both refuse to state a preference. Otherwise, it's a run-off.

So why Sunday?

Because both Tarmoh and Felix are running the 200. And both are coached by Bobby Kersee. He wants them both to get through the 200. The finals in that race go down Saturday.

USATF officials have said they intend fully to name the team before they leave Eugene.

Thus -- that leaves Sunday, and only Sunday, for a run-off.

Unless another unusual event happens. Which, given everything else that has happened already, is entirely possible. Maybe a shiny Eagle will appear over Hayward Field, or something.

DeFrantz declares for IOC executive board

Anita DeFrantz has always been an ardent believer in the power of the Olympic movement to do good. The question now is whether the members of the International Olympic Committee, her peers, are believers in Anita DeFrantz.

DeFrantz, 59, of Los Angeles, has sent a letter to her IOC colleagues that she will be a candidate for the policy-making executive board at the IOC's forthcoming session in London next month.

She said in a telephone call last week from Lausanne, Switzerland, "It's important for the United States to be part of the movement. I just want to serve the Olympic movement, being a true believer and all. I have said it and I will continue to say it."

Some may cast the election as a test of the U.S. Olympic Committee's standing in the aftermath of the deal it struck with the IOC that resolved a longstanding dispute over marketing and broadcasting revenue shares.

It really, though, marks a test of where DeFrantz, who has been an IOC member since 1986, stands.

DeFrantz is going to be an IOC member, absent a health crisis or other catastrophe, until 2033, and though she previously has been an IOC vice president, that was -- viewed now -- a long time ago.

DeFrantz is an Olympic bronze medalist, in rowing, at the 1976 Montreal Games. In 1980, she was a leader of American athlete opposition to the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Summer Games.

She joined the staff of the Los Angeles Games organizing committee in 1981 and planned and operated an Olympic Village in 1984. Two years later, she was made an IOC member.

Even her work life has revolved around the Olympic scene. She joined the staff of what is now called the LA 84 Foundation and was elected its president in 1987. It has overseen the distribution of millions of dollars in grants to youth sports clients in Southern California.

Under the presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch, DeFrantz seemed a rising star in IOC circles. She served on the executive board from 1992 through 2001 and as a vice president from 1997 through 2001. She was the IOC's first female vice president.

DeFrantz has for years played a leading role in urging the IOC to move toward equality on issues involving women's rights, both on the field of play and in the executive suite. She has chaired the Women and Sport commission since 1995. This past spring, she helped lead a IOC convention in Los Angeles on women's issues in the movement -- an event that was well-received and that assuredly helped convince her the time was right to run again for IOC office.

In 2001, at the IOC session in Moscow, she ran for the IOC presidency itself. She received but nine of 107 votes -- dead last.

In 2007, at the session in Guatemala City, she ran for the executive board. She received six of 92 votes. Again, dead last.

In Guatemala, she said, "I am stunned. I hope this is not something to suggest women can never be elected to the executive board again. I will remain stunned for a while."

Two women currently serve on the board: Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco and Gunilla Lindberg of Sweden.

In Guatemala, the revenue issue was clearly burbling, just as it would play a key role in Chicago's first-round exit in 2009 for the Summer Games 2016 vote.

Now that's no longer on the table, and so the vote -- however it turns out -- will be a referendum on  DeFrantz herself.

Including DeFrantz, the early math suggests perhaps six candidates for three EB positions. One is likely to be Sergei Bubka of Ukraine. He usually runs strong. So then figure five for two. One other -- Willi Kaltschmitt of Guatemala -- is from the Americas.

The election is due to take place July 26, the final day of the IOC session. The opening ceremony of the Games takes place the next evening.

Bryshon-ing Moment: the long road back

EUGENE, Ore. -- Three and a half years ago, Bryshon Nellum was shot in both legs on a street corner in Los Angeles. On Sunday, he made the U.S. Olympic Team in the 400 meters.

LaShawn Merritt, the 2008 Olympic champion, won the race, in a world-best 44.12 seconds. Tony McQuay of the University of Florida, the 2011 400 U.S. champion, took second, in 44.49. Nellum earned the third and final spot on the London 2012 team, in 44.8.

Bryshon Nellum is 23 years old. He is not only a symbol of perseverance, grit and determination. He is a young man who shows what it means to live the meaning of peace among the gang wars of Southern California.

"I'm more happy than anything that Bryshon got through," said his University of Southern California teammate, Josh Mance, who finished fourth in 44.88, and though having missed out on his own Olympic dream by a mere eight-hundredths of a second presented himself with such class and dignity that he could talk about Bryshon with those words, and more.

"He is the story of the meet," Mance said, adding a moment later, "He is a blessing."

Nellum was a star high-school quarter-miler. He went to USC with big expectations. Those were tempered by a hamstring injury his freshman year.

Eight months of rehab later, things started looking up. Then came the shooting.

It was early in the morning of Oct. 31, 2008. Nellum had been at a Halloween party near campus. He was near the corner of South 29th Street and West Vermont Avenue when, crossing the street to head back to his dorm room, a shotgun blast rang out.

He was hit in the left quad and the right hamstring. "When I first got shot," he said, "I just thought I was never going to walk again. It's crazy because I never did fall to the ground. I kept going -- like, run to safety. I hopped and skipped on one leg, to safety. Ever since then, I have been recovering."

He endured three surgeries, the most recent last year: "I slept through it. I dreamt it. I ate it. I woke up with it. I ran through it. I came a long way."

How long? "I was running on one leg at practice. Like a baby, I had to crawl before I walked. Before I ran. Those were the steps I had to go through in the process."

Travon Reed, a Los Angeles man, and Horasio Kimbrough, of Inglewood, Calif., were convicted in the shooting and sentenced to prison terms of 15 years to life, Nellum said.

Authorities have repeatedly and insistently said that Nellum has no gang affiliation. He said he went to court to watch the case, hoping to answer one question: why?

He said he got no answer.

He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"You know what they say? Whatever doesn't break you only makes you stronger. So," he said, "I just feel like whatever happened, happened for a reason. Now I'm just trying to be a better person, and a better athlete."

Early this season, at the Mt. SAC meet in Walnut, Calif., Nellum ran a 45.1. That was a sign, he said, that this year could be something special. He won the Pac-12 championship. Then, though, he didn't make the NCAA final.

That happened for a reason, too, he said -- to get him ready for the Trials.

At a news conference, after Merritt had said he had genuine confidence in his young teammates but acknowledged that it was now time to do some "big-boy running," Nellum said he would be up to it.

After what he has been through -- what in London is there to be afraid of? Come on.

At that same news conference, Nellum made sure to thank his mother, LeShon Hughes, who has been with him for every step, figuratively and literally. She was here in Eugene to cheer him on. "Without my mom, none of this would have happened," he said, adding, "I would just like to say, 'I love you, mom.' "

He said later, "This is a dream come true. I'm here. I had the medal around my neck. I talked to the people. I got the team processing [forms] I have my American flag. My flowers. So I guess," and he paused, "it's true."

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

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

It's a swim-off.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the kind of thing that leads to litigation.

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

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

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

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

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

Olympic swimmers do it with regularity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ashton Eaton: decathlon world record

EUGENE, Ore. -- Bruce Jenner, before he became the guy who hung around with the Kardashians, was once the best athlete in the world. This was 1976. That was a special summer. It was the Bicentennial. Sixteen Tall Ships sailed into New York Harbor. And Bruce Jenner was larger than life. During the Montreal Olympics, Bruce Jenner rocked. He won the gold medal in the decathlon, and ABC's cameras followed his every move. He was the living embodiment of all that was red, white and blue, and he understood then what he understands now. As he said,  "They were looking for stories." America doesn't really know or understand the complexities of the decathlon. Americans just love stories.

Ashton Eaton broke the world record Saturday in the decathlon at Hayward Field. He is 24. He is handsome and well-spoken. He is now heir to the title of best athlete in the world and the London 2012 Olympics beckon, in high-definition glory.

What a story.

"I think the reason the decathlon is so appealing," Eaton said, "when you try it and you do it, is because it's like living an entire lifetime in two days.

"You have the ups, the downs, the good, the bad. The comebacks. It all happens in two days. Everybody loves life. That's why we love the decathlon. It's just like life."

Eaton scored 9,039 points over the two days, breaking the prior record -- set by Czech Roman Seberle at a meet in Gotzis, Austria in 2001 -- by a mere 13 points.

To break it, Eaton had to run the final event here, the 1500, in 4:16.37. His previous best had been 4:18.94. Eaton is an Oregon native and went to college here, at the University of Oregon. The locals were going berserk in the stands. Even so, he was two seconds slow with a lap to go -- but then turned it on to finish in 4:14.48.

Trey Hardee, the 2009 and 2011 decathlon world champion, finished second, with 8,383 points. He is recovering from a surgically repaired right elbow and was, as he candidly acknowledged, cruising through this meet, thrilled to have thrown the javelin without ripping his elbow to bits.

Only he and Eaton qualified for London.

Bryan Clay, the 2008 Olympic champion, who had a solid first day, had a run-in Saturday with the hurdles. That produced a lengthy appeals process; ultimately, his time and scores were counted. But it left him so unfocused in the next event, the discus, which traditionally had been a strength, that he fouled three straight times.

With no score in the discus, he was essentially out. But he did not quit. He stayed in the event until the end, saying later, "There was a lot of hope and exception there and when you see that go out the window it's pretty disappointing. It was important to finish. I know I needed to finish. I didn't want to finish.

"… Between [my coaches] and my wife and my kids and everybody, I had to finish. The last thing I wanted to do is look back on things and have my kids remember the time I didn't finish the decathlon. As much as I didn't want to, there was really no other option."

He also said, "It was a rough day for me. But it was fun to be part of what Ashton had going on."

Hardee said much the same, adding that when historians assess this record they should take the wicked weather -- the nasty, cold rain that has soaked Hayward over the past two days -- into account.

It should come with bonus "parentheses and asterisks and everything" to denote degree of difficulty, Hardee said.

Eaton won seven of the 10 events on the program. That is genuinely impressive, and all the more so in the football weather that he had to do it in.

The world record is the first set at the U.S. Trials since Michael Johnson's 19.66 in the 200, at Atlanta in 1996, according to USA Track & Field. It also marked the fifth time an American set a decathlon world record at the Trials; Jenner had done it the last time, in 1976.

Making Eaton's accomplishment all the more special is that he did it in front of some of the American legends of the sport.

Here, along with Jenner: Milt Campbell, the 1956 Olympic gold medalist. Rafer Johnson, the 1960 gold medalist. Bill Toomey, the 1968 gold medalist. Dan O'Brien, the 1996 gold medalist.

Of course Eaton also broke the American record -- that was 8,891 points, set by O'Brien, at a meet in France in 1992 -- on Saturday. O'Brien couldn't have been more gracious, saying, "I had the record for 20 years and I'm happy for him."

Trey Hardee may have something to say about what happens in London. But all the signs are that it's Ashton Eaton's time.

And he is, genuinely, a great story. He gets it. And seemingly everyone in the sport is pulling for him.

"I really -- I really, truly love this event," Eaton said, trying to explain what the world record means.

"Not because I love running and jumping and all that stuff. Just because what it means and symbolizes for me -- just what the decathlon community, the track and field world is about. And maybe it's not about that much to the rest of the world but to me it's my whole world. To do the best that I possibly could in my world makes me really happy."

An epic 10k in a hard rain

EUGENE, Ore. -- The rain here Friday was at times epic. It was cold and relentless. To make the United States men's Olympic team in the 10,000 meters, you had to run 27 minutes through that rain. You had to run hard and tough and push away pain and doubt. And a lot of history.

No American man has won an Olympic medal in the 10,000 meters since Billy Mills, in 1964.

Maybe, just maybe, watching Galen Rupp cruise to the finish line, his tongue out in a playful wag, a big smile as he loped down the home stretch at venerable Hayward Field, there is hope for London and 2012.

Rupp broke away with three laps to go to win in a Trials record 27:25.33. He closed in a final mile 4:13.

That 10k Friday was the fastest of the year by an American, and the 12th-fastest of all time by an American man.

"Mission accomplished," Rupp said afterward.

Matt Tegenkamp, who has been bothered by injuries for the better part of a year, took second, in 27:33.94. "Everything had a purpose this year and it was all pointed toward this race," he said.

Rupp's training partner, Dathan Ritzenhein, came in third, in 27:36.09. In January, he had finished fourth in the Olympic marathon. "That fourth-place finish made this all that much sweeter," he said.

To go to London, moreover, Ritzenhein not only needed to finish top-three but to meet the Olympic "A" standard qualifying time -- 27:45. He did so by roughly 10 seconds.

Coming down the final stretch, figuring he had third-place locked and also knowing he was going to beat 27:45, Ritzenhein said, "That's what make it all worth it."

The American distance running community is filled passionate, keenly analytical people. To say they have been waiting, and waiting -- and waiting -- for someone to come along and win an Olympic medal would be a gentle understatement.

There is analysis of -- well, almost everything. One of the best track and field writers out there, Ken Goe of the Oregonian, wrote a lengthy article this week that described how Rupp's coach (Ritzenhein's, too), famed 1980s marathoner Alberto Salazar, made some "big changes" to Rupp's upper body mechanics to help him "be more loose and relaxed while racing."

"We made a huge, huge jump over 10 days. The change is amazing," Salazar said.

Rupp, late Friday, laughed. "I think I'm just running taller."

Everyone understands that Rupp holds enormous potential.

He finished 13th in the 10k in his first Olympics, in Beijing. Last year, at the world championships in Daegu, South Korea, he finished seventh.

For Rupp and for Salazar, if not for their critics, that's progress.

Late last summer, Rupp ran a 26:48 10k at a race in Belgium. That's the American record in the event.

Along with Ritzenhein, Rupp trains here in Oregon with Mo Farah, the British runner who in Daegu won the 5k and took second in the 10k. Farah is expected to be a major medal contender at the London Games.

The rain Friday? "It is what it is," he said. "You're still going to go out and compete, get the job done."

Rupp will run again here, in the 5k.

And then, in London. For sure in one race, maybe two.

"I don't know if it's my time," he said, then added with the maturity of a runner who knows that it might well be, "I hope to just be in the mix. You hope to be there with a lap to go. At that point, it's anybody's race. At that point, you give it all you've got. You just want to be there at the finish."

Clutch shooting: U.S. women London-bound

Walking out to the target during one of Thursday's early matches at a shoot-off in Ogden, Utah, Khatuna Lorig raised her arms and yelled, "I love my team." That's when everyone involved with USA Archery knew this was going to be a good day.

Climaxing a long and excruciatingly complex qualifying process, the full U.S. women's team qualified Thursday for the London 2012 Olympics, just 35 days ahead of the July 27 opening ceremony.

Heading to London: Miranda Leek, Jennifer Nichols, Lorig.

They will be the first U.S. women's archery team to compete at an Olympics since Athens in 2004, testimony to upgraded facilities, more funding and better coaching.

"After two Olympics and 11 years of competitive archery, this was the most pressure I have ever been under," Nichols said late Thursday.

"And we did it."

The U.S. men's team, No. 1-ranked in the world, qualified a year ago: Brady Ellison, Jake Kaminski, Jacob Wukie.

The pressure was on the U.S. women Thursday for two very, very different reasons.

One, archery is on the upswing in the United States, in large measure because of the success of the "Hunger Games" franchise, the book and the movie. It was Lorig who taught Jennifer Lawrence, who stars as Katniss Everdeen in the movie, to shoot a bow and arrow so convincingly.

And yet Lorig and the U.S. women found themselves in a fight to the very last day to make it to the Games.

That's because, two, the process for qualifying for London is, in a word, convoluted.

A little history:

In 2008, the U.S. women qualified two spots. Lorig and Nichols went to Beijing. Neither medaled. Lorig took fifth, best on the team, men or women.

For the 2012 Games, the rules are that countries can send either one athlete or a full team. A full team means three athletes. Not two.

The U.S. women did not qualify for the full team slot at last year's world championships in Torino, Italy. Leek and Lorig, with top-eight finishes, qualified for an individual spot. At the U.S. Olympic Trials, held just a couple weeks ago, Leek won that one individual slot.

So, Leek knew coming to Ogden this week, for what was called the Final Olympic Qualification Tournament, that she was going to London, no matter what. The "FOQT" -- archery's procedural machinations can be very, very complicated -- was held in conjunction with a World Cup event.

The question was whether Lorig and Nichols would go, too.

Lorig is not only a kinda-sorta movie star. She is a 1992 bronze medalist. She has competed in four prior editions of the Games, for the Unified Team, the Republic of Georgia and the United States. She is 38.

Nichols, again, was shooting for her third Games. She is 28.

Leek is 19.

To get an entire team to the Games meant Leek had to put aside whatever she might be feeling about her own self -- after all, her own position was set -- and be selfless.

Leek struggled some in the qualification rounds in Ogden. It was actually Olympic team alternate Heather Koehl who helped move the Americans up in the brackets to a third-place ranking for Thursday's decisive rounds, just behind Japan.

The U.S. women had to win three straight matches to get to London -- against Romania, Belarus and Japan.

And here is where Leek, and the others, came on strong.

The Americans defeated Romania, 213-202.

They beat Belarus, 212-210.

Then, finally, they beat Japan, by six.

There was more shooting Thursday in Ogden but what matters is that three U.S. women are bound for London. And aiming for a medal.

"I feel like we shot really well," Leek said, adding, "We really buckled down. We worked as one today. We got the job done."

Lorig said, "I made a promise to Jennifer Lawrence that I would go to London and she made a promise to me that she would say, 'That's my coach.' You know what -- in archery we," meaning the United States, "have a very strong team. The boys are strong. The girls are doing great.

"Expect the unexpected."

Challenges await IOC's next president

Regular readers of this space know I now have the privilege of teaching at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism in Los Angeles. One of the things about being a university professor -- my formal title, by the way, is "lecturer" -- is that for each class they make you write a syllabus. It's not easy. You have to read a lot of books to decide which books you want to use in your class.

Before heading off this week to cover the U.S. Olympic Trials in track and field and then swimming, I have been at work drafting the syllabus for a graduate-school spring 2013 course tentatively entitled "Sports and Society." A book I've run across, and like, comes from two Australian professors, Kristine Toohey and A.J. Veal, "The Olympic Games: A Social Science Perspective," because it not only provides a broad sketch of the movement but also provides excellent context for the issues likely to confront the next IOC president.

This week, it's true, the IOC seems wholly enmeshed in a black-market ticket scandal. But that is temporal. As the book makes plain, the ticket issue will -- like many others -- be confronted, and the IOC will move on.

The IOC has been in existence since 1894. In all those years, remarkably, it has had but eight presidents.

I have been covering the IOC since late 1998. I have known but two presidents: Juan Antonio Samaranch, who held the job from 1980 until 2001, and Jacques Rogge, who has been president since.

Rogge will, by term limit, step down in September 2013. The IOC will elect his successor at a regularly called election at its annual convention, called a session. The location of the session rotates around the world; this session will be held in Buenos Aires.

In about a month, when the IOC gathers in London for the Games, the world will watch Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps and the others who will make the XXX Olympiad what it will be for the history books. The IOC will hold a session in London as well and the members will stay on for the Games. Rest assured: the politicking, looking ahead to Buenos Aires, will be just as intriguing.

The list of potential candidates for the presidency is unannounced but fairly obvious. It's a once-every-12-years-opportunity, and the maneuvering has been going on for months now, if not years.

In alphabetical order, and it's important to note that being interested in running does not necessarily mean electable: Thomas Bach of Germany; Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico; Anita DeFrantz of the United States; Rene Fasel of Switzerland; Ser Miang Ng of Singapore; Denis Oswald of Switzerland. There may yet be others.

No Asian candidate has ever been elected IOC president; indeed, with the exception of Avery Brundage, the American who served from 1952-72, every IOC president has been European. Soft-spoken, well-connected, diplomatic, Ng oversaw the enormously successful 2010 Singapore Youth Olympic Games.

Carrion moves fluidly and fluently between the worlds of business and sports, in Spanish, English and, increasingly, French. In a world buffeted by economic crisis, the IOC has not only weathered the storm but is positioned strategically, thanks in significant measure to Carrion, its banker, a key player in the $4.38 billion rights negotiation with NBC through 2020, and other deals.

Bach comes from an Olympic background; he is a gold-medalist (fencing, 1976). He is a national Olympic committee president (Germany). He has done it all in a long and distinguished career that includes ties to business, law and the Olympics.

The IOC is always about personalities and relationships. One wonders, however, if at some level the 2013 presidential election has to be as much about the issues confronting the movement -- this is why the book is so interesting as background -- and whether the personalities of the potential contenders are best-suited to dealing with those issues.

An explanation:

There are always recurring issues in the IOC scene. For instance -- stadium elephants.

That said, certain issues emerge at particular elections as defining issues in the moment.

In 2001, when Rogge was elected, succeeding Samaranch, the issues confronting the IOC were very different from now.

When the IOC convened for that 2001 session in Moscow, the events preceding and enveloping  that election were largely based on transparency and the dispersion of power.

Rogge won in the wake of the 1998 corruption scandal in Salt Lake City, which then prompted a 1999 50-point IOC reform plan, and in the aftermath of a number of doping scandals, in particular at the 1998 Tour de France, which helped create the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Now?

The challenges are not internal but external.

That is, the next president must be prepared to deal with events that come at him (or her) not from an internal sphere (doping, member corruption) but, indeed, from the outside world.

Indeed, the context and speed at which world events are happening is perhaps the No. 1 challenge to the movement.

Just to rattle off a few items: the global recession and euro sovereign debt crisis, the geographical expansion of the Games (2014 Sochi, 2016 Rio, 2018 Pyeongchang, bids for 2020 from Doha and Baku), the growing threat of illegal sports betting.

It is absolutely true that under Rogge the IOC has seen its financial reserves grow from $105 million in 2001 to $592 million in 2010. The IOC is well-positioned to weather one four-year downturn. This largely unheralded, and under-appreciated, development may be one of Rogge's shrewdest plays as president.

The obvious big-picture question is -- what next?

How much debt, for instance, can you throw at the Olympic scene before something goes amiss? How many countries can keep picking up the tab? Was the decision by the Italian government earlier this year not to push Rome forward for the 2020 Games, citing the ongoing European financial crisis, a signal of things to come -- or was it just an aberration?

Eventually, and most likely during the 12 years of this next presidency, some very hard decisions are going to have to be made, and that will have repercussions for everyone, including the Olympic movement.

A corollary:

It would seem readily apparent that the size and expansion of the movement demand greater partnerships. There are bigger opportunities out there. But also bigger potential pitfalls.

Again, any IOC election is at its core about relationships. But this one has to be about more than schmoozing. There's too much at stake for the members to be looking for more than just comfort. The world we live in can often be not a comfortable place.

The IOC's London ticket problem

In 2005, when the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2012 Summer Games to London, it did so knowing full well the British press would come along for the ride. This, then, is what you have to expect just weeks before the opening ceremony: reports like the one in Britain's Sunday Times, alleging that representatives in more than 50 countries have been involved in selling London 2012 Olympic tickets on the black market for profit.

At issue are tickets given by the London 2012 organizing committee to each of the 204 national Olympic committees to sell at home. Each NOC typically appoints an agent to sell those tickets.

IOC rules do not allow NOCs from selling tickets abroad, from inflating ticket prices or from selling tickets to unauthorized re-sellers. The newspaper said it intends to deliver a dossier to the IOC on 27 officials controlling the tickets for 54 countries.

The IOC's policy-making executive board held a hurried telephone conference call and referred the matter to the IOC ethics commission.

The IOC issued a statement saying it takes the matter "very seriously." By all accounts there is a will to do something about it, and with due speed. It seemed evident a full resolution is unlikely before the July 27 opening ceremony. The London 2012 committee itself is not implicated; this is IOC business.

Immediate denials of wrongdoing were issued from all corners of the world, including the United States. Greg Harney, one of those identified in story, a former U.S. Olympic Committee staffer, identified in the story as a vice-president of ticket broker Cartan Tours, was said in the story to have "encouraged" the paper's undercover reporters to "set up a sham address" in "one of the 40 countries whose tickets he controls to conceal an illicit foreign sale."

Harney told the Olympic newsletter Around the Rings that his firm did not violate any rules and will "fully cooperate" with the IOC investigation.

One does wonder about the Sunday Times story when it can't get a basic fact right:

The piece identifies Harney as "organizer of the failed US bid for the 2012 Games." He was not. Again, he was a USOC staffer. Dan Doctoroff was of course the head of the New York bid.

No one in Olympic circles -- repeat, no one -- can be all that surprised that there might be issues with ticketing, and that people might say they have access to control tickets when they might or might not.

For one, ticketing is an extraordinarily complex, multi-layered affair.

For another, pretty much everyone suspects Olympic tickets were sold on the black market at prior Games.

On top of which, demand for tickets to these Games is keen, both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. It's easy to understand why. The London 2012 committee has marketed the Games brilliantly. Moreover, Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are due to star. London is accessible and relatively easy to get to from everywhere.

So what, if anything, the IOC really do about it?

Dealing with the NOCs is straightforward. They fall under the auspices of the ethics commission.

Dealing with the agents -- that is more difficult.

The clear solution, of course, would be to remove from the future ticket distribution list the name of any agent found liable of misconduct. But ought such expulsion be temporary or permanent?

And how to measure misconduct? In the European Union, tickets can legally be re-sold anywhere within the union. For the sake of argument, is it fair to say that a ticket to the men's 100-meter final so transferable within so many countries in Europe without sanction ought to be restricted within, say, the remote Pacific island nation of Vanuatu simply because the luck of the draw sent a particular ticket to Vanuatu? Does that really make sense?

Yes, those are the rules -- but when rules run into supply and demand, and you mix in human creativity and ingenuity, you get what you get.

Allegedly.

Denis Oswald, the Swiss lawyer and head of the international rowing federation who sits on the IOC executive board, told Inside the Games, a British Olympic newsletter, that simply banning agents might not be enough. He suggested that agents who can be proved to have committed wrongdoing "should no longer belong to the Olympic movement."

It would seem obvious, no matter the outcome of the ethics inquiry, that after years of confusion and whispering about the NOC ticketing process, the IOC ought to use this occasion to take a hard look at how the process works. Here is the most important reform:

Make the entire ticketing process far more transparent.

To generalize, no one understands it.

Because no one understands it, everyone thinks it's a screw job. The people who got tickets think they simply got lucky. The millions who don't think they are getting the shaft, and stories like the Sunday Times' report powerfully reinforce that notion.

The IOC has gone far in recent years in restoring public confidence in other sectors -- anti-doping, for instance. Now it needs to undertake that same effort with regards to ticketing. If it's too late to change for London, that ought to be the message for the next Winter Games, Sochi 2014, and absolutely the next Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro, in 2016.

Lance Armstrong accused of "pervasive pattern of doping"

The case launched Wednesday by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency against Lance Armstrong is notable not just because it's Lance Armstrong, and because, well -- finally. It promises to highlight the role of the entourage in elite cycling and, by extension, Olympic and international sport.

It could well crack the code of silence in cycling, once and for all. Testimony under oath can be a powerful thing.

Moreover, assuming this case against Armstrong moves as far as a hearing, and if that hearing is public, the opportunity would at long present itself to test evidence in cross-examination for all to see. Armstrong is an immensely polarizing figure. Those who see Armstrong as hero, as well as those who allege he had to have been taking something to win and keep winning, would get the chance to see evidence put to the test.

Process may not seem sexy. But process is critically important, to Armstrong and, as well, to USADA, the quasi-governmental organization that oversees the anti-doping campaign in Olympic sports in the United States. That is the American way.

As is this: Armstrong is innocent until proven otherwise.

This, too: USADA surely would not have brought a case against a figure of Armstrong's stature unless it had confidence it could deliver. There are budgets and reputations at stake amid what is likely to be an enormous variety of pressures.

"We do not choose whether or not we do our job based on outside pressures, intimidation or for any reason other than the evidence," USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said in a statement.  "Our duty on behalf of clean athletes and those that value the integrity of sport is to fairly and thoroughly evaluate all the evidence available and when there is credible evidence of doping, take action under the established rules."

Much of the media will want this to be about soundbites and first impressions and an instant rush to judgment. It can't be. We don't yet know what we don't know.

The 15-page USADA "notice letter" describes -- but does not name -- "more than 10 … cyclists as well as cycling team employees." That is a substantial number of witnesses. Further, it declares that "numerous riders, team personnel and others will testify based on personal knowledge acquired either through observing Armstrong dope or through Armstrong's admissions of doping to them" that Armstrong used EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone from before 1998 through 2005, and that he previously used EPO, testosterone and human growth hormone through 1996.

It further alleges Armstrong's doping will be "evidenced by the data from blood collections obtained by the UCI," cycling's international federation, taken from Armstrong, in 2009 and 2010, numbers  "fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions."

The letter, dated Tuesday, alleges that Armstrong and five others engaged in a conspiracy, a "pervasive pattern of doping," that started in 1998.

Named along with Armstrong were: team manager Johan Bruyneel, the team director; Dr. Pedro Celaya, a team doctor; Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral, a team doctor; Dr. Michele Ferrari, an Italian physician well-known in cycling circles described here as a "consulting doctor"; Jose Pepe Marti, a team trainer.

To read that notice letter is to understand immediately that the evidence at hand is not everything. It is, as the letter says, a "portion" of what USADA has. Further, it is apparently not evidence that USADA just scooped up in the wake of the federal investigation that ended in February, when the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles announced abruptly that it would not -- after a nearly two-year criminal probe -- charge Armstrong or other members of his riding teams.

Armstrong rode for the U.S. Postal Service and then Discovery Channel teams from 1998-2005. In 2009 he rode for the Astana Cycling team. In 2010-11, he rode for the RadioShack team.

Again: this case would appear to be built without whatever USADA might, or might not, have in hand from the Feds. One wonders whether there is more, and whether it might ever emerge.

Armstrong is of course a seven-time winner of the Tour de France, from 1999-2005. He retired from cycling in early 2011 and took up triathlon, which he had done before turning to cycling. The letter Wednesday means he is immediately banned from competing in triathlon. USADA is not empowered to bring criminal charges.

Armstrong, who has repeatedly maintained he is innocent of any wrongdoing, issued a statement Wednesday that said, in part, "I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one."

To pass so many drug tests, though, means virtually nothing. Marion Jones, the U.S. sprinter, passed more than 160 drug tests. She ultimately was revealed as a chronic drug cheat who would give back the five Olympic medals she won in Sydney in 2000.

This is, among other reasons, why the process element is so important.

Floyd Landis protested mightily when he was charged. Indeed, he even wrote a 2007 book, "Positively False," in which he said, on pages 196 and 197, "I did not use performance-enhancing drugs in the 2006 Tour de France or any other time in my career."

Evidence at a 2007 arbitration panel hearing proved that wrong.

Subsequently -- in May, 2010 -- Landis sent e-mails to cycling officials admitting that he was a serial doper. He has since accused Armstrong.

Armstrong, as his competitors and others who have encountered him know, can be fantastically combative. He has done great things for cancer survivors and along the way he has made powerful friends, some in Washington. Some of those friends doubtlessly will wonder why he is being subject to these accusations.

Indeed, you could see him working the angles Wednesday in that statement. It starts this way: "I have been notified that USADA, an organization largely funded by taxpayer dollars but governed only by self-written rules, intends to again dredge up discredited allegations dating back more than 16 years to prevent me from competing as a triathlete and try and strip me of the seven Tour de France victories I earned."

It goes on to say that these are the "very same charges and the same witnesses" the Justice Department "chose not to pursue" -- though no one outside the Department knows why -- and, a few words later, alleges that USADA's "malice, its methods, its star-chamber practices, and its decision to punish first and adjudicate later all are at odds with our ideals of fairness and fair play."

Reality check: if the conduct USADA alleges can be proven, under oath, then Armstrong and the others should be held accountable. That's our ideal of fairness and fair play.

That's process, and it should play itself out, and no amount of pressure -- financial, emotional or otherwise -- from Armstrong or his friends, no matter how high up in Washington or elsewhere, should deter that. That's fairness and fair play, too.

But to start, there's this: Armstrong is innocent until proven otherwise.