The Curse of Being Gymnastics World Champion

LONDON -- A few hours before qualifications began Sunday in the women's gymnastics event at the London 2012 Olympics, John Geddert, the U.S. coach and Jordyn Wieber's personal coach, sent out a photo on Twitter for everyone and anyone to see. It was his Jordyn's competition number, 415, randomly assigned. John sent a note with the photo, too. He wrote, "415 is the lucky number this week... Try your luck with the local lottery."

Better yet -- don't. "415" is still just the area code for San Francisco.

The Curse of Being World Champion struck yet again.

Read the rest at NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/MV1JS2

U.S. faces challenges in repeating Beijing gold in 4x100 free

LONDON - Not including the U.S.-boycotted 1980 Moscow Games, the American men's 4x100 relay team has won a medal in the event at every Olympics since the event debuted in 1964. There were seven straight golds, then a silver in 2000, a bronze in 2004 and then, thanks to Jason Lezak, maybe the best-ever gold in Beijing in 2008. The U.S. men face the most direct of challenges in 2012.

Not just to win.

But -- to medal.

Read the rest at NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/P6wDTL

With loss, Phelps no longer seems invincible

The safe prediction all along was that Ryan Lochte would not only win the 400-meter individual medley Saturday, but dominate, and he did. He won by more than three seconds, claiming not just the first gold medal in swimming but the first gold for the entire U.S. team at these London 2012 Games. But that showdown with Michael Phelps?

It takes two for a showdown, and Phelps -- this sentence seems almost improbable -- not only didn't bring his "A" game, he didn't even win a medal. He finished fourth.

Read the rest at NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/PcpNvA

'It's on. Let's Go.' The Games have begun

LONDON -- Inside the stadium, everyone sang along to "Hey, Jude" with Sir Paul McCartney. Over the city, fireworks boomed out over the Tower Bridge. Around the world, two of every three people watched on television Friday night as the XXX Olympiad got underway, its history to be written over the next 16 days. The rain mostly held off -- was that an omen portending good for these Games? -- in what has been one of the rainiest summers in British history, London playing host to the Olympics for the third time. It staged the Games in 1908 and again in 1948.

Seven young British torchbearers lit the cauldron -- a tiny flame within a copper petal on the ground that triggered the ignition of more than 200 petals and then converged to form a single "flame of unity." The cauldron is due to be moved to a different place into the stadium during the Games, then disassembled at the close of the Olympics -- meant to evoke a flower that blooms only for a while.

The party-vibe contrast with China, and 2008 -- which opened with the awe-inspiring sound of 2,008 drums, unmistakably signaling the portent of history -- could not have been more dramatic.

Read the rest at NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/OsFKzA

London 2012 programming note

As the London 2012 Summer Games get set to open, this programming note for the 17 days of the Summer Games here at 3 Wire Sports: I will be privileged to reprise my role during the Games as the chief columnist at NBCOlympics.com, a post I held during the 2008 Beijing and 2010 Vancouver Olympics. I have had an association with NBC since 2003 and am glad to continue it.

You'll see here a few paragraphs from my latest column and then links to the rest of that particular story at NBCOlympics.com. Please feel free to start reading here -- all links here still matter, believe me -- and then please do continue reading at NBCOlympics.com.

The Games end Aug. 12. When they're over, I'll be back to this space. You'll also be able then to find my columns, as before, at TeamUSA.org, the U.S. Olympic Committee site.

In related news, I was named to the Sports Illustrated list of "Fifty Twitter feeds you need to follow during the London Olympics." You can see the full list at http://bit.ly/M98wEC.

I was also named to the Sports Business Daily list of Twitter feeds to follow during the London Olympics. See that list at http://bit.ly/LKTxPP.

Here is how this will work during the London 2012 Games for NBCOlympics.com -- and, as always, check back often:

--

http://bit.ly/MOVizQ

Party in London: Let the Games begin

LONDON -- The 2004 Summer Games in Athens marked a return to the roots.

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing took the Games to the world's most populous nation.

Enough already with the solemnity and the weight of history.

These 2012 Summer Olympics -- they're supposed to be a party.

Twelve years to re-shuffle a relay race?

LONDON -- Everybody has family pictures. One in our house was taken in the Hawaiian Islands in October of 2000. This was when I was on my way back from the Sydney Olympics. My wife and three kids flew out from California, and we had a little vacation. In that picture, our oldest daughter was 6. Her brother had just weeks before turned 4. Their baby sister was literally a baby; she was 1.

I was reminded of that photo on Saturday when the International Olympic Committee announced it had re-allocated the medals from the U.S. men's 4x400-meter relay team from the Sydney Games because of admitted doping by Antonio Pettigrew. The IOC bumped Nigeria to gold, Jamaica to silver and the Bahamas from fourth to bronze.

It's all way too late.

So much time has passed that my oldest daughter has just graduated from high school; her brother now has his California driver's permit; and the baby is a teen-ager, in her fourth year of the Los Angeles County junior lifeguard program, swimming for three hours each morning in the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean.

If that's not enough to prove the passage of time, to show just how ridiculous it is the IOC is only now getting around to this, here is the emphatic point of all points:

Antonio Pettigrew is dead.

He died in 2010 from an overdose of sleeping pills, found dead in his car in North Carolina. He was 42.

I have been to, and successfully completed, law school. I understand civilized society depends on a framework of laws. But we cannot live in a society in which lawyering, and rules, carry on for 12 long years until there is resolution over a relay race.

It is a basic principle of the anti-doping system that it depends on credibility and the good faith of those involved in it.

I am not suggesting here -- not for even a second -- that this devolved into a matter of bad faith. Not at all. This process was carried out in good faith.

It simply took 12 years.

And that plain fact tends to significantly undermine the credibility of the system.

Justice delayed -- as in this instance -- is no justice whatsoever.

How do you think the Nigerians are feeling now about Saturday's move? Exultant? Gratified?

Or -- hollow?

There is always a tension between, on the one hand, the reality that all things are revealed in the fullness of time and, on the other, the essential need to say, OK, enough, let's move along.

The IOC executive board's other actions Saturday further underscored the intersections and frustrations at issue when it comes to juridical resolution in anti-doping matters, where a variety of complex interests are often on the table:

-- American Crystal Cox, who has admitted to doping, was stripped of her gold medal from the Athens 2004 4x400 relay. But the board put off a decision on whether to disqualify the relay team itself. It said it's now up to the rules of track and field's governing body, the IAAF, whether to disqualify the team.

A factor that may be at work: Cox ran in the preliminaries of the relay, not the finals.

Another: were the relevant IAAF rules in effect at the time of the 2004 Games?

-- The board said it is waiting for more documents in the case of American cyclist Tyler Hamilton, who won the time-trial gold medal in Athens. President Jacques Rogge said at a news conference that the matter would be decided within two weeks, the IOC apparently still waiting for more information from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Hamilton, who for years steadfastly denied doping, abruptly told CBS' "60 Minutes" last year that he had repeatedly used performance-enhancing drugs.

-- The IOC apparently took no action on suspicious results uncovered during recent re-testing of Athens Games samples. The chairman of the IOC medical commission, Sweden's Arne Ljungqvist, told Associated Press a few days ago that he is investigating up to five possible positive results.

The backup "B" samples have not yet been tested. No one yet knows the identities of the athletes involved. The IOC stores doping samples from each Games for eight years to allow for re-tests.

One can only imagine what will happen if those samples turn out positive.

As Rogge said at the news conference, when asked about Hamilton, "Have some patience. It will come."

Aiming now for Sochi 2014

LONDON -- It's a week before the Summer Games, and of course for most Americans the focus is appropriately and properly on the runners, the swimmers, the wrestlers and all the others on the 530-person U.S. team who have worked so hard for four years to get here. But in just a little bit over 18 short months, which for most of us seems so difficult to fathom in the midst of the summer of 2012, the Olympic calendar will rush toward February 2014, and the Sochi Winter Games.

And a little-noticed announcement Friday in Salt Lake City may make all the difference in the way the U.S. team performs in those 2014 Games -- along with the vision and the strategy of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn., underway now, even as these Summer Games occupy everyone else's attention.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, along with USSA chief executive Bill Marolt, announced that the state will play host to five winter action sports events, including the announcement of the first U.S. freeskiing Olympic team, leading up to the 2014 Games.

Utah's Canyons Resorts, Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain Resort will stage events in freestyle skiing, freeskiing and snowboarding during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons. The series will end up with the announcement of the Olympic freeskiing team in January, 2014.

So what?

Here's what's at play -- a massive shift in the way medals will be given out at the Winter Games.

The U.S. ski program, anticipating that, is shifting the way it's doing business.

It's not abandoning alpine. Hardly. Not with the likes of Lindsey Vonn, Ted Ligety and Bode Miller, and young stars such as Mikaela Shiffrin.

But when confronting obvious numbers, you've got to be obvious in response:

Forty percent of USSA's medals have been won by snowboarding since it became a medal sport in 1998.

In 2006, for instance, snowboarding accounted for seven of the 10 medals USSA won at the Torino Olympics.

In 2010, if you include ski cross as a freeskiing event … plus bordercross … plus halfpipe snowboarding … plus parallel giant slalom … the count reached 24 medal opportunities.

In 2014, because of new events added last year by the International Olympic Committee in snowboarding and freeskiing, there will be 48 medal opportunities.

That's for men and women -- 24 and 24, a total of 48.

Again, to be completely obvious, these are sports in which American athletes rock. Or, to use the words of Jeremy Forster, the U.S. program's snowboard and freeskiing director, "It's a pretty special time."

Tom Wallisch, who won the Dew Tour overall cup and finished first in the AFP slopestyle World Rankings in 2010 and 2012, said, "All these action sports-style events are ruled by Americans. They are all ours for the taking."

Wallisch turns 25 soon and was named the ESPN Action Sport Athlete of the Year. Even so, he said, "The kids I hang out with these days are 17," adding, "I would almost put a lot of money on the fact that some American will win my event. There are so many competitive American kids."

Jen Hudak, also 25, was the queen of halfpipe skiing two years ago -- sweeping the X Games super pipe in both Aspen and Tignes, France, and topping the overall AFP series rankings, the freeskiing equivalent of a World Cup globe.

Early this year, she suffered a torn ACL. Now she's back at it -- aiming, like everyone else on the U.S. Ski Team, toward Sochi. Already.

She said, "It wasn't like we were working toward nothing." Even when halfpipe skiing wasn't on the Olympic program, "We were planning for these Olympics, in a sense."

And now it's really on: "I saw the whole thing coming together, eventually. I believed in it. It's all coming together. The fact that Sochi is 18 months away is nerve-wracking, exciting and shocking -- all at the same time."

Olympic security is no joke

LONDON -- Upon arrival in the Olympic city, it rained. No surprise. The newspapers were full of stories about security concerns relating to the Summer Games, which open on July 27. Also no surprise. Security is issue No. 1 at the Games. It has to be, and has been ever since Munich and 1972, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and then murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Five of the terrorists also died amid the 1972 attack; so did a German policeman.

The headlines here are very real, and urgent.

At the same time, it may well be the case that an item mostly making the rounds of celebrity shows and snarky websites back in the United States reveals the real vulnerability of Olympic security.

As U.S. women's soccer goaltender Hope Solo underscores in her recent comments to ESPN The Magazine about the avowed sex-fest at the Olympic Village in Beijing in 2008, it's who gets in purportedly off-limits Games space, and how, that is most worrisome. She alleges in part -- and this is arguably the dullest part of what she said -- that she "may have" snuck a "celebrity" into the village and back out without getting caught.

Without the appropriate Olympic credential, the rule regarding the Village in particular is simple: you don't get to go there. At the same time, the process of who might get in and out can be endlessly susceptible to human judgment. That means there's the potential for mistake. When it comes to security, any mistake can be a huge mistake.

That's the lesson of 1972. And that is the "never again" that must, really, never be again.

First, the British headlines.

With two weeks to go, it developed that the company -- it's called G4S -- charged with recruiting some 10,400 personal to protect stadiums and other sites had pretty much botched the job. The British military was being called in, 3,500 troops on top of the 7,500 already detailed to some 100 venues.

The British minister in charge of the Olympics, Jeremy Hunt, went on a Sunday talk show to say that G4S boss Nick Buckles had apologized and the company would be paying 30 million pounds, or about $46 million, for the last-minute military deployment as well as a penalty of up to 20 million pounds, or another $31 million, for not living up to its part of the deal. Some number of the soldiers have just come back from Afghanistan.

Speaking Sunday on the BBC Radio 5 Live Sportsweek program, Sebastian Coe, the head of the London 2012 organizing committee, said, "We have two weeks to get this right and we will get this right," adding he was "confident" these would be "safe and secure Games."

It is a fact of Olympic life, and especially post-9/11, that security involves a massive show of force. There will be missiles on rooftops here. That's part of what the thousands of soldiers are about as well.

It's at the point of person-to-person contact, though, that the system -- any system -- is most susceptible.

This is where Solo's remarks bear special scrutiny. In its entirety, here is the relevant passage from ESPN The Magazine:

"After the Beijing Games, the women went, well, Hollywood. Solo recounts the story: 'I probably shouldn't tell you this, but we met a bunch of celebrities. Vince Vaughn partied with us. Steve Byrne, the comedian. And at some point we decided to take the party back to the village, so we started talking to the security guards, showed off our gold medals, got their attention and snuck our group through without credentials -- which is absolutely unheard of.' And, she adds, 'I may have snuck a celebrity back to my room without anybody knowing, and snuck him back out. But that's my Olympic secret.' The best part, according to Solo? 'When we were done partying, we got out of our nice dresses, got back into our stadium coats and, at 7 a.m. with no sleep, went on the Today show drunk. Needless to say, we looked like hell.' "

The U.S. Olympic Committee, asked for a response to her comments, declined.

At least two possibilities come to mind when assessing what she had to say:

One, Solo made her comments as part of an elaborate double game, with all relevant security agencies on board ahead of time so that they knew they were plugging an obvious hole.

If that seems implausible, two:

What she, and some unnamed number of others on the U.S. soccer team, did in 2008 arguably goes well beyond the self-indulgent. It raises serious questions about judgment and accountability, and the privilege of wearing a Team USA uniform.

To be clear, there's no argument here that sex is bad, or that having sex in the Village is bad. Many other athletes were quoted in the story about that. Solo also said in the piece, "There's a lot of sex going on." And: "… I've seen people having sex right out in the open. On the grass, between buildings, people are getting down and dirty."

Don't care about any of that other than -- be safe.

Solo, meanwhile, is supposed to be a sponsor's 2012 dream, featured on magazine covers, a recent contestant on "Dancing with the Stars," her agent, Richard Motzkin, telling the Los Angeles Times in April, "Outside of Michael Phelps, I think she'll be the highest-profile U.S. athlete heading into the London Olympics. By nature that makes her sort of the highest-profile female U.S. athlete in any sport."

With that profile comes responsibility. Little girls -- and boys -- want to be like their Olympic heroes.

Drunk on the Today show? Really?

Last week, Solo was hit with a public warning by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency after she tested positive for a banned substance in a urine test. She said it was for a prescription medicine used for pre-menstrual purposes and did not know it contained a diuretic; she said it was an honest mistake.

And now this.

It's not clear from the remarks to ESPN whether, for instance, Vince Vaughn was among those who was snuck into the Beijing Village. If that was the case, maybe it makes for a funny story that Vince Vaughn -- Vince Vaughn?! -- got to party in the Village.

But what if next time it's someone with malevolent intent who gets snuck into the Village? What then?

How exactly was a security guard on the ground in Beijing supposed to tell the difference? Whoever was in on that party got in after the women on the U.S. soccer team flashed their medals. What, like this was a rope line in Hollywood?

In 1972, security was lax to begin with. But the terrorists got in because they dressed up like athletes and real athletes helped them get over a chain-link fence near Gate 25A to the Munich Village.

In the movies, Vince Vaughn can be funny. Olympic security is not funny, and it's not a game.

If the pictures of the murdered Israelis, which I have seen, are too graphic; if the idea of talking to the survivors of those killed, like Ankie Spitzer, which I have done, seems too personal; then I have an idea for Hope Solo, and as many others on the U.S. women's soccer team who also need to understand.

They should sit in front of a television and watch some of the footage from 1972, and especially the part where Jim McKay reports the dreadful news. It might spark a better appreciation of what's genuinely at stake:

"We've just gotten the final word. When I was a kid, my father used to say our greatest hopes and worst fears are seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized tonight.

"They have now said that there were 11 hostages. Two were killed in their rooms this morning -- excuse me, yesterday morning. Nine were killed at the airport tonight.

"They're all gone."

Toward a "robust" anti-doping testing program

It was with great fanfare earlier this year, upon the unveiling of the London anti-doping laboratory, that organizers said a record 6,250 doping tests would be carried out at the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. That's up from 5,600 in Beijing four years ago, an 11.6 percent jump. In opening the facility, London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton praised the commitment to a "robust testing system" and declared, "Our message to any athlete thinking about doping is simple -- we'll catch you."

All of which is entirely well-meaning.

But -- is it meaningful, or relevant?

The U.S. sprinter Marion Jones passed 160 drug tests. What, if anything, did that prove? She was later revealed to be a chronic doper.

Anyone who knows the first thing about the way the anti-doping system works knows two things:

One, you have to be a complete and utter fool to get caught doping at the Olympic Games. If you're juicing, the time to be on a program that offers max benefit is weeks or months beforehand. If you're so stupid that you've still got something in your system come Games-time, you deserve to be caught.

That's why, at every edition of the Games, for all the talk about thousands and thousands of tests, there are relatively few positives, and in the year 2012 hardly any involving significant names.

Two, there's another set of numbers out there that surprisingly hasn't gained widespread attention.

These numbers, though, are well-known among senior leaders of Olympic and international sport. And there may yet be a nexus between the Lance Armstrong case, which is due in the coming days to take its next turns, and these figures.

It should be well understood, too, that the Armstrong matter has seized the attention of the Olympic movement at the highest levels.

For the year 2010, as very publicly reported by the World Anti-Doping Agency, its 35 accredited laboratories worldwide performed tests on 258,267 samples, returning positives -- if you include both what are called "adverse analytical findings" and "atypical findings" -- on 4,820 samples. That's a return rate of 1.87 percent.

That rate was down from 2.02 percent in 2009 -- 5,610 samples from 277,928 tested.

Breaking it down further:

Table E from the 2010 report -- a caution here, the numbers don't add up to 4,820 for a variety of reasons -- details that nearly 61 percent of those caught were positive for "anabolic agents." That means steroids. Another 10.3 percent were positive for stimulants. But the third-most positive substance on the list, at 9.6 percent?

"Cannabinoids." That means marijuana.

It's a real question, ladies and gentlemen, about a system that spends a lot of money but that's not very effective and that, when it does turn up positives, turns up positives one in 10 times about a substance that a significant number of people suggest ought to be legalized and don't believe is in any way a performance-enhancer.

The anti-doping system depends, first and foremost, on credibility. These kinds of numbers, one could reasonably argue, do not especially promote credibility.

The challenge is fundamental:

The general public wants -- and by extension the governments and sports officials who fund the anti-doping system want -- to believe in tests that can detect performance-enhancing drugs. But the most sophisticated people at work in the system understand that the tests can only do so much, can only go so far.

Those people also understand that WADA does not itself do the testing. WADA may bear the brunt of the PR pressure, fairly or unfairly; WADA is trying to get the sports federations and national agencies who are out there to do their jobs as well as possible or, obviously, better.

All of this, by the way, assumes that there are more drug cheats out there; that's a thesis at the core of the whole thing. Some people are absolutely certain that's the case. Others ask, why is that a legitimate premise?

This is in part why WADA, at its May 18 meeting, launched a working group to assess what, if anything, can be done to enhance testing effectiveness. Unclear is the working group's precise mandate or time frame for reporting; uncertain, too, is its membership, although one of those under consideration is U.S federal agent Jeff Novitzky, who played a key role in both the BALCO case and in investigating Armstrong in the inquiry led by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles that was abruptly dropped earlier this year without the filing of charges.

It's not clear whether the U.S. government would even allow Novitzky to participate in such a working group; so far it's moot because he has not accepted the invite.

This is all very complex, sometimes incredibly politically oriented and nuanced stuff.

At the same time, it's reasonable to expect that if governments and sports officials are going to spend millions of dollars in an effort to promote drug-free sport, that system ought to be, truly, "robust."

It has been said by others in this context before but bears repeating here -- if you went out and did a job that came back with a one or two percent return rate, what would your boss say to you?

Would it be -- let's keep doing exactly what we're doing?

Doubtful, right?

Water polo: the start of the quest

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- Over the past week, the U.S. women's water polo team has played Hungary in four exhibitions up and down the state of California, the Americans winning all four, the last a 9-4 victory Sunday that was way more physical than the final score would indicate before a happy, flag-waving crowd of about 1,000 people at Corona del Mar High School. Afterward, the American players signed autographs and posed for photos -- there were dozens and dozens of little girls in the crowd -- and, under a postcard-perfect Southern California sky, the NBC cameras beamed it all out on live TV.

It was, as Olympic send-offs go, about as good as it gets.

Three weeks from Monday, the U.S. team opens round-robin play at the 2012 Games against -- Hungary.

Since 2000, the Americans have done it all in water polo, won everything there is to win, except for Olympic gold.

This game Sunday was, in a sense, the beginning of the end of the journey. It was also, in a way, the start of the quest.

These four games against Hungary mean everything and nothing.

When the history of this U.S. team is written, no one is particularly apt to remember this four-game set. The Americans won the first game, last Monday, up in Palo Alto, 17-8; the second game, on the Fourth of July, back down in Southern California, at Los Alamitos, 14-8; and game three on Friday in San Diego, 7-6.

The games were all different. The Americans were ahead in some games, behind in others, and figured out a way to win all four games.

Along with the undeniable benefit of being on national TV -- that, ultimately, is the value of this series: they figured out a way to win.

Sunday's game was broken open early in the third quarter, when Maggie Steffens scored twice and Kami Craig once. What was once a tight game was suddenly 7-3.

But the revealing lesson in how smart this U.S. team can be came on the sequence that led to the next goal. With time winding down on the 30-second shot clock, Brenda Villa, who along with Heather Petri has played on every American Olympic team since 2000, fired a skip shot that left Hungarian goaltender Flora Bolonyai -- a current All-American at USC -- no option but to stop it in a way that it rolled out of play behind her. That gave the Americans the ball, and another 30 seconds. Elsie Windes got off another shot that led to another re-set -- which led, finally, to a goal by Kelly Rulon, making it 8-3 midway through the third.

"It's good to play a series of four games and good to be reminded of how quickly things can change," goalie Betsey Armstrong said, adding a moment later, "You have to remember to play your own game."

Until July 22, when they leave for London, the Americans will be practicing at their home base at Los Alamitos -- with one break. On Monday night, they're heading as a group to Las Vegas; on Tuesday, they're due to watch the U.S. men's basketball team practice and meet with head coach Mike Krzyzewski.

About a year ago, Rulon had bought Krzyzewski's 2009 book, "The Gold Standard," about the 2008 U.S. men's basketball team. It has since been widely read on the water polo team, coach Adam Krikorian said.

Krikorian, who coached at UCLA and knows the John Wooden story well, said that perhaps the U.S. women will glean some "words of wisdom or any kind of inspiration" from Krzyzewski.

Then again, this meeting might turn out to be a two-way street. Seven players on that men's basketball team will be Olympic newbies. They might want to hear what Brenda Villa and Heather Petri have to say, too.

"It's really cool," Petri said, "to feel this level of confidence that our teammates have right now. It's empowering us as well," meaning the two of them. "We felt it. We know what's ahead of us. To see them acknowledging it, and being empowered by it, is really exciting."