By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 7, 2008
OMAHA, July 6 -- When the last swimmer climbed from the water Sunday night at the U.S. Olympic trials here, he departed a pool in which nine world records were broken over eight days. The volume of explanations for how and why that happened -- from the nonpareil Michael Phelps to a deeper pool to improved training methods to a faster swimsuit -- almost equals the number of records set.
"It's an Olympic year," Phelps said, by means of placing the focus on the training of athletes aiming to peak next month at the Beijing Games. The man he is chasing in China, Mark Spitz -- whose seven gold medals in 1972 set a standard that has not been matched -- agreed.
"If you look back and chart the history of when world records are broken, it escalates about a year before the Games and the year of the Games," Spitz said.
This year, though, has been unlike any other in recent memory. Twenty-two world records have been set worldwide -- some events have had the record fall, then fall again -- and the Olympics are not even here yet. As fast as that seems, there remains a sense that for the U.S. team to maximize its medal count in Beijing -- with assaults coming from all over the world, primarily from Australia -- they will have to fell more marks.
"We've got a lot to prove when we get there," U.S. women's coach Jack Bauerle said. "We've got to get better."
Better than world marks? Indeed, there were moments this past week -- Phelps in the 200-meter butterfly, Brendan Hansen in the 100 breaststroke -- when records did not fall, and the athletes were clearly disappointed. They know Speedo's LZR Racer swimsuit -- designed with the help of NASA engineers so that it compresses the body and reduces drag -- is, as Phelps said, "the fastest suit in the world." Its reputation is such that Nike, which has such top swimmers as gold medalist Aaron Peirsol under contract, allowed its athletes to switch to the Speedo suit if they thought it would help.
"The suit," said Phelps's coach, Bob Bowman, "can only do so much."
Bowman and other coaches and athletes here believe, too, that there have been fundamental changes in the sport, which has been professionalized over the last decade. Swimmers such as Phelps and Katie Hoff, who matched Phelps's mark with five wins here, now have the option of turning pro, and making millions of dollars, without going to college. That, in turn, allows them to live comfortably and remain in a sport that, previously, athletes frequently abandoned after college.
"Because there are people like Michael and Aaron Peirsol staying in the sport longer, they're able to stay at their peak level longer," Bowman said. "And what you used to have is a new crop of people would come up, and they would sort of break through and maybe break a world record. But for these guys, it's just doing their best time. . . . I just think there are going to be more world records because the world record holders are in the sport longer."
Indeed, the world records here came from athletes in their prime -- Natalie Coughlin and Margaret Hoelzer, both 25; Peirsol, 24; Phelps, 23; all the way down to Hoff, just 19. Each has been in at least one previous Olympics, and all but Hoelzer had held world records before. Phelps and Peirsol even lowered marks they already owned.
"That's what you needed to do to win here in some events," Peirsol said. "Swim a world record."
Such performances in such numbers in this era, however, raise suspicion. The trials weren't two days old when veteran sprinter Gary Hall Jr. suggested the use of performance-enhancing drugs in swimming is growing. The money, Hall suggested, could be part of the reason.
"This sport has become entertainment," he said, "and it's taken on the morals of the entertainment industry where you can cut corners -- and cheaters do prosper."
Swimming has been overwhelmed by drug scandals in the past, first in the 1970s, when the East German women set new standards that were later found to be tainted, then in the 1990s, when a doping problem ripped through the Chinese team. But since then, swimming has largely escaped the devastating blows delivered to such sports as baseball and track and field.
No swimmers were publicly named in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative scandal that ensnared, among others, track's Marion Jones and baseball's Barry Bonds. And though a top Chinese swimmer, backstroker Ouyang Kunpeng, was barred for life after testing positive for a prohibited substance in May, swimming has made few recent headlines that have aroused the suspicion that follows track and baseball.
"I think Aaron Peirsol said it best," U.S. men's coach Eddie Reese said. "He said, 'We wouldn't do that to each other.' "
Not everyone believes that. Dara Torres, a 41-year-old who qualified for her fifth Olympics here, understands the skepticism that comes along with achieving so much at such an advanced age, so she opened herself up to an advanced testing program. Yet that doesn't mean her team believes everyone is beyond suspicion.
"I don't think we will ever have a clean sport," said Torres's coach, Michael Lohberg. "The testers can only find what they are looking for, and there will always be people in this world, for whatever reason -- money, fame -- will always find ways to cheat and be ahead of everyone else."
Mark Schubert, the head coach and general manager of the U.S. team, said he was pleased he had to answer very few doping questions over the course of an electric week. But he knows, if the performances continue to come -- from Americans and others -- that the queries will increase come Beijing.
"Whenever I bring it up to the athletes, they always say that's the issue that should remain at the forefront," Schubert said. "That's the most refreshing thing."
The U.S. team will leave for a training camp in Palo Alto, Calif., on Monday, then depart for another training camp in Singapore on July 25. And when it arrives in Beijing in early August, the expectation is that, in order to win gold medals, more records will need to fall.
"As fast as the swimming was here," Schubert said, "I really believe we can go faster."
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