U.S. swimmers 'not' confident Rio will be clean of doping

OMAHA, Neb. — The first day of interviews at the U.S. Olympic Trials for swimming very quickly became a discussion on doping.

Two-time American Olympian Elizabeth Beisel was asked whether she was confident the Rio de Janeiro Games would be clean. Her response: "No, I'm not. I'm definitely not."

David Marsh, who will coach the U.S. women's team in Rio, said, "We've a long way to go. We are not at a point where we can say that there are no drugs in our sport, there's no cheaters in our sport, and I think until we do it's inherent that we all keep calling for it, and we all keep looking for ways to create a level, fair playing field of real human being performance."

And that was before everyone heard the news Friday afternoon that the World Antidoping Association had suspended the Rio laboratory that was set to handle drug testing at the Olympics come August.

"We have an obligation, I believe, to fight for clean sport," said Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming. "I think we do what we can. It's a monumental effort. We'll never win it, because the cheaters are always a step ahead, but, again, I've seen more positive in this go-round than I've seen – and I've been at every Olympic Games since '92 – than I've seen in the past. … The fight goes on, the fight goes on."

So there is pronounced concern about how fair the competition will be in Rio. But nobody was announcing any concerns about the cleanliness of the Trials, which begin Sunday.

"I feel very good about the U.S. Trials," Marsh said. "I feel like this is a venue where we have people of the highest character and ethics, and I feel like we will have a very clean event here and we'll have, you know, a very level playing field."

The obvious area of international concern is Russia, which had its track and field team barred from the Olympics earlier this month after revelations of systemic doping within that nation. (However, there may be a way around that ban for some Russian track athletes.) FINA, the governing body of swimming, is one of several Olympic sports entities asked by the International Olympic Committee to scrutinize Russian athletes.

Specifically, Marsh was asked about the possibility of American breastrokers competing against Russian 2012 medalist Yulia Efimova, who in 2014 was suspended for using a banned steroid and who in March was reported to have failed a test for meldonium.

"I really don't get a say at the table other than right now in the media setting, so no doubt in my mind that somebody that's been tested twice positive during this window of time, I don't see how would be allowed to swim in the Games," Marsh said. "But, again, as we all know there is a lot of politics at play in everything in high-level sports when money is involved, when all the international – all the nations kinda come together like this. … I hope what we can do is call for the next level of enforcement and that enforcement is going to involve investigation.

"It's not just going to involve testing what's in their blood and urine. These guys have been tested more this year – and as we said all along, the athletes have called for more testing, the coaches have called for more testing, so they have been tested a lot more. … But the job isn't just testing – also there has to be investigating as well, and certainly when it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, it's probably a duck."

The Chinese have come under scrutiny as well. Star male distance freestyler Sun Yang served a three-month suspension in 2014 for doping, and everyone in swimming remembers the otherworldly gold-medal performances by female Ye Shiwen in London in the 200 and 400 individual medleys.

"There's nothing that we can say or do right now that's going to impact what's going to happen with the Russian or Chinese swimmers," Wielgus said. "FINA has to deal with that, WADA has to deal with that, the doping agencies in those countries have to be part of that, and that's an issue because, you know, we don't have anti-doping agencies as strong as USADA in other countries around the world."

Beisel, who finished second to Shiwen in that 400 IM in 2012, was asked her feelings four years later on that race. She made mention of of Shiwen's shocking 100-meter freestyle split – 58.68 seconds, including a closing 50 of 28.93, which was faster than male gold medalist Ryan Lochte brought it home in the same event.

"I wish I could have come home in a 57," she said, laughing. "Then I would have won. You can't change what's already happened. I'm not going to dwell on it. I think an Olympic silver medal is awesome. I would be crazy if I weren't grateful for that. It was a true reflection of the work that I had done and the honest work that I had done, and, you know, if that was the best that I had that day, then that's what it was. It happens."

It does happen. And the American swimmers who spoke to the media Friday said that as frustrating as international doping may be, they're prepared to deal with it.

"Whether they're doping or not it's going to be a battle in order to beat me," Lochte said. "That's all I can do."