Poll: should Libby Lenton have the record

Geek, Hypothetically speaking.....you're a Natural home run hitting type of a guy.....your coach, trainer or friend hands you some "Muscle Cream" as you call it, says it works really well for them..... Fortunately, I stopped succumbing to peer pressure in about 11th grade so I'd probably err on the side of caution and look up the product and make an informed decision. Then again, I'm not a zillionare baseball player who has hired a bunch of thugs as personal trainers, who would obviously seem quite moral and upstanding at face value. FYI - I didn't call it "Muscle Cream." I was quoting Bonds himself who called it "The Cream" and "The Clear."

Barry Bonds situation is different from Lance's. Lance was tested many times. MLB pretended it didn't have a problem and it's "testing" was a Joke. By Olympic or Biking rules Bonds would have tested positive for the"cream" and the"clear."MLB's head in the sand mentality brought this on themselves. If a swimmer swam a time trial 100 and a swimmer in the next lane swam a 70 as fast as possible to provide a draft and then slowed down but finished and the first swimmer broke the WR,wouldn't FINA count it?

To all those on the nay side, why??? Fortress I always thought you would be on the swimmer's side. Not on the FINA side. George: I voted early and missed most of the ensuing debate. (I was swimming and not reading!) I was under the impression that it was just enforcement of a FINA rule, and, as a lawyer, I tend to be more rule oriented as a matter of fairness and consistency. But then Kirk appears to have pointed out that it might not be a rule violation. If it's not a direct violation of a specific rule and it is ambiguous, that would probably change my view. I'll have to re-read the two threads to see what I missed. But I really detest Barry Bonds. Many people have testified about his drug use. I don't think there is any ambiguity on that score. He's just not in the slammer yet. I did actually take the time to read the book on Bonds/BALCO awhile ago. I'm a real baseball fan, and he is a disgrace to baseball.

Lenton KNEW that Phelps was going to beat her, so she could go all out without fear of the consequences. There were still possible consequences for the remaining three swimmers on her team. If she went out too hard and died she may have taken her relay out of contention. The second swimmer on her team very well could have had a 6-7 second deficit to make up instead of about four seconds.

I don't understand the total lack of generosity in the whole NO RECORD!!!! brigade. Is it only a WR if you were ahead the entire race? Is it only a WR if you are the top seed, so you didn't use your underdog fire? Is it only a WR if you swim alone? Why are you so interested in saying no? There is some ambiguity--maybe she was hurt, maybe she was helped--so why not take the generous interpretation? There is no way to be certain. Generosity should have no place in record books in my opinion. There is obviously some mixed opinions about the legitimacy of this "record" and I don't think I would want my name on such a thing. It would be much better to have a record with no strings attached. Take for example Barry Bonds. His records will always be associated with his BALCO affiliation and quite frankly, meaningless to the purist. If a fast swimmers wake has the ability to pull along a slower swimmer in an adjacent lane then the slower swimmer had an advantage they would not otherwise have. If the race were between Phelps and Peter Vanderkaay, Vanderkaay may have very well benefitted from the wake of Phelps but there is no way he could have used that advantage to make a WR time because Phelps would be ahead of him. In order for Vanderkaay to make a WR he would eventually have to overtake Phelps and lose the benefit of the wake he had been enjoying. If they are going to make these mixed relays WR capable then they need to have rules about lane separation.

But it already does. You can't remove it here. If something is ambiguous, you can take the generous interpretation or the ungenerous one. There is no objective interpretation. And maybe you can be sanguine about keeping other people out of the record books, but I'm not. Besides, some people think Popov's time trial WR shouldn't count. Should we take that out of the books, since there is controversy? Lenton came in far enough behind Phelps that it is clear she was not drafting the whole time, and she may in fact have been harmed by the wake from the turn. I don't know and neither does anyone else. So why be a jerk? As for baseball records, should records from earlier years when the number of games differed be on totally different books? What about records from segregated years, when they weren't really playing the "best" possible?Should hockey records start all over now that there are shootouts, and thus more "wins"? It isn't science and nothing is perfect, so "purist" is quite a misnomer. If she benefitted from the draft for even 1/3 of the race then she had a benefit she would never have when swimming against other women. As for Popov's record, don't FINA rules allow records from time trials? This issue really has nothing to do with drafting, that is just my personal opinion. Having said that, if FINA rules do not specify a mixed relay as being WR material then there is nothing more to discuss really. When I said purist I meant free of performance enhancing drugs, ie the BALCO association. Your other comments are all good points, but shall we just throw up our hands and let anything go due to the events of the past? I say no. Lastly, I don't think my opinion makes me a jerk but if it does I will wear the badge with pride.

Barry Bonds should have NO....I repeat NO * next to his name! He has not been found guilty of any wrongdoing. Inuendos and rumors do not make a person guilty. Just like Libby should have this WR with no * next to her name.....she swam a record breaking 100 Free! IMHO Of course!

I was in the "yes" category until a discussion with my kids coach--a trials qualifier. Her argument boiled down to this one comment: "She was drafting off Phelps. Even I (meaning she, not me) could swim a world record time drafting off Phelps." Before our discussion, it seemed wrong, since I'm sure LL worked her butt off to keep pace. I'm still sure she worked her butt off, but watching the video, it does appear she got the benefit of a draft for the first 50m. Having said, that, I wonder what FINA would have done if LL had swum that time and Natalie Coughlin would have swum the lead leg for USA? I do think there is a difference between all mens/womens heats and mixed heats. Men do have a strength advantage, and in this case I think it benefitted LL. I also believe Masters meets handle the issue by seeding by time, thereby placing swimmers of similar ability in the same heats and minimizing the strength/draft advantage.

Barry Bonds should have NO....I repeat NO * next to his name! He has not been found guilty of any wrongdoing. Inuendos and rumors do not make a person guilty. Okay. :)

The drafting thing is not even a possibility. It could only be of benifit if they swam in the same lane and were very close to each other. I have probably done more drafting then anyone else here. Beleive me she did not draft. Those wave buster ropes looked to be very good ones. Give her credit she broke the worlds record. The only Jerks in this picture are the FINA people who rejected the WR.