I am not sure we realize how bad this will be for swimming and US swimming.
This will change how everybody looks at the US team from now on. The circumstances do not matter to the casual sports fan - they will only remember "US swimmer caught".
The medal winners will lose a lot of money on endorsements - USA swimming was the "clean" sport, the poster child of how to do it right. Not any more - any advertiser will now look at swimmers differently.
What about US trials - this will change how quickly the testing has to come back and how some 3rd place finisher may train after trials.
US Swimming - they have already screwed this up on 10 different levels. No press conference, 3 weeks after the fact, some web forum starts leaking the story, coaches and swimmers at the Olympic training camp know and they expect to keep this quiet ? Amateurs
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Former Member
Ehoch I wouldn't wory too much, every country has a few athlete's that have done this. I don't think anyone's going to call this a fall from the pedestal. Well maybe some jingoistic hacks will but normal folks will realise JH is not representative of all the USA. I say this as a) a Naturalised Citizen and b) one who doesn't believe a mere handful of people ultimately represent anything except themselves.
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Former Member
Ehoch I wouldn't wory too much, every country has a few athlete's that have done this. I don't think anyone's going to call this a fall from the pedestal. Well maybe some jingoistic hacks will but normal folks will realise JH is not representative of all the USA. I say this as a) a Naturalised Citizen and b) one who doesn't believe a mere handful of people ultimately represent anything except themselves.
