What happened to me this summer is so confusing, even to myself. I thought that I would take an opportunity to lay some of it out for clarity’s sake. I feel like this whole thing is being swept under the rug and I just can’t let that happen until we correct it. I can’t let people forget that arbitrary rules were used to violate what they were meant to protect. And I can’t let USA Swimming forget its responsibility to its athletes. There are still a few things that I have to keep back because my case is still pending. But there are other things that I can talk about now.

From the very beginning, from my first contact with USA Swimming, I asked them to do the right thing and name me to the team. And for a while I believed that they would help me and defend my opportunity to compete, as federal law requires them to do. Chuck and Mark both told me in those early days that they would appeal the final entries and work to get me on the team. How foolish I felt later, when I realized that the very people who I was begging to help me and who were promising to do so were the people who had consciously put me in the position I was in the first place.

It was only when I realized that USA Swimming was doing nothing to try and put me on the team and, actually may have been actively working to keep me off the team, that I contacted Michael Dockterman, my lawyer. We drafted a letter to USA Swimming but did not send it because I was in contact with the USOC Athlete Ombudsman, who asked me to hold off because he was trying to broker some sort of deal to at least get us (Amanda, Lara, and me) named to the team. On the evening of July 31st, he told me that he thought that he had gotten some people within the USOC turned around. I later learned that the USOC had at that time put the offer on the table to USA Swimming to name us to the team.

On the evening of August 1st, as I was biking back home from practice, I got a call from the USOC Athlete Ombudsman. He told me that Jessica had withdrawn her appeal and would not be on the team. He then told me that he had received an email from USA Swimming that had informed him that they would not be naming anyone else to the roster – they had turned down the USOC’s offer to place us on the team. He made it clear that the USOC would do nothing further for me – even though the USOC has its own duty to protect my opportunity to compete – as long as my own NGB, USA swimming was against naming me to the team. At that point I felt that I had no choice but to act through my lawyer.

Until that moment, I had clung to the faith I had mistakenly placed in USA Swimming. I thought that we could make this as right as possible, that we wouldn’t have to go before an arbitrator, that, given the opportunity, those who I had previously trusted would prove themselves worthy of that trust. I thought that, as one of their athletes they would stand by me. Not only did they decline to do that but, as they proved later, they actively worked to discredit me.

I then entered arbitration to try to force USA Swimming to do the right thing and name me to the team. At no point along this whole process was I insisting on competing if I didn’t feel I was ready (and USA Swimming knew that). But I did feel that I deserved the opportunity to go to Beijing and determine that for myself. I remember walking out of the pool on the day before the arbitration hearing saying to Greg, my fiancé, “If I were in China and had a practice like that at this point before the Olympics I would feel really good.” The hearing took place on August 5th.

There were a lot of inconsistencies found during testimony. For example, USA Swimming said that its selection procedures didn’t allow it to add alternates to the team. But USA Swimming admitted that it asked the USOC to add Kara Lynn to the team to fill a “vacancy” created when Dara decided not to swim the 100 free. This didn’t make sense because, according to the rules, Dara dropping the 100 free didn’t create any vacancy in the relay, which she did not drop. In fact, there are no rules at all that determine who, among the first four finishers, swims the 100 free individual (check for yourself – the rules only deal with the relays, not the 100 or 200 free individuals). For an NGB that was relying so heavily on the “rules” it was striking that there is nothing in the rules that actually determines who swims the 100 and 200 free. Dara declining to swim the individual event meant that she was only trading positions with the third place person, Lacey, so no vacancy on the roster was actually created. Someone at USA Swimming must have known this. Why else would they seek to gain special permission from the USOC to add Kara Lynn to the roster? This means that when they added Kara Lynn to the team, it was actually either as an alternate to Emily (against their rules), who later had to swim a time trial to gain her spot, or without a vacancy at all (also against their rules).

I’m not bringing this up to say that Kara Lynn shouldn’t have been added to the team – they did the right thing there. If Emily had not been able to swim, they were protecting Kara Lynn’s opportunity to compete. I only wonder why they would do the right thing in adding Kara, when it was not specifically within their rules and then refuse to do the same for Amanda, Lara, and me?

We also learned that USA Swimming had the chance to address this problem on July 21, when its rules allowed it to go outside the “team” to add swimmers, and when it was more than likely Jessica would not be able to swim. But they made a deliberate decision to wait until after July 21, when they could argue that the rules provided that any substitutes had to come from those already on the team. Of course, the real deadline to name members to the team imposed by the BOCOG and the USOC was July 23, which USA Swimming ignored. It was plain that USA Swimming’s devotion to “rules” applies differently to different athletes.

We also asked Chuck the obvious question: if selection for the 100 freestyle individual event is not included in the selection procedures, is that a mistake? Chuck continually dodged the question and in the end would not answer it. It was a disturbing moment in which it became clear that USA Swimming would never admit to any mistakes, even if they were staring them straight in the face. It was plain that there were other problems with the rules and the timing set by USA Swimming to select the team, but when those flaws became apparent USA Swimming refused to ask the USOC to be able to address the problems. Other inconsistencies occurred, but we still need to get more information on those before I am comfortable with discussing them.

However, even though USA Swimming had been flexible with the rules in regard to the 400 freestyle relay, the arbitrator found that USA Swimming did not violate any of its rules, flawed as they were, to keep me off the team. So he could not name me to the team and could not force the USOC – which refused to be part of the arbitration – to take the issue to FINA and BOGOG. Still, the arbitrator expressly allowed me to move forward in this with considerable momentum and I am going forward to make sure this does not happen to anyone else ever again.

After the arbitration Chuck sent out a letter. This letter was reportedly an internal communication to USA Swimming but was conveniently leaked to the press. The heavy-handed attempt to vilify me was clear from the very first line. A second letter attempted to shift blame for this situation onto Jessica’s shoulders. Unfortunately, USA Swimming had seemingly forgotten that it is an organization that is supposed to be watching out for their athletes. The letter also went on to compare Jessica’s doping violation to a cancer victim, which I found shockingly callous. Perhaps I should have responded then but I shut down further commentary to prevent my situation from becoming a distraction to the team.

Over the next few weeks I also found out about the mistake that lead to Jessica’s positive sample sitting in the lab for weeks and the delayed fax. While the increasing pieces of bad luck shocked me, I had already gone over the testing and hearing process and realized that it probably wouldn’t have mattered. With the schedule set by USA Swimming and the gap in its rules to deal with doping, there was no guarantee that the extra time would have made a difference. The one bright point here was that someone at the lab acknowledged and apologized for their mistake.

Behind the scenes, Michael, my lawyer, was writing letters to the USOC to ask them to name me to the team because it was the right thing to do, was what I had earned at the Trials, and was required by federal law protecting my opportunity to compete in the Olympics. However, the USOC took the position that they cannot undermine the authority of their NGBs by taking any action inconsistent with the NGBs’ wishes. It is a nice little box for everyone to retreat into. The USOC says that the team is determined by USA Swimming so they can’t do anything. USA Swimming says that it is the USOC’s team so they can’t do anything. Convenient…for everyone but the athlete.

At this point, I think that I’ve pretty much exhausted the avenues of asking people to help me. Unfortunately, everything after this point will have to be fought for. And I feel that it is something I have to pursue. I make a statement by continuing but I also would make a statement in walking away. If I did that, I would say that it is ok to tread all over the athlete’s rights.

This isn’t about money or revenge. This is about making this situation right. This is about fighting for my rights and the rights of other athletes. USA Swimming needs to remember that the reason for its existence is the athletes. The three of us – Lara, Amanda, and I – deserve an apology from them and we deserve to be named to the Olympic team. We need to fix the rules or change the timing of Trials so that no athlete can ever be kept off the team if an athlete ahead of them fails a doping test. I am doing what I can to motivate this change and I am steadfast in my conviction to do so.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 7:42 am and is filed under tarakirk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.