SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS ON MITCH IVEY: Mitch Ivey, famed swim coach, banned for sexual misconduct

Shouldn't the man running USA Swimming (Chuck Wielgus) step down? Why is he still there?  If this was any other non-profit or professional sport organization he would have been summarily banished before the ink dried in the newspaper.

Even Pope Benedict XVI resigned allowing the organization to reboot and allow a more benevolent Pope to move the religion forward. Not so with USA Swimming. Though it's Executive Director knew of a sexual abuse claimed that was made in San Jose (as covered by the Mercury News) he kept it secret. Though he was humiliated on the ABC News program 20/20 and arrogantly refused to apologize to the victims. (He refused to step down.) I could go with several other sex abuse situations but one should ask, why is it that USA Swimming won't demand his resignation so the organization can reboot and move forward.

Perhaps he has 900,000 reasons why he should not resign and they all contain the name "George Washington."

How can anyone trust this organization with an executive director like THAT?

From The San Jose Mercury News:

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a three-time Olympic champion at the Los Angeles Games in 1984, welcomed USA Swimming's ban on Ivey.

"It's imperative that all coaches know what the rules of the game are," said Hogshead, who swam for Ivey at Concord. "They can't see old coaches with a long record of sexual abuses" go unpunished.

Hogshead, senior director of advocacy at the Women's Sports Foundation, had testified in USA Swimming's initial investigation into Ivey two years ago.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a three-time Olympic champion at the Los Angeles Games in 1984, welcomed USA Swimming's ban on Ivey.

"It's imperative that all coaches know what the rules of the game are," said Hogshead, who swam for Ivey at Concord. "They can't see old coaches with a long record of sexual abuses" go unpunished.

Hogshead, senior director of advocacy at the Women's Sports Foundation, had testified in USA Swimming's initial investigation into Ivey two years ago 

[Link]

And it took two-years to get him banned because they needed a victim to come forward. One of the first victims committed suicide. Why wasn't a family member a good enough witness?

The photo above is Olympian Nancy Hogshead-Makar one of the greatest swimmers ever. She has "street cred" as an advocate and a swimmer. They should have been taken more seriously.

The Daily Herald: "Michael Phelps has rejoined the U.S. drug testing program..."

Speaking of WADA we have Michael Phelps "Keeping his options open" which means you should read that quote as "...if he can win he is coming back."

From the Daily Herald: 

"...If I decide to keep going and swim again, then I'll compete," Phelps told the AP in an exclusive telephone interview from Minneapolis, where he is attending an Arena Grand Prix meet this weekend. ..."

[Link]

If you go to the Speedo website there is no photo, poster, or mention of Michael Phelps.  Phelps' contract is obviously well past over and he has seemingly found greener pastures with Under Armor.

Here is a behind the scenes video of Michael Phelps training in Under Armor gear: [Link]

If Michael Phelps does return to the "holy game of swimming", I predict that you will see him wearing his very own signature line of Under Armor swimsuits just like Michael Jordan or Maria Sharapova's line from Nike.

New IOC President tells WADA that $500-billion is spent on anti doping efforts hence thier budget is plenty big and cuts its scheduled fee increase in half!

UPDATE:  The annual budget for WADA is 28-million. I was corrected on Twitter by @ringsau @wada_ama but the fact remains that the IOC says $500-billion is spent on dope testing and I may have presumed incorrectly that WADA oversees the efficacy of those tests. I do know that they are the final arbiter on suspensions and punishments and WADA enforces the World Anti-Doping Code. With that said, they are the reason why $500-million is spent each year on doping controls. My take is that 1/2-billion dollars is too much and would be better spent elsewhere; Athlete salaries may be a good start.

[...]

I am here to discuss the greedy nature of those that collect the real money from Olympic sports and today the subject is WADA or the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Swimming has a doping problem (among others) as do all the sports and each year both professional and Olympic sports bodies collectively pool a bunch of money and hand it over to WADA so as to purify the sport from drug cheats.

How much money does WADA receive to take on this task? Well, imagine if you gave every single living person in America a $1.00 bill. I'm talking everybody: Babies, toddlers, children, teens, adults, senior citizens including those in hospice care etc. That sum would equal $300,000,000 and WADA would still have $200-million left over to spend on anti doping efforts.

90% of the sports WADA tests are recreational in nature and the athletes involved in most cases are lower middle class or subsisting at the poverty level. The professional sports are a joke when it comes to testing. Instead of surprise visits from WADA officials that swimmers and other Olympic hopefuls have to endure, sports like American football and baseball have appointments scheduled two-weeks or more in advance.

New IOC President Thomas Bach is under fire for wanting to reduce the scheduled fee increase of the 2% to WADA down to a 1%-increase and WADA is not amused.

Here is what IOC boss Thomas Bach had to say as quoted in the Telegraph:

Bach called on Wada to spend its budget more efficiently, something [he] was confident would happen under the new code it is set to ratify in Johannesburg on Friday. 

[He said] “If you want to describe it with a headline: quality comes first, then quantity,” Bach said. “If you improve the quality then you may not need the number of tests you need now. 

“This is why the new code would be very helpful, because it allows for it and is going exactly in this direction.”  

Meanwhile, Bach refused to be drawn on what action the IOC would take were Jamaica or Kenya to be declared non-compliant with the WADA code because of their recent doping problems. ..." 

[Link]

With their staggering half-billion budget, consider what one can do with a half-billion dollars?

First on the list is that they could start their very own space program.

That's right - for $300-million they could build and launch an Astra Satellite that can deliver the following services...

1. High speed internet
2. Digital TV
3. HDTV
4. Digital Radio
5. 3D TV

...And still have 200-million leftover to take care of it and rent the heck out of it to 2nd-world countries like Russia and India.

...Or if they were more ambitious and they wanted to take over a failed state, WADA could purchase more than fifty M1-Abrams tanks and staff an army of over 20,000 mercenaries to go take over a failed state of their choice.  (The US only needed 14-M1-Abrams in Afghanistan)

....If they had even more loftier goals WADA could fund 500-startup businesses throughout the world with a $1-million "angel investment" each but then again, catching drug cheats in sports that are only televised every four years is an  important task and I am sure the $500-million is well spent on all that urine they are collecting so as to make sure that such sports as curling and archery are clean and sportsmanlike, don't you think?