Philip Hersh: Some Olympic food for thought

A half-dozen Winter Olympic items to chew on:

1. Another Olympic medal-winning speedskater from Champaign, Ill.? Could be, the way Katherine Reutter, 20, has come on this season in short track, the discipline that gave Champaign product Bonnie Blair her start on ice -- but was not added to the Olympic program until Blair had established herself as the greatest long track skater (five Olympic golds) in U.S. history.

Last weekend in Germany, Reutter highlighted the best World Cup performance ever by U.S. women by winning silver medals at 1,000 and 1,500 meters, and a gold in the relay. While the world-leading Chinese skaters skipped the meet, Reutter showed she is in their league by skating the third-fastest time ever in the 1,000, less than two-tenths off the world record set last year by Wang Meng of China.[Changed from second-fastest time at 1:50 p.m.]

2. The International Skating Union’s numskull behavior now extends beyond figure skating’s judging system to the long track selection process for the 2010 Olympics. You don’t want to know all the details -- actually, I couldn’t give them to you, which is the problem for national federations trying to budget for next season in these difficult times.

To sum up:  skaters will earn Olympic spots based on performances in next fall’s World Cup meets, but the ISU has yet to spell out either the qualifying system or which meets will be used for which distances.

3. Got to root for skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender at the world championships next week in Lake Placid, N.Y. Uhlaender’s father, Ted, who pitched for the Twins, Indians and Reds, lost a year-long battle with bone marrow cancer last Thursday at age 69. Although he realized their remaining time together would be brief, Ted Uhlaender had insisted his daughter go ahead with plans to race the World Cup circuit this season.

"Unfortunately, there was no cure for his cancer or my torn heart," Uhlaender said. "I wanted to stay home, and he wanted me to compete."

Uhlaender, 24, won the World Cup overall title and a world meet silver medal in 2008, but her results most of this season reflected her preoccupation with her dad’s illness.  "He told me to push it out of my head and do my job,’’ she said.

Sadly, Ted Uhlaender died just before she won her first World Cup medal of the season, a silver in Park City, Utah. 

4. Yes, I know biathlon hardly is a mass-participation sport, with only a handful of countries devoting attention to it. But that doesn’t make the ongoing achievements of Norway’s

Philip Hersh: Lance Armstrong fails a credibility test

Lance Armstrong is only one month into the competitive part of his comeback, and he already has a credibility gap.

Armstrong was sure that hiring anti-doping guru Don Catlin as his personal  tester would go a long way toward convincing skeptics that he was riding without the benefit of performance-enhancing drugs.

(The issue for most skeptics, me included, is Armstrong's seven-Tour-de-France-winning past, not his present, but that's another story.)

So now we learn, first from the New York Times, that the Armstrong-Catlin collaboration has foundered on the rocks of what both sides said were complexity and cost.

"There was no particular issue that led to our mutual parting,'' Catlin told me Wednesday by telephone.  "It was a total package of things we were constantly dealing with.

"Some of the costs were not containable. How do you track down an athlete on whatever continent and then get a collector certified by WADA to take urine and blood?''

The complexity part, I can buy.

Cost?  For a guy who has made tens of millions of dollars as an endorser, speechifier and rider?

Yes, I know he is supporting three kids with his ex and about to have another with a girlfriend, but cost?

Sorry, Lance, I don't buy that. I mean, isn't it worth whatever it takes to make sure your name is as good as an athlete as it has become in your tireless efforts to ease the suffering from cancer?

It's not that Armstrong won't be tested by other entities;  he said on his Twitter page last week that he has been tested 16 times since September.

It's just that Armstrong made such a big deal of Catlin's role during the New York press conference announcing his return to competition -- and again at a cycling trade show in Las Vegas a day later -- that it seems pretty hypocritical to have the deal end before it began.

Philip Hersh:Baseball back in the Olympics after A-Rod? What a laugh!

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha ... (excuse me while I catch my breath) ... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

What's so funny?

I'm just thinking what it will be like when the various International Olympic Committee entities involved in evaluating the Summer Games sports program begin discussing baseball's bid for reinstatement.

(To begin, let me reiterate something I have said many times when writing about efforts to reduce the size of the Summer Games: Sports in which an Olympic gold medal is not the ultimate prize have no claim on inclusion in the Summer Olympics. So I would eliminate men's soccer, baseball and tennis -- men and women. I spare men's basketball only because its presence means so much to TV networks worldwide, and the IOC should do nothing to endanger future TV revenues so badly needed by Olympic organizing committees and international sports federations.)

Baseball's chances to get back into the Games could end as early as March, when the IOC program commission takes up the issue. Or in June, when the IOC executive board discusses which -- if any -- new sports the IOC membership should consider adding at the October meeting when it also picks the 2016 Summer Games host.

There are openings for two sports but no obligation to fill them. Among the contenders: baseball, softball, rugby sevens, squash, golf, karate and roller sports.

And why is baseball's bid a laughingstock?

Alex Rodriguez.

He exemplifies the ongoing hear-no-, see-no-, speak-no-evil stance of the sport's leadership, both the players union and management, where doping is concerned. That includes repeated stories about players being tipped off that a random, unannounced test was imminent and about teams making it hard for testers to gain access to players.

The IOC's efforts to curb doping are very imperfect, especially in a world where chemists can devise undetectable performance-enhancing drugs with apparently minimal effort. But at least Olympic sports try to do the best they can.

Major League Baseball's antidoping efforts still are half-hearted, as evidenced by the sport's failure to institute blood testing. Yet MLB has been advocating, sort of, for the sport to get back in the Olympics.

There is one place where Olympic sports and MLB apparently sadly are on the same doping page: failure to abide by confidentiality rules in anti-doping protocols.

The leaked information about Rodriguez may not be MLB's fault or the fault of the players' union because results of the "confidential, nonpunitive'' testing the sport did before creating an antidoping program undoubtedly have been seen by dozens of people since federal investigators seized them in the BALCO probe.

But everyone in baseball said the sport's doping problems were inconsequential, even after knowing (according to Sports Illustrated) that 104 players were found positive in those 2003 tests of those on 40-man rosters. They had to know Rodriguez and other big stars were among them.

And what is worse?  Breaching confidentiality or lying, as Rodriguez did when he told Katie Couric he had never taken performance-enhancing drugs and as baseball essentially did when it refused to hear alarm bells even after it was revealed that slugger Mark McGwire was taking a PED (that was not banned at the time).

Baseball has lived a lie for more than two decades, and there is no reason to believe its attitude has really changed since punitive testing began in 2004. Sure, it catches lots of minor league players, especially poor Latin American kids who can't afford drugs for which MLB doesn't tested (human growth hormone) or undetectable drugs. And there is no consistent testing for the blood booster EPO in the majors (other than what it calls "spot checking ... during one season of testing'' and what the World Anti-Doping Agency does at the World Baseball Classic) even though EPO has been proved to help athletes in explosive sports as well as endurance sports.

The Olympics don't need baseball because less than a dozen countries care about the game.

Baseball doesn't need the Olympics enough to create a schedule break that would allow major leaguers to compete or a drug-testing program that conforms to international standards.

IOC members would have to be dopes (and there are some who fit that description) to let baseball back in.

Then the joke would be on the Olympics.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Alex Rodriguez during Monday's interview with Peter Gammons. Credit: ESPN

Lindsey Vonn undergoes surgery to repair tendon damage

U.S. ski queen Lindsey Vonn's participation in Thursday's world championship giant slalom is in doubt after she underwent surgery in Austria to repair tendon damage to her right thumb, which she cut while opening a celebratory bottle of champagne Monday.

Vonn, who won the world championship downhill Monday in Val d'Isere, France, flew by private jet Tuesday to Innsbruck, where she underwent surgery at Privatklinik Hochrum, according to the U.S. ski team.

She was remain overnight in Austria and return to Val d'Isere Wednesday.

"The surgery went fine" said U.S. ski team doctor Richard Quincy. "She will have a splint and should be able to grip her ski pole. We anticipate she will be ready to compete in Saturday's slalom and possibly the giant slalom Thursday."

"Everything went really well and I couldn't be more thankful for the care that I've received," said Vonn, who has won gold medals in super G and downhill in Val d'Isere. "The support I've received from my fans has been awesome and I'm looking forward returning to Worlds and challenging for another medal."

Vonn was driven from Val d'Isere to Geneva, Switzerland, where she met a plane supplied by her sponsor, Red Bull.

-- Philip Hersh

Lindsey Vonn in stitches after gold medal celebration

Lindsey Vonn made it down the mountain at an average speed of 50 mph with no problem on Monday.

The celebration of her world title in the downhill several hours later was a bit more dangerous.

Vonn needed four stitches in her right thumb after cutting it while opening a Champagne bottle Monday night in Val d'Isere, France.

"I really think I'm safer skiing 85 miles per hour,"  Vonn said. "I'm in a little bit of pain, but this shouldn't slow me down."

Vonn's next race is the giant slalom on Thursday.

Any pain from the cut would probably be more of a factor during Saturday's slalom, because racers routinely whack their hands on gates in slalom races.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Lindsey Vonn celebrates after posting the fastest time in the women's downhill at the alpine skiing world championships in Val d'Isere, France, on Monday. Credit: Fel / Presse Sports via US Presswire

Bode Miller fails to finish in men's Super Combined

U.S. skier Bode Miller needed only a relatively conservative slalom run late this afternoon to win the gold in the men's Super Combined at the world championships in Val d'Isere, France, but instead missed a gate midway down the course and failed to finish.

Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, meanwhile, held onto his lead from the downhill leg to win the third world title of his career. France's Julien Lizeroux was second.

Stay tuned to Fabulous Forum and to latimes.com/sports for more coverage of the world championships.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Bode Miller struggles to keep his balance during the Super Combined race. He missed a gate and did not complete the race. Credit: Alessandro Trovati / Associated Press

Lindsey Vonn wins second gold, makes more history

She was bummed after learning she had missed a gate in the Super Combined slalom Saturday after a finish that apparently had won a silver medal.

She was bummed about the one-day delay in the women's downhill caused by relentless snow Sunday.

But it is a mark of just how confident Lindsey Vonn has become that she simply shrugged that off and put together a flawless run today to win the downhill title at the world championships in Val d'Isere, France.

"It was a tough day for me,'' Vonn said.  "We've had two days off, and I have kind of been thinking about the Super Combined, being disqualified there.

"I was actually really nervous in the start, but my husband was there, and he really calmed me down and got me in the right mood for fighting and attacking. That's what I did.''

It gave Vonn another place in the history books as the first U.S. woman to win more than one gold medal in a stand-alone worlds since the event began in 1931. (Andrea Mead Lawrence won two golds at the Olympics in 1952, when the Olympics counted as a worlds.) [The year of Andrea Mead Lawrence's double gold win was corrected at 2:30 p.m.]

It also tied Vonn, who won two silvers in 2007, with Tamara McKinney as the most decorated U.S. woman in worlds history (four medals).

"I live for a moment like today,'' she said after joining former U.S. skiers Picabo Street (1996) and Hilary Lindh (1997) as world downhill champions.

Meanwhile, Bode Miller put himself in contention for a medal in the Super Combined today with one of his typically hair-raising downhill runs. Miller somehow kept himself on the course at the top to finish just 4/100ths behind Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway.

France's Jean-Baptiste Grange, the World Cup slalom leader this season, was expected to be the leading challenger to Svindal and Vonn in the slalom leg later today after losing just 1.4 seconds in the downhill.

On a women's downhill course with just two compression bumps and little chance to glide in a tuck, Vonn's extraordinary ability to find the right line and hit the turns perfectly made the difference.

She finished .52 seconds ahead of Lara Gut, the 17-year-old Swiss phenom, and .57 ahead of Nadia Fanchini of Italy.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Lindsay Vonn. Credit: Pool photo / Getty Images

Philip Hersh: USA Swimming dry docks Phelps

Michael Phelps took a hit to his image far bigger than that to his net worth when USA Swimming announced Thursday that it was docking him financial support and declaring him ineligible to compete for three months, effective immediately, as a sanction for the bong photo.

The money involved is insignificant to the winner of 14 Olympic gold medals, and the suspension will not keep him from competing in July's U.S. trials for the 2009 world championships [updated with world championships on 2/6]

But this was a telling rap on the knuckles from a federation that had wallowed in his Beijing Games glory.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Michael Phelps trains on Thursday at Meadowbrook Aquatic Center in Baltimore -- wearing a "London 2012" swim cap. Credit: Rob Carr / Associated Press

Philip Hersh: Michael Phelps' problems aren't Olympian [updated]

I started thinking about this question Wednesday, but it really hit home after listening to U.S. Olympic Committee Chief Executive Jim Scherr talk about the USOC offering help to Michael Phelps.

Scherr raised the possibility that Phelps' two post-Olympic transgressions -- drunk driving in 2004, apparent marijuana use in 2008, both criminal offenses -- could be a "pattern of behavior.''

My question had been whether any other recent U.S. Olympic relative mega-star had gotten into trouble the way Phelps has while struggling to balance being young, rich, famous and fun-loving.

I concede an apples-and-oranges element to the question, because Phelps is the most famous U.S. Olympian in recent memory. He hit it big in an era when celebrity obsession has reached ludicrous proportions (and everyone with a camera phone is ready to capture and disseminate celebs' indiscretions). And he is becoming richer, in absolute terms, than anyone who preceded him in this category.

But I thought of the biggest U.S. Olympic stars of the ESPN age, some of whom got very wealthy from endorsements (snowboarder Shaun White), competition appearance fees (sprinter Carl Lewis), salaries and prize money (volleyballer Karch Kiraly) and speaking engagements (hockey player Mike Eruzione and swimmer Janet Evans), and I realized none had made a police blotter or been involved in a scandal.

My top-of-the-head list also included runner Michael Johnson; figure skaters Michelle Kwan, Scott Hamilton and Brian Boitano; soccer player Mia Hamm; basketball player Candace Parker; skier Picabo Street; and speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno.

Ohno and White, exemplify the youth culture Phelps embraces. Snowboarder White is the epitome of Gen X-through-Z sporting hip, and he makes a ton of money, and he

Has Michael Phelps puffed up his image?

A sports marketing expert at the University of Indianapolis says Michael Phelps may get an image bong ... oops, boost ... from the publication of a picture that shows him apparently using marijuana.

Associate Prof. Larry DeGaris, director of sports marketing at UIndy, says a taint of scandal might even burnish the Olympic champion’s image in some eyes, showing him as a human being with flaws rather than as a medal-winning robot.

“He’s been tagged as an uber-nerd, so this might give him an edge to keep in the public eye,” DeGaris says. “Other than the eight gold medals, he's a lot like many other young American men. And he’s humble enough to apologize when he makes a mistake, which might make him more trustworthy in the eyes of the public and, hence, a more effective product endorser."

DeGaris says this incident alone is unlikely to derail Phelps’ athletic career or lucrative sponsorship and endorsement deals. He bases that opinion in part of the International Olympic Committee's reaction, which expressed disappointment but no threat of sanctions.

"He got a pass from the IOC, so there are no immediate repercussions in terms of athletics,” says DeGaris, a consultant on sports sponsorship.

As of Tuesday morning, sponsors such as Speedo, Hilton Hotels and watchmaker Omega had expressed continuing support for Phelps, although others including Visa, Subway and Kellogg Co. had not yet addressed the issue.

But DeGaris noted the cautionary aspect of the story.

"This is a warning to all would-be celebrities in the age of digital cameras in phones. You're always under surveillance."

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Michael Phelps holds up a Chinese character, "niu," or ox, to mark the Year of the Ox during a promotional event in Beijing on Jan. 11. Credit: STR / AFP/Getty Images