Dara Torres to have major reconstructive leg surgery

 

Five-time Olympic swimmer Dara Torres announced today that she will be having major leg surgery soon and will need at least 18 month to recover.

Torres, 42, told the Associated Press that she will have the reconstructive procedure Oct. 20 in Boston. Her shinbone will be broken to create more room for cartilage to grow around her kneecap.

While admitting she's a bit "freaked out" about having such a major operation, Torres said it could actually give her more motivation to come back for the 2012 London Olympics. She won three silver medals at the Beijing Games last year, but failed to make the top three at this year's world championships in Rome.

Photo: Dara Torres. Credit: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press

USA Swimming bans high-tech bodysuits, effective Oct. 1

USA Swimming, meeting in Chicago, voted to impose an early ban on the controversial high-tech bodysuits.

The ban will start Oct. 1.

FINA, the international governing body of swimming, is poised to implement the same measures, but not until the start of 2010.

"As an organization, we have been working with FINA and other swimming nations to find a solution that will ensure a fair and even playing field for all swimmers, and that will ultimately advance the best interests of our sport," said USA Swimming's executive director, Chuck Wielgus, said in a statement.

Today's action came at the organization's yearly convention. 

Guess Shaquille O'Neal won’t have the chance to wear the high-tech suit should Michael Phelps ever grant him a rematch, assuming Shaq’s reality show lives to survive another season.

Kidding aside, the high-tech suits threatened the integrity of the sport and made a mockery of the record book this summer at the World Championships in Rome. There were 43 world records in Rome, most of them coming in the water-resistant body suits.

-- Lisa Dillman

Photo: Michael Phelps gets set to race at the U.S. championships in July. Credit: Michael Conroy / Associated Press

Question of the day: About Michael Phelps ...

Question: Did Michael Phelps' five gold medals at the world swimming championships successfully rehabilitate his image after the marijuana pipe incident?

Here's Times' columnist Kurt Streeter's take:

"I never thought his reputation was all that tarnished to begin with, certainly not in a way that can't largely be repaired. Phelps was caught smoking marijuana, and our society just doesn't view smoking pot the way it views, say, steroids. Filling the lungs with smoke hardly enhances swimming performance. And way more people smoke marijuana than use steroids. Still, he broke the law. Marijuana is a banned substance in international sport. We have a way to judge him. So long as he doesn't test dirty after Rome, given the benign way marijuana is viewed, most sports fans will be very willing to move on."

Do you have an opinion? We'd like your comments.

-- Mike Hiserman

Photo: Michael Phelps. Photo credit: Domenico Stinellis / Associated Press.

Swimming: FINA bodysuit ban begins Jan. 1

ROME -- Bob Bowman did something that occurs about as often as Michael Phelps losing a big race.

The coach of Michael Phelps got the aging autocrats over at FINA, the governing body of international swimming, to move with amazing speed. Less than three days after Bowman threatened to keep Phelps out of international meets until the swimsuit mess was resolved, well, FINA offered a solution.

It announced today at the World Championships that the ban on the controversial high-tech swimsuits will start Jan. 1, rather than spilling over until April or May, a possibility that threatened to disrupt 2010.

FINA has also put together a scientific committee to approve the suits. The names were not released but  USA Swimming's executive director Chuck Wielgus said that he has been assured by FINA that there will be at least U.S. scientist on the panel.

Michael Phelps: Turning back the page

ROME --The Great Stroke Experiment is over.

By mutual decision, Michael Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman, are putting that relatively new windmill, straight-arm stroke -- designed for sprinting -- right back on the shelf.

"It actually was [mutual]. It's funny, as often happens, he came out and said the same thing," Bowman said this morning at the World Championships. "He said, 'I don't think this is working.' I said, 'You're right.' Experiment failed. Next."

Phelps told Bowman that on Sunday night, almost immediately after his opening leg in the winning 400-meter freestyle relay.

"It's as much my fault as his that he didn't go better," Bowman said.

Said Phelps after the morning prelims of the 200 freestyle, in which he had the second-fastest time: "We tried something, and it didn't work. We weren't 100% confident, or comfortable, with it. So now I guess it's back to the old stroke. My old stroke was kind off a little bit, but I felt better this morning and felt smooth this morning."

Bowman broke down the problem with the stroke on Sunday night after the relay.

"When I look at it, I see this kind-of stroke," he said. "He's not really doing this new stroke. He's not really doing the old stroke. I'd say we're going back to the old stroke. It's the last time he's doing that."

-- Lisa Dillman

Photo: Michael Phelps competes in the Men's 200m Freestyle Heats during the 13th FINA World Championships on July 27, 2009 in Rome, Italy. Photo credit: Al Bello / Getty Images.

Upon further review

Uh, about that swimming world record yesterday in Sydney ...

Apparently, Therese Alshammar of Sweden didn't get the memo about the ban on wearing multiple swimsuits. FINA's new regulations were passed over the weekend and received world-wide publicity.

(We all know Australia is really really far away but when we last looked, the Internet did reach Down Under)

Alshammar wore two swimsuits and broke the world record in the 50-meter butterfly at the Australian championships, and officials disqualified her a few hours later. She said she was unaware of the new regulations and told Nicole Jeffrey of the Australian newspaper: "I'm still happy with the swim -- it's just a technicality in my eyes."

-- Lisa Dillman

Photo: Therese Alshammar's offending swimwear can be seen on her back following her race in the 50-meter butterfly at the Australian championships. Credit: EPA

FINA: Cleaning up Dodge

So we won't get to see Michael Phelps trying to worm his way into two or three high-tech swimsuits at the World Championships in Rome in the summer.

Not that he would have tried it. As Gary Hall Jr. once said, Phelps could set world records in cutoff shorts.

But some of his swimming colleagues had been doing that sort of thing -- wiggling into multiple suits -- in what was shaping up to be a crazy, almost unregulated era after last year's Beijing Olympics. "Oh, it's been the Wild West -- way Wild West," USA Swimming's Mark Schubert told me in a telephone interview last month.

Law and order -- well, sort of -- showed up in the Wild West today with word from FINA of new rules regulating the high-tech suits. FINA, the international governing body of swimming, made its announcement after three days of meetings in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

The move was expected after a series of recommendations proposed last month after FINA met with 16 swimsuit manufacturers in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The rules in place, which will be in effect for the World Championships in July, include a maximum buoyancy effect, a maximum thickness, limited coverage areas (suits would not extend past the shoulders or ankles and would end below the neck), and restricting swimmers to wearing one suit at a time.

FINA also said that suits of an approved model could not be customized for individual swimmers.

The governing body stated it would continue to monitor "the evolution of the sport equipment with the main objective of keeping the integrity of the sport."

-- Lisa Dillman

Photo: Michael Phelps models a Speedo LZR racer swimsuit. Credit: Kathy Willens / Associated Press

Michael Phelps speaks to Matt Lauer

Record-setting Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps has done an in-depth interview with NBC's Matt Lauer that will air on Friday's "Today" show and Sunday's "Dateline" program (7 p.m.).

Phelps speaks to Lauer about the episode recorded by camera phone and eventually publicized by an  English tabloid newspaper where he was smoking from a bong pipe typically used by those smoking marijuana.

Among many questions Lauer asks is one most pointed: "I have to ask you, were you smoking pot?" Lauer says.

The Phelps answer: "It was a bad mistake.  I mean, we all know what, you know, what you and I are talking about.  It's a stupid mistake.  You know, bad judgment.  And it's something that, you know, I have to, and I want to teach other people not to make that mistake."

Well, Phelps certainly didn't leave any, you know, smoking guns with that answer.

-- Diane Pucin

Olympic Committee, sponsors comment on Michael Phelps

USA Swimming, the International Olympic Committee and two sponsors weigh in on the Michael Phelps situation, in which he is seen in a published photograph sucking on a bong:

IOC: "Michael Phelps is a great Olympic champion. He apologized for his inappropriate behavior. We have no reason to doubt his sincerity and his commitment to continue to act as a role model.''

USA Swimming: "We are certainly disappointed in Michael's behavior. Our Olympic champions are role models who are looked up to by people of all ages, especially young athletes who have their own aspirations and dreams. That said, we realize that none among us is perfect. We hope Michael can learn from this incident and move forward in a positive way.''

Speedo (which gave Phelps a $1-million bonus for his eight  gold medals): "In light of Michael Phelps' statement yesterday, Speedo would like to make it clear it does not condone such behavior, and we know that Michael truly regrets his actions.  Michael Phelps is a valued member of the Speedo team and a great champion.  We will do all that we can to support him and his family.''

Omega:  The Associated Press reported the watch company was "strongly committed'' to its relationship with Phelps. "The current story in the press involves Michael Phelps' private life and is, as far as Omega is concerned, a non-issue.''

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Michael Phelps, seen here during a news conference last week in Saudi Arabia. Credit: Hassan Ammar / Associated Press

For Michael Phelps, another behavior issue

Michael Phelps is at least as tech savvy as most people in his generation.  He certainly knows that 1) almost every person his age carries a cellphone and that 2) nearly every one of those phones has a camera.

Yet Phelps, surprisingly, either did not know about or chose to ignore the ramifications of all those camera phones: A celebrity whose tens of millions in sponsorship money depends on image cannot do anything stupid in public, because someone will have taken a picture or video of the indiscretion.

And not all those people will feel inclined to let what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas.

So it was that a picture of Phelps sucking on a bong showed up in Sunday’s editions of the low-rent British tabloid News of the World in a story headlined, "WHAT A DOPE."

Such pipes generally are used to smoke cannabis in the form of marijuana or hashish.

We don’t know (yet?) what was in this pipe, which the newspaper said was being used during a Nov. 6 house party at the University of South Carolina.

But we do know this is a real picture (not something digitally created), because Phelps’ management company, Octagon, did not claim otherwise when it issued a statement for him Sunday morning.
Phelps’ statement:

"I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment.  I’m 23 years old, and despite the successes I have had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect from me.   For this, I am sorry.  I promise my fans and the public -- it will not happen again."

But that doesn’t deal with at least two issues.

1. If there was cannabis in the bong, Phelps has used a drug on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list. Though cannabis is a banned substance only if used in competition, we are talking about image here.

2. If it was cannabis, this is not the first substance case involving Phelps, and the other was more serious, even if it involved alcohol rather than an illegal drug.  In December 2004, he got 18 months' probation after pleading guilty to drunk driving.  He was just 19 when that occurred in Maryland, where it was also illegal for Phelps to have been drinking.

While it is hardly a surprise to find marijuana being used at a college party, it is illegal.  For Phelps to put himself in a position that someone can photograph him doing whatever he was doing in South Carolina shows that his maturity level has yet to catch up to his bank account.  Just like his having been photographed a few months ago fondling strippers in Las Vegas -- nothing illegal about that, but probably not a picture that delights the companies he endorses.

Bad judgment is not a crime, but repeated bad judgment carries its own punishment.  Yes, Hollywood stars act far worse, but Phelps owes his celebrity to the special glow that comes from being an Olympic champion.

No wonder the U.S. Olympic Committee said Sunday it was "disappointed'' in Phelps' behavior and that he "failed to fulfill (the) responsibilities'' that come with "setting a positive example for others.''

Phelps had become a star after winning six gold medals (and eight total medals) at the 2004 Olympics.  He turned into a megastar after the eight in Beijing.

Sponsors accepted Phelps’ apologies after the 2004 incident, especially because Octagon wisely got out ahead of the story by having him call several U.S. reporters to express his contrition.

Who knows if they will be so forgiving this time?

-- Philip Hersh