I saw an article on Swimming World's website about Jessica Hardy
testing positive for clenbuterol and being removed from the Olympic
team:
http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/18617.asp
http://swimnews.com/News/displayStory.jhtml?action=get&id=6234

I think the recent top billing NBC made for swimming in the recent
Trials was partially based on the impression the swimming was "clean"
as compared to track (Jones, et al). And part of the attention was for
Micheal Phelps too, but if swimming starts looking dirty like track
and baseball then we will probably never get prime time coverage in
the US again. :(

Splish wrote:
> I saw an article on Swimming World's website about Jessica Hardy
> testing positive for clenbuterol and being removed from the Olympic
> team:
> http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/18617.asp
> http://swimnews.com/News/displayStory.jhtml?action=get&id=6234
>
> I think the recent top billing NBC made for swimming in the recent
> Trials was partially based on the impression the swimming was "clean"
> as compared to track (Jones, et al). And part of the attention was for
> Micheal Phelps too, but if swimming starts looking dirty like track
> and baseball then we will probably never get prime time coverage in
> the US again. :(

It's certainly a blow. Unfortunately these things are made out to be bigger than
they really are by the media. One case isn't reflective of swimming in general,
and it sounds like a contentious case anyway, with one positive test sandwiched
between negative tests. One positive test is also a long way from proof that
Hardy deliberately cheated, even though the rules, which have to be tough,
ignore that reality.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I do believe that US swimming and Australian swimming are
largely clean, though I base this largely on intuition about the personalities
of some of the swimmers, including WR holders.