Jessica Hardy still proving herself 1 year after drug suspension ended

Hardy still fighting in, out of pool after ban

IRVINE, Calif. — Jessica Hardy has a world record, a gold medal from the Pan Pacific championships and has traveled the world. What she’s missing is a trip to the Olympics.

Hardy won a spot on the American team for the Beijing Games, but she lost it after testing positive for clenbuterol at the U.S. trials in July 2008. She served a one-year suspension that ended last summer.

She’s been fighting ever since in the courts, in the pool and in her own mind for another chance at achieving what she calls “my main goal.”

In the water, she’s making progress, though she suffered a major setback Thursday night. The 23-year-old sprinter from Long Beach, Calif., led at the turn of the 100-meter breaststroke before fading to seventh at the U.S. national championships.

Hardy returned about 40 minutes later and finished sixth in the 50 freestyle.

“I regret how I approached both events,” she said, her voice shaky. “I overthought it. What happened was the result of my head and not my physical capacity.”

The top two finishers in each event earn spots on the U.S. team for the Pan Pacs later this month, the year’s only international meet. Doing well at nationals and at Pan Pacs could get Hardy on the American team for next year’s world championships in Shanghai, a major step toward the 2012 London Olympics.

“This is a big meet for me because I haven’t gotten to travel with the national team in a long time, since 2007,” she said. “At the same time, it’s not that big of a meet. It’s not the Olympics. I’m here to have fun and just see how I can do. Really it’s just nice to be here.”

That might be a cliche from any other swimmer. But Hardy says it with the hard-won conviction of someone who went from Olympic contender to persona non grata in a matter of weeks.

After her positive drug test left her off the Olympic team, Hardy struggled to get through each day. There were lots of tears. She had supporters, but plenty of detractors emerged, too.

“It doesn’t matter how I do in the pool because I’ve learned who’s going to be there for me,” she said. “There’s a lot of swimmers that are just looking out for themselves and are happy when you’re gone. Learning that the hard way (stunk), but it also made me really tough.”

A Court of Arbitration for Sport panel accepted she was not to blame for the failed test, and had unknowingly taken the banned anabolic agent in a contaminated food supplement.

In May, CAS in Lausanne, Switzerland, ruled in Hardy’s favor, siding with her claim that a contaminated supplement was to blame for her positive drug test and rejecting an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency to extend her suspension for another year.

CAS dismissed WADA’s appeal to lengthen the ban from one to two years, though it did leave one issue unresolved: whether Hardy may compete at the 2012 Olympics.

In the courts, she’s already been in contact with the International Olympic Committee. Hardy hopes that her absence from the 2008 Games will be seen as an appropriately harsh penalty for an unintentional doping violation.

“The legalities part of it I really have no control over. It’s 100 percent my attorneys that are fighting that war for me,” she said. “I just try to stay relaxed and not focus on it. I can control my work in the pool and my racing and that’s what I do, and stay optimistic and just have faith that the right thing will happen.”

Mentally, Hardy struggled when she first came back last August. She set the 100 breast world record in her first meet.

“I hadn’t heard someone say, ‘Take your mark,’ or put on a racing suit or I hadn’t raced in the new poly suits, so I was really, really stressed out,” she said. “Now I’m not stressed out. I’m happy and I’m confident and things are good.”

Hardy burst on the scene in 2004, winning a national title and setting her first world record in 2005, well before she tested positive.

“She didn’t just all of a sudden show up and you can attribute it to cheating,” her longtime coach Dave Salo said.

Hardy is one of three swimmers who’ve trained under Salo to test positive for banned substances. Kicker Vencil successfully sued a dietary supplement company for having contaminated vitamins that caused him to be suspended for two years in 2003. He won more than $500,000.

But the price both swimmers have paid is much higher.

“You’re always going to have that hanging over your head no matter what. It doesn’t matter that she’s been vindicated,” Salo said.

“She’s been training great for the last three years. She’s got to take one step at a time and just keep putting up the times and proving she’s the best.”

Hardy goes to the starting blocks these days with added incentive.

“I have a little bit more thirst having gone through my suspension than what most people have,” she said. “I feel like I need to prove to myself just how fast I can go.”