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While swimming is considered a cleaner sport than track and field, drugs have been a factor several times in the past few years: East Germany is now known to have doped its female champions for two decades; two years ago, seven Chinese team members were surprise-tested in Japan and found positive for the same drug--dehydrotestosterone--just days after winning 12 out of 16 gold medals at the world championships in Rome. In the past decade, several U.S. swimmers have tested positive, including Angel Martino, who won two individual bronzes and two relay golds last week, after having been kicked off the 1988 Olympic team. "Drug use is epidemic," says Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor of health policy and a critic of Olympic drug testing. "There's always doubt lingering in the background now."
Experts say tiny amounts of testosterone applied in patches and via skin cream are difficult to detect but can measurably boost strength and speed in women. Moreover, reliable tests have yet to be developed for two popular performance-enhancing substances: human growth hormone and erythropoietin (EPO), which kicks up the oxygen level in the body. Human-growth- hormone doping is well known in the Netherlands, where Smith lives and trains: several cyclists have died from its complications in recent years.
But as the week progressed, attention shifted back to swimming's newest stars: three American teenagers. "I was so excited, I was, like 'Wow!'" declared Baltimorean Beth Botsford, 15, after striking gold in the 100-m backstroke. Brooke Bennett, a 16-year-old Floridian, won the 800-m freestyle, leaving a tearful Janet Evans, the queen of long-distance swimming, in sixth place. The youngest U.S. medalist, California's Amanda Beard, 14--who had her parents bring her teddy bear to the stands--captured two individual silvers in the breaststroke and a relay gold.
Among the men, Jeff Rouse, 26, a Stanford graduate, struck gold in the 100-m backstroke--a medal that had eluded him in Barcelona--and rejoiced that he could no longer be called a choker. Brad Bridgewater, a 23-year-old Texan, won the 200-m backstroke; and Tom Dolan, the Michigan star whose struggle with asthma has made him one of the Games' heroes, captured a gold in the 400-m individual medley, even as his lungs seized up at the finish. Exhausted, he failed to medal in two other races. "My body just gave out," he said.
Americans set a world record in the men's 4x100-m medley relay but none in individual events. That was left to a Russian, Denis Pankratov, who swam the 100-m butterfly in 52.27 sec.; a Belgian, Fred DeBurghgraeve, who churned through the 100-m breaststroke in 1:00.60; and a South African, Penelope Heyns, who broke her own world record in the 100-m breaststroke at 1:07.02 and went on to win a second gold in the 200-m event--the first swimming medals won by South Africa since it was barred from the Games for its policies of apartheid. As Amy Van Dyken says, "An underdog can have a vicious bite."
--With reporting by David Thigpen/Atlanta