{"id":5700,"date":"2008-07-31T06:41:43","date_gmt":"2008-07-31T06:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/beijing-bound-beachians-the-lost-jessica-hardy-article-2\/"},"modified":"2008-07-31T06:41:43","modified_gmt":"2008-07-31T06:41:43","slug":"beijing-bound-beachians-the-lost-jessica-hardy-article-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/beijing-bound-beachians-the-lost-jessica-hardy-article-2","title":{"rendered":"Beijing-Bound Beachians?: The Lost Jessica Hardy Article"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: Two Sundays ago I wrote this article on Jessica Hardy, as part of my Beijing-Bound Beachians series.  It was scheduled to run today; obviously, five days ago, when it was revealed that Hardy had tested positive for Clenbuterol, that run date—along with a thousand other things—was called into question.  It is almost certain that Hardy will not be joining the USA Swim Team in Beijing.<\/span>

Still, the article is sitting on my desktop, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with it.  Since it’s the juxtaposition between her unbelievable potential and the sad reality of her slim chances to swim with her teammates is what strikes me as most interesting, I’ve decided to run the article, in full, after this note.  I have no idea what lies in the future for Hardy—my heart wishes with all its might that her test results (which were admittedly odd, with her positive sandwiched by two negatives) will be overturned, and she’ll be able to compete in the Olympics.  My head, however, a head that has watched hundreds of hours of banned substance coverage, warns me not to wish too hard…<\/span><\/p>\n

Jessica Hardy is a hard name to ignore in Long Beach aquatics history.  A graduate of Long Beach Wilson, Hardy set a world record in the 100m breaststroke while a senior there in 2005, which earned her the Swimming World High School Swimmer of the Year Award.  Hardy played water polo for Wilson as well, until deciding to quit after her sophomore year to focus on improving her swimming, commuting to USC to train with Coach Dave Salo, who still coaches Hardy.  Attending Berkeley, she won four NCAA championships in just two years, before leaving school to turn pro.  She holds another world record in the 50m breaststroke, and briefly held the American record for the 50m freestyle during the 2008 Olympic Trials before Dara Torres broke it in a later heat.<\/p>\n

If you’ve ever read Hardy’s quotes or met her in person, you know that she’s a huge fan of her hometown, listing it in her official US Team bio as her favorite city in the world.  2008 will be her first trip to the Olympics, after just barely missing the cut as a 17 year-old in 2004, when she faded down the stretch in the 100m breaststroke finals.  This year, after four years of intense endurance and strength training, Hardy had a very different Olympic Trials (she jokes on her blog about wishing they’d been held in Long Beach this time, though).  <\/p>\n

This year, she smashed some of her own personal bests, and was impressive enough to make it into competition in three separate events: the 50m freestyle, 100m breaststroke, and the 4×100 free relay.  The list of awards, honors, and accomplishments for Hardy is already laundry-list long, but it’s just missing one thing: Olympic gold.  Be sure to check back here for a complete Jessica Hardy (as well as all the other Long Beachian Olympians) TV Schedule so you can root on Hardy as she makes a name for herself, and, of course, her hometown.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5700"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5700"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}