More information about the competition, including results, psych sheets, and event schedules will be updated here closer to the competition.

Information about the competition can be found at the following link.

Jessica’s schedule is tentative and is subject to change at anytime.

You can find more information about the competition, including live streaming, results, psych sheets, and event schedules at the following link.

Jessica’s schedule is tentative and is subject to change at anytime.

Jessica has gone through one of the most difficult journeys in history to get the chance to qualify for “the Team,” and she appreciates the support from each and every one of you immensely. Information for the competition can be found at the link located below:

http://usaswimming.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabId=1450&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en

Jessica has gone through one of the most difficult journeys in history to get the chance to qualify for “the Team,” and she appreciates the support from each and every one of you immensely. Information for the competition can be found at the link located below:

http://www.london2012.com/

This was an excellent stepping-stone for Jessica in preparation for next month’s US Olympic trials!

Results, interviews, and news about the 2012 Charlotte Grand Prix can be found at the following link.

Jessica’s reaction after winning the 50-meter freestyle:

Today’s Olympians and Paralympians have expressed a deep interest in humanitarianism – in giving back through a wide variety of social and civic causes. America’s athletes are looking for ways to make a difference in the world and to gain an even deeper meaning out of representing the United States as an Olympic or Paralympic athlete.

In 2008, Team for Tomorrow welcomed 10 Athlete Ambassadors to launch the program. The USOC donated 1,000 relief tents to survivors of the May 12 earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province that left approximately 5 million people homeless. After the Games, Team for Tomorrow organized Olympic and Paralympic athletes in a nationwide effort to assist families in need in the United States by donating service hours to building houses with Habitat for Humanity.

In 2010, Olympians and Paralympians again got involved in the Team for Tomorrow program by volunteering for Habitat for Humanity build days and visiting local schools and hospitals to talk about their experiences. Also, the USOC donated nearly 25,000 items of athletic apparel and equipment to youth in Afghanistan, Guinea, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia to give impoverished children the opportunity to use sport and play to help aid their health and development.

ATHLETE AMBASSADORS
For 2012, a new class of Athlete Ambassadors is leading the charge for this impactful humanitarian initiative by serving as advocates and supporters of the fund. This select group of U.S. Olympians and Paralympians acts as champions and captains of Team for Tomorrow on behalf of the entire U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams. Team for Tomorrow Athlete Ambassadors for the 2012 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams represent several sports on the Olympic platform as well as U.S. Paralympics.

• Tony Azevedo, water polo
• Rachel Dawson, field hockey
• Anjali Forber-Pratt, Paralympic track & field
• Rudy Garcia-Tolson, Paralympic swimming
• Jessica Hardy, swimming
• Gwen Jorgensen, triathlon
• Tim Morehouse, fencing
• David Oliver, track & field
• Heather O’Reilly, soccer
• Mary Whipple, rowing

CAUSES
1. Giving back to those in need
Leading up to and following the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Athlete Ambassadors will lead the charge in encouraging their fellow Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls and NGBs to visit children’s hospitals and schools across the country. At these visits, athletes will discuss their journey through sport, the Olympic Ideals and how kids can follow the magic of the Games. In addition, they will donate digital cameras and laptops on behalf of Team for Tomorrow.

2. YMCA, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and other youth organizations
Athlete Ambassadors will donate service hours to various YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and other youth organizations in local communities. Volunteer hours will include helping with afterschool activities, leading sport clinics and speaking to children about the importance of living an active and healthy lifestyle.

For more information, visit the Team for Tomorrow page on TeamUSA.org.

First the dry-land drama: A positive drug test kept Hardy out of the 2008 Olympics — after she qualified for the U.S. Olympic team — and out of competition for one year. It was clenbuterol, the same prevalent performance-enhancing stimulant that stripped cyclist Alberto Contador of his 2010 Tour de France title. Last week, major league pitcher Guillermo Mota received a 100-game suspension after testing positive for clenbuterol a second time. Contador blamed bad beef. Mota’s agent cited children’s cough syrup.

Hardy argued that a contaminated supplement caused her positive. Two arbitration panels agreed it was accidental. Her suspension was reduced from two years to one, but she still went into what she called survival mode. In a March espnW blog titled “I’m getting better, not bitter,” she wrote she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression during the ban.

Back in the pool, she persevered, breaking two world records in her 2009 comeback meet. The energetic, blonde Californian, “the thoroughbred” as her coach describes her, swims unlike anybody else in the world. Perhaps unlike anybody else ever. Not because of how fast she can swim — though she still holds those records — but for the way Hardy goes about it. She specializes in two strokes — breaststroke and freestyle — that are Jets and Sharks in terms of technique.

Michael Phelps and Dana Vollmer are elite in both the butterfly and freestyle. Ryan Lochte and Natalie Coughlin excel in the backstroke and freestyle. But no current man or woman can copy Hardy’s double.

“If you go back in the history of swimming,” NBC and Universal Sports analyst Rowdy Gaines said, “you can probably name them on one hand.”
Gaines said the breaststroke can’t be learned, at least not the breakneck way Hardy does it. She owns the world record in the 50-meter breast (29.80), not an Olympic event, and the 100 breast (1:04.45). Both times came while wearing the now-banned high-tech suits.

So Hardy was born a breaststroker. But she also developed into one of the best U.S. sprint freestylers over the last five years, winning the 50 and 100 free at the 2011 winter nationals. She’ll show that versatility at this weekend’s Charlotte UltraSwim, the next-to-last USA Swimming Grand Prix before the Olympic trials (June 25-July 2).

Hardy will swim the 50 and 100 breast, 50 and 100 free and, for kicks, the 50 butterfly in Charlotte. She tapped the 100 breast, 50 free and 100 free for Omaha’s trials, opening the door for five events including relays at the Olympics.

Problem is, Europeans own the 50 and 100 free. The top-placing U.S. women were eighth (Hardy) and seventh (Vollmer), respectively, in those events at the 2011 world championships.

In the 100 breast, Hardy’s training mate, world champion Rebecca Soni, has bested Hardy 11 times since those fast suits were outlawed. That’s shaping up as a two-woman race at both the U.S. trials and the Olympics, but Hardy is currently the 1b to Soni’s 1a.

Neither Hardy nor her coach, Dave Salo, has considered dropping one stroke to benefit medal prospects in the other. It just doesn’t work that way. Salo has his swimmers practice multiple strokes to mix it up.
“I was exclusively a breaststroker for most of my career,” said Hardy, 25, who didn’t swim the freestyle at a consistent, elite level until reuniting with the breaststroke guru Salo in 2007 after two years at the University of California. “Now having the opportunity to do both, I think it’s such a better position. There are days, like in breaststroke, I pull my groin once a month and I can’t kick breaststroke. If I were just a breaststroker, I would be super frustrated, but that’s an opportunity to strengthen my kick in freestyle when that happens. And I learn a lot about my breaststroke technique from training freestyle and vice versa.”

Hardy is part of Salo’s stable of breaststrokers at the Trojan Swim Club at the University of Southern California. So is four-time male Olympic breaststroke champion Kosuke Kitajima of Japan, as well as American record-holder and cancer survivor Eric Shanteau and Soni. In the pool, Salo separates Hardy and Soni.

“They don’t train together,” Salo said. “They train in the same pool at the same time, but they’re very, very different athletes. Jessica is kind of like that quarter horse, that thoroughbred quarter horse, all out for a quarter of a mile. Rebecca tends to be the mudder. She’s in there. She keeps progressing. … I don’t put them up against each other. I think that would be the worst thing to do.”

Hardy agrees. She said she swims 70 percent freestyle against 30 percent breaststroke in practice. If she makes it to London, more unique circumstances could come up. Her best shot at an individual medal, the 100 breast final, falls on the same night as the men’s 200 free final. No, she’s not especially interested in the Phelps-Lochte showdown. She hopes to have her eye on Switzerland’s best, Dominik Meichtry.

Meichtry is Hardy’s fiancé. He proposed during a Malibu beach sunset in March (“I was totally caught off guard,” Hardy said. “I don’t even remember what he said.”). Meichtry’s 200 free in 2008 was the only Olympic swimming Hardy saw on TV, and she might have to scurry from a pool to a monitor in the London Aquatics Centre to watch him again this summer.

The final night of swimming could be even more hectic, as two of Hardy’s potential five events are on the docket: the 50 free and 4×100 medley relay. You may remember 41-year-old Dara Torres doing that double in Beijing, rushing so fast from the 50 free medal ceremony that she was still putting on her swim cap at the starting blocks for the relay.

If Hardy makes the U.S. team in both events and reaches those Olympic finals, which won’t be easy, she’s prepared for that quick turnaround. Common meets often put a breaststroke back to back with a freestyle because nobody is equipped to excel in both strokes. Well, almost nobody.
“I definitely don’t feel like it’s going to be easy, but I think it’s going to be worth it,” Hardy said of her planned trials and Olympic schedule. “I’m happy that it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be a challenge.”

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/nick_zaccardi/05/09/jessica-hardy-swimming-london-olympics/index.html#ixzz1uzYO9faU

The asterisk, of course, signifies the fact that after she made the Beijing squad she tested positive for a banned substance and was forced to withdraw her roster spot. A suspension and months of appeals followed.
“The worst part was not being able to compete, especially compete at the Olympics,” Hardy said by phone this week, minutes after finishing a workout at the Trojan Swim Club in Southern California. “But I was suspended for competing from the Olympics until missing the next World Championships for something that I didn’t intentionally do.”

Hardy’s claim of innocence – she said a tainted supplement was to blame for the positive test for clenbuterol – was verified by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in May 2010, and a year later she was given the all-clear to compete in London if she qualifies. Further helping to heal her mental scars was her longtime boyfriend Dominik Meichtry, who proposed to her in March. Meichtry competes for Switzerland but trains with Hardy in Los Angeles.

Heading into the 2012 Games, Hardy – a sprint freestyler and breaststroke specialist – boasts more speed and drive than she ever has in the pool. “I’m not looking for revenge,” she claims, but an experience like the one she endured does not easily go away.

“It wasn’t in my control that that happened in 2008, but it is in my control to prepare myself as best I can to have a good summer,” she said.
Talking to the 25-year-old Hardy almost gives you a better appreciation for professional swimmers. For one, she’s not like everyone else. Instead of swimming up and down the pool for hours at a time just to tack on yardage, Hardy focuses more on speed work and technique. Her coach Dave Salo’s style is to go with quality yardage as opposed to quantity.
It seems to be working.

In long-course meets, Hardy won four gold medals at the 2010 Pan-Pacs, and a gold and silver at the 2011 Worlds. Short-course wise, Hardy cleaned up on the 2009 FINA World Cup circuit, breaking four world records en route to winning the overall title.

Hardy is “pretty beat up” at the moment because she’s at the hardest part of her training cycle, but she knows the work she’s put in is all for one reason: winning Olympic gold. She’ll contend in the 50m/100m freestyle and the 100m breaststroke at Trials, and her goal is to compete in those three events plus two relays – the 4x100m freestyle and the 4x100m medley – in London.

“Breaststroke for me has been an up and down type thing the past couple years because it’s very much technically driven. … I’m really happy where it is [now]. My freestyle is very much just a strength stroke. I just need to be strong and [use] brute force through that event.

In the breaststroke and the medley relay, Hardy will have to get through fellow American – and training mate – Rebecca Soni, who won the 100m breast at the 2009 Worlds and both the 100m and 200m breast in 2011. In Beijing she was first in the 200m and second in the 100m.

Training with your biggest competitor might not be the most ideal situation for everyone, and having a doping past – whatever the outcome may be – certainly can’t help. Not to Hardy.

“I think my past has made me a better athlete,” she said. “It’s a positive experience to get to try to do it again this summer.”
If everything works out, Hardy will have her first Olympic experience this summer. And no asterisk will be necessary.

via NBCOlympics.com

And a few memorable quotes from the interview that didn’t make the story can be found here.