Armstrong Drops Fight Against Doping Charges
New York Times
By Juliet Macur
August 24, 2012

After more than a decade of outrunning accusations that he had doped during his celebrated cycling career, Lance Armstrong, one of the best known and most accomplished athletes in recent history, surrendered on Thursday, ending his fight against charges that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

Armstrong, who won the Tour de France an unprecedented seven straight times, said that he would not continue to contest the charges levied against him by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which claimed that he doped and was one of the ringleaders of systematic doping on his Tour-winning teams.

He continued to deny ever doping, calling the antidoping agency’s case against him “an unconstitutional witch hunt” and saying the process it followed to deal with his matter was “one-sided and unfair.”

“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” Armstrong said in a statement. “For me, that time is now.”

Armstrong, who turns 41 next month, said he would not contest the charges because it had taken too much of a toll on his family and his work for his cancer foundation, saying he was “finished with this nonsense.”

Armstrong’s decision, according to the World Anti-Doping Code, means he will be stripped of his seven Tour titles, the bronze medal he won at the 2000 Olympics and all other titles, awards and money he won from August 1998 forward.

It also means he will be barred for life from competing, coaching or having any official role with any Olympic sport or other sport that follows the World Anti-Doping Code. “It’s a sad day for all of us who love sport and our athletic heroes,” Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said. “It’s yet another heartbreaking example of how the win-at-all-costs culture, if left unchecked, will overtake fair, safe and honest competition.”

As in many other high-profile doping cases — including that of the Olympic sprinter Marion Jones and other athletes involved in the sprawling Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative case, known as Balco — Tygart and the antidoping agency were basing their case not on a positive drug test but rather on other supporting evidence. Armstrong seized on that in his statement.

He said again and again that he had never tested positive — though he did test positive at the 1999 Tour for a corticosteroid, for which he produced a backdated doctor’s prescription.

Armstrong also said the case against him was flimsy without that physical evidence.

“Regardless of what Travis Tygart says, there is zero physical evidence to support his outlandish and heinous claims,” Armstrong said. “The only physical evidence here is the hundreds of controls I have passed with flying colors.”

But even without a positive test, the antidoping agency appeared set to move forward with arbitration. It claimed to have more than 10 eyewitnesses who would testify that Armstrong used banned blood transfusions, the blood booster EPO, testosterone and other drugs to win the Tour. Some of Armstrong’s closest teammates, including George Hincapie — one of the most respected American riders — were also expected to testify against him.

The antidoping agency also said it had blood test results of Armstrong’s from 2009 and 2010 that were consistent with doping.

This is not the first time a top cyclist has suffered such a career implosion — it has been common in cycling in recent years, as doping has crippled the sport. Several recent Tour de France champions have been found guilty of doping, including the American rider Floyd Landis and Alberto Contador of Spain. But none of them had the stature of Armstrong.

Although it is possible that the International Cycling Union, the world’s governing body for cycling, will appeal his suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport because it had battled over jurisdiction over this case, Armstrong’s choice to accept his sanction tarnishes the athletic achievements of an athlete who inspired millions with his story of cancer survival.

On Friday in Switzerland, the cycling union said in a statement that it would take no action until American officials presented their case to the association, and that it would have “no further comment” until that time.

Armstrong was already a world-champion cyclist when he was found to have testicular cancer in 1996, at 25. He overcame the odds to beat the disease. He then showed amazing strength and resilience by returning to cycling to win the Tour in 1999, gaining a mass of followers with almost a gravitational pull. They idolized him for showing that cancer could not stop him.

His legion of fans grew each year after that, and each year he won the Tour for them, turning himself into a star that transcended sports.

But in the shadows of his wild success were accusations that he had doped to win. In 1999, he tested positive for a banned corticosteroid on his way to winning his first Tour.

In 2004, the book “L.A. Confidential,” published only in French, linked Armstrong to doping, including claims by his team’s former massage therapist that he had asked her for makeup to hide needle tracks on his arm because they were evidence of his doping. In 2005, a former personal assistant claimed he found a steroid in Armstrong’s medicine cabinet.

Also in the mid-2000s, a French newspaper reported that six of Armstrong’s urine samples from the 1999 Tour had tested positive retroactively for the banned blood booster EPO. The strict standards for laboratory testing were not followed on those samples, so nothing ever came of those results.

Through the years, the accusations became more and more entangled. A Texas-based insurance company tried to withhold a $5 million performance bonus from Armstrong for his victory at the 2004 Tour because it said Armstrong had doped. Armstrong won a settlement.

In testimony in that case, Armstrong’s former teammate, Frankie Andreu, and Andreu’s wife, Betsy, said they had overheard Armstrong admitting to doctors when he was undergoing cancer treatment that he had used steroids, human growth hormone and EPO while cycling.

The accusations followed Armstrong wherever he went, but gained pace in recent years, though Armstrong’s last Tour victory continued to fade into the horizon.

Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour title for doping, in 2010 accused Armstrong of doping and being involved in a doping scheme while the two were teammates. Last year, Tyler Hamilton — another Armstrong top lieutenant — told CBS that Armstrong and others on Armstrong’s teams were involved in a complex doping scheme that involved code words and secret cellphones.

Through it all, Armstrong denied doping. Even a two-year federal investigation into Armstrong that examined possible doping-related crimes seemed to come up empty. It folded earlier this year with no charges brought.

Armstrong, who retired from cycling last year, was not as fortunate this time.

He could have chosen to go to arbitration, which would have meant that witnesses could testify against him in a hearing possibly open to the public. Instead, he chose to bow out of the process.

In doing so, he emphasized that his Tour victories would always be his.

“I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won those seven Tours, and everyone I competed against knows who won those seven Tours,” Armstrong said, adding: “The toughest event in the world, where the strongest man wins. Nobody can ever change that.”

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Floyd Landis Must Reimburse Donors
ESPN
By Bonnie Ford
August 24, 2012

Floyd Landis, who lost his 2006 Tour de France title to a doping conviction, will be arraigned Friday morning in U.S. District Court in San Diego on a single count of wire fraud related to fundraising for his legal defense, but under an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, his case will be dismissed if he repays donors within three years.

The deferred prosecution agreement sets out conditions under which Landis could make restitution of nearly a half-million dollars to those who contributed to the long-defunct Floyd Fairness Fund — provided that he is able to earn income himself. It also enables him to lower that liability by seeking waivers from donors who don’t want their money back.

If Landis complies with the terms of the agreement, he will avoid a felony conviction and bring to an end the convoluted legal saga that began six years ago when he denied ever having used performance-enhancing drugs after testing positive for synthetic testosterone at the 2006 Tour de France. In 2010, he confessed to having doped then and throughout much of his career.

“I’m glad to have a concrete procedure for repayment in place,” Landis told ESPN.com on Thursday. “For me, taking the step of making restitution to the donors who were misled back then is one more step in righting the wrong choices I made and allows me to turn the page and to focus on what’s next in life for me.

“I can never undo what happened, but to the extent that there are ways such as this that I can try to rectify things, I’ll be more able to focus on the future and living an honest life after having done them.”

The core of the charge is straightforward, according to the document to be signed in court Friday: Landis “knowingly participated in a scheme or plan to defraud … money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises.” Had he told the truth about his past, extensive use of doping, the prosecutors reasoned, at least some donors would not have been willing to help fund his defense.

Assistant U.S. attorneys Phillip Halpern and Peter Mazza, who handled the case, said they would reserve comment until after Landis appears in court.

Landis is scheduled to appear before Judge Jan M. Adler on Friday morning.

The FFF was established in late 2006 as a trust for Landis’ benefit to defray his costs, which totaled close to $2 million and exhausted his own savings. He and his advisers held a series of town meeting-style fundraisers during which they attacked not only the specifics of his own case but the system for adjudicating anti-doping cases as a whole.

Some 1,500 donors whose contributions totaled $478,354 were identified through financial records detailing payments by check and PayPal accounts to the FFF, which was closed in late 2007.

Landis said he knows of several large donors who do not want to be repaid. Those who do will be reimbursed through the court, which in turn will collect a portion of Landis’ earnings depending on how much he makes. He will be obligated to fully disclose his financial assets to the court.

If Landis and his lawyer, Leo Cunningham, had not reached the agreement with federal prosecutors, Landis could have faced up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and mandatory restitution to all victims.

Landis unsuccessfully contested doping sanctions through two rounds of arbitration and served a two-year suspension. He returned to professional cycling in 2009 but was unable to regain his prior form or find a job with a top-level team despite making overtures to several elite organizations, including the team then led by Lance Armstrong.

Landis rode in support of three of Armstrong’s Tour victories with the U.S. Postal Service team from 2002-04, but rode the 2006 Tour for Switzerland-based Phonak.

Publicly, Landis continued to maintain that he had been unfairly convicted, but that façade began to crack in early 2010, when he emailed various figures in the cycling industry saying he was prepared to confess to his own doping past and air what he said he knew about organized doping on Armstrong’s Postal teams. The emails were leaked to various media outlets that May, and in an interview with ESPN.com, Landis admitted he had used performance-enhancing substances and techniques for several years.

Armstrong has consistently denied doping allegations leveled by Landis and others, but on Thursday night, he dropped any further challenges to U.S. Anti-Doping Agency allegations that he took performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour from 1999-2005.

As a result, USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said the agency will ban Armstrong from cycling for life and strip him of his seven Tour titles.

Landis’ confession and allegations, which he also made in separate interviews with officials from the USADA and government investigators, prompted Los Angeles-based federal authorities to expand an ongoing probe of doping in U.S. professional cycling and focus on Armstrong and his associates. Landis cooperated with investigators, and at one juncture, agreed to wear a wire to aid in gathering evidence on one former team owner not associated with Armstrong.

That investigation was dropped last February without explanation by Andre Birotte Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California — a different jurisdiction than the Southern District, where the fraud investigation into Landis was conducted by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office.

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Denied Olympic Gold By Doping Rival, Valerie Adams Seeks Her Rightful Medal At IOC
Associated Press
August 24, 2012

Valerie Adams is the only champion from the London Olympics who never received a gold medal — and she’s going to see about that Friday.

The shot put winner said Thursday she will hand over her silver at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, and find out about getting the gold that was taken by disgraced rival Nadzeya Ostapchuk.

Ostapchuk tested positive for a banned steroid and was disqualified in the biggest doping scandal at the London Games.

However, the Belarus athlete has pledged to appeal, making Adams wait for her prize.

“I don’t care what she does. I’m giving back my silver medal to get the gold,” Adams told reporters after winning her event at the Athletissima Diamond League event, close by the IOC offices.

“It’s been a roller-coaster ride for me since London. It’s been not the easiest,” the 27-year-old New Zealander acknowledged.

Adams went to the Olympics strongly favored to defend her title, and as a three-time world champion.

Yet Ostapchuk upset the form book beating Adams. Ostapchuk has denied that her performance was enhanced by drugs.

“A lot of people asked a lot of questions of her,” Adams said Thursday, her pleasure in victory mixed with obvious frustration at Ostapchuk’s behavior. “She can appeal as much as she wants. I don’t want to waste any more breath or time on her.

“I’m here, I’m the Olympic champion whether she likes it or not and that’s the truth. That’s just it.”

Adams had wanted to receive her gold in Lausanne, where her winning effort was 25 centimeters better than her best in London.

“Tonight I wanted to go out there, have fun, win the competition and have a smile on my face,” said Adams, who trains in Switzerland and regards Athletissima and the Weltklasse meet in Zurich next week as home fixtures.

She would be happy to receive her medal when 26,000 fans pack the Letzigrund stadium at Zurich next Thursday — even if it falls short of the podium moment she lost before 80,000 spectators in London.

“I want it in a stadium full of people because that is where our support is,” she said. “But if it doesn’t all happen, there will be somewhere in New Zealand with a whole bunch of New Zealanders, and 4 million people will be able to enjoy it.”

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To Baseball’s Chagrin, Steroid Era Goes On
New York Times
By Lynn Zinser
August 24, 2012

It came to be called the steroid era, an inglorious decade or so of cheating by major league baseball players and a lack of action by baseball owners.

But the attempt to establish start and end dates for all the dishonesty was always a bit naïve. Athletes just don’t stop cheating. Performance-enhancing drugs just don’t go away. The steroid era, as baseball has learned anew this month, is more likely to be a permanent state of affairs than an ugly chapter that can be closed.

Barry Bonds is convicted in 2011 for being evasive about his links to illegal performance enhancers, and Roger Clemens is acquitted in 2012, and perhaps many people conclude that the drug issue is finally behind the sport.

But meanwhile, Ryan Braun, the fresh-faced most valuable player of the National League, tests positive for elevated testosterone last fall. Then, last week, Melky Cabrera is suspended for 50 games for a positive testosterone test, although his suspension may not keep him from a big award of his own — the National League batting title.

The asterisks multiply, the positive tests keep emerging, with five so far this season, the latest being the 39-year-old pitcher Bartolo Colon, who was given his own 50-game suspension on Wednesday for testing positive for an elevated level of testosterone, the same offense committed by Cabrera.

The testing program that baseball has put in place over the last decade, late in coming and only gradually toughened, now appears to serve less as a real solution and more as a vehicle for reminding everyone that drug use manages to endure, sowing mistrust, ruining careers and embarrassing the national pastime.

It was on Jan. 11, 2010, that baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig, felt emboldened enough to declare the essential end of steroid use in the sport. Selig spoke out immediately after Mark McGwire, the retired slugger, belatedly admitted that he had used performance enhancers to help him hit all those home runs.

“The use of steroids and amphetamines amongst today’s players has greatly subsided and is virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown,” Selig said that day. “The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past.”

Indeed, in 2010, only two major leaguers were suspended for using performance enhancers, and there were only two suspensions in 2011. But the five this season, along with the uneasiness created by the Braun case — he avoided a suspension only because of the disputed manner in which his test sample was handled — has undermined Selig’s assertion.

“What you realize is that no matter what the risks of cheating, no matter what the odds of getting caught, some percentage of athletes are still going to cheat,” said Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Although Tygart and other antidoping experts used to criticize baseball consistently for essentially ignoring the issue of performance enhancers, that is no longer the case.

When baseball and its players union agreed last November to begin blood testing for human growth hormone, making it the first major professional sports league in North America to do so, praise came from former critics.

“This is very significant,” David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said at the time. “At last we are in a position where we can say that Major League Baseball is taking a leading role.”

Tygart echoed that sentiment on Thursday, saying baseball had “made great strides, compared to where they started in 2003,” even moving to increase what had been considered a relatively meager number of drug tests conducted out of season.

Tygart speculated that the recent positive tests could even be a response to baseball’s more aggressive approach to drug use in recent years because testosterone cream has a reputation as something that leaves the system quickly and is thus harder to detect.

“It’s a potent performance enhancer, it’s not that expensive and it’s relatively easy to obtain,” Tygart said. “For the players willing to take that risk, it’s something that has a lot of bang for the buck.”

In the recently completed Summer Olympics in London, 11 athletes were barred from the Games for illegal drug use. That is more than twice the number of suspensions in baseball this season, and drug testing in the Olympics substantially predates testing in baseball.

That suggests that no testing system, as tough as it may try to be, is ever going to scare an entire sport straight. And that leaves Selig, who has been commissioner for two decades and will be 80 years old when his current term of office expires in 2014, likely to look more and more foolish if positive tests continue to emerge.

He has long been concerned that his legacy as commissioner not be subsumed by the drug use that occurred on his watch, that people remember that he introduced interleague play and the wild card, and that the sport’s revenue has grown immensely during his reign. He began counterattacking on drugs in the middle of the last decade, pushing for tougher testing and authorizing the former senator George Mitchell to produce a report on drug use in the sport.

That report, issued in December 2007, linked dozens of current and former players to performance enhancers, including Clemens, who challenged the assertions before Congress and was ultimately tried and found not guilty of lying in his testimony.

Bonds, baseball’s home run king, had also been charged with lying — to a federal grand jury investigating the distribution of steroids. He was ultimately found guilty of obstruction of justice.

Selig endured all this. The drug suspensions in the sport, meanwhile, kept descending from a high of 12 in 2005. There were six in 2007, four in 2009, and then the two years in which there were just two. But now they are climbing again.

Selig was not available for comment Thursday. Pat Courtney, a spokesman for Major League Baseball, said: “We’re upset any time a player tests positive. But it means we have a good testing program in place.”

Some think baseball, and Selig, would have been better off if it had decided years ago to farm out its drug testing to an independent agency like Usada or WADA. Conflicts of interest would have been removed, the thinking holds, and the testing regimen would have been upgraded.

But Charles Yesalis, a professor emeritus at Penn State and a widely known antidoping expert, said he was not convinced that WADA or Usada was doing a better job than baseball when it came to testing and that cheats were usually far ahead of the testers.

“I’ve said for decades only the stupid and lazy people get caught,” he said. “I really don’t think baseball is any cleaner or dirtier than Olympic sports, and they have the so-called gold standard of testing.”

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Role Of Agents Raised In Scandal
New York Times
By Michael S. Schmidt
August 24, 2012

Brian McNamee, one of the central accusers in baseball’s long-running steroid controversy, has said many things over the years about players and their use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Some of his claims about drugs and athletes have been used by prosecutors to make criminal cases, while others were used by George J. Mitchell to name players in his landmark 2007 report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

Many athletes — like Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch — have confirmed McNamee’s claims about their use of performance-enhancing drugs, but others have bitterly disputed them, perhaps most notably Roger Clemens.

One of McNamee’s claims that received little attention over the years involved the former relief pitcher Mike Stanton and his agents, Sam and Seth Levinson. In the summer of 2007, McNamee told federal authorities that the Levinsons helped provide Stanton with performance-enhancing drugs.

“It’s a matter of record from the Clemens trial that my client told the federal government about Stanton receiving performance-enhancing drugs from his agents,” Richard Emery, a lawyer for McNamee, said Thursday in a phone interview.

That claim has renewed relevance as the Levinsons find themselves embroiled in one of baseball’s most recent drug scandals. The Levinsons represent the San Francisco Giants slugger Melky Cabrera, who accepted a 50-game suspension last week.

Cabrera, who tested positive for excessive levels of testosterone this season, dropped an appeal of the suspension after investigators for baseball uncovered evidence that an employee for the Levinsons had hatched a cover-up scheme to deceive an arbitrator about whether Cabrera had used a banned substance.

Officials for Major League Baseball are angered by the attempt to subvert their drug-testing program and have asked the players union, which accredits all agents, to investigate whether the Levinsons played a role.

The employee for the Levinsons, Juan Nunez, has admitted to being behind the plot but said the Levinsons had nothing to do with it.

According to a baseball official, Nunez had an e-mail address at the firm the Levinsons run in Brooklyn.

“The Cabrera situation has heightened interest and concerns about agent involvement in performance-enhancing drugs,” said a person in baseball who is aware of concerns now consuming the commissioner’s office.

The office, the person said, is pushing the union to investigate the matter and is “not convinced that Juan Nunez acted alone.”

In a written statement, the Levinsons denied any connections to performance-enhancing drugs.

“There is absolutely no truth to the allegation that either of us had any involvement in procuring performance-enhancing drugs for Melky Cabrera or any other baseball player,” they said in the statement issued by their lawyer, Howard M. Shapiro, a criminal defense lawyer in Washington.

“Nor did we have knowledge that anyone else was doing so,” the statement said. “We are proud of our 27-year record of representing Major League Baseball players consistent with the highest standards of ethics and integrity.”

The Levinsons, through their lawyer, said Stanton, long retired, would rebut McNamee’s claims, and in an interview made possible by the Levinsons’ lawyer, Stanton did.

Stanton, who was interviewed by federal authorities as part of the Clemens investigation and has admitted McNamee provided him with performance-enhancing drugs, said he was not sure if the authorities had asked him about whether the Levinsons had provided him with banned substances.

“ACES didn’t have anything to do with it,” Stanton said, referring to the agency run by the Levinsons.

Baseball officials are particularly sensitive about the scheme to help Cabrera because it comes just five months after the Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun had his positive test for steroids thrown out by an arbitrator, who ruled Braun’s urine sample had been improperly handled.

Until the Braun suspension was thrown out, Major League Baseball had a perfect record in suspending players for positive drug tests. Baseball officials are concerned that in the aftermath of the Braun case, agents could feel more emboldened to try to take their cases to arbitration.

A spokesman for the baseball players union declined to comment.

For nearly 30 years, the Levinsons have represented some of the game’s most high-profile players, including David Wright, Scott Rolen, Jorge Posada and Todd Hundley, earning them tens of millions of dollars in contract money from teams and endorsements from companies. Several of the Levinsons’ clients — like Hundley — have been tied to performance-enhancing drugs.

The Levinsons, who have an office in Brooklyn and grew up on Staten Island, were described in a November 2007 article in The Staten Island Advance as the antithesis of the high-profile baseball agent Scott Boras, who is often quoted in the news media.

“We do everything we can to stay out of the papers,” Seth Levinson was quoted as saying.

Just days before Mitchell’s report was released in 2007, Rusty Hardin, Roger Clemens’s criminal defense lawyer, sent two of his investigators to New York to interview McNamee at his house. Hardin had become aware that McNamee might have provided Mitchell with information about Clemens’s suspected drug use.

According to Hardin, McNamee told Hardin’s investigators what he had told Mitchell about Clemens’s use of steroids, and the use of drugs by other players. It was at that interview, Hardin said, that McNamee said Stanton’s agents had played a role in providing Stanton with performance-enhancing drugs.

Hardin said he reached out to the Levinsons to see if they would testify at the trial to impeach McNamee’s credibility. Hardin has repeatedly asserted, most recently at the trial, that McNamee was a serial fabricator.

Hardin said that he spoke to the Levinsons and their lawyer and twice tried to schedule a meeting, but that the Levinsons ultimately declined to be interviewed, saying they wanted to stay out of the affair.

Shapiro, the lawyer for the Levinsons, declined to comment in response to questions about Clemens’s lawyers’ reaching out to the agents.

Still, the issue of how Stanton received his performance-enhancing drugs quietly came to light as part of a discussion about McNamee’s credibility before the federal judge handling the trial.

“The same with some other people, people would say that Mr. McNamee lied about certain other things about them,” Hardin said, according to a court transcript from the trial.

“For instance, Mr. McNamee has always said that in the case of Mr. Stanton,” the transcript reads, “the steroids were delivered” to Mr. Stanton’s agent, a lawyer in New York.

Few members of the media made the connection to the Levinsons, except for The New York Daily News, which tweeted a version of the exchange.

Clemens was acquitted on all charges.

Irvine, CA – July 22 – The women of the New York Athletic Club and the men of the Newport Water Polo Foundation took home Gold at the 2012 US Open of Water Polo. The finals held at the William Woollett Aquatics Center saw Newport top Bruin 11-4 and NYAC defeat Diablo 8-7. In the Bronze Medal matches the men of NYAC A took third with a win over Olympic Club 11-10. On the women’s side Cal topped SOCAL Black 6-5. Lolo Silver of NYAC and Genai Kerr of Newport were named tournament MVP.

In the men’s final, Newport led early and often as they opened up a 2-0 lead and then led 5-1 at halftime. In the third Newport continued to expand, taking a 10-2 lead after three periods. In the fourth, Bruin rallied with two goals, but it was too little too late as Newport claimed the 11-4 win. Kerr, in his MVP outing, posted 11 saves while Greg Enloe and Omar Amr combined for seven goals to power the offense.

In the women’s final, it was a close game throughout with Diablo starting off strong. Diablo took a 1-0 lead after the first and led 3-2 at halftime. In the third, NYAC got things going on offense as they fired in five goals to grab a 7-6 lead after three periods. In the fourth both defenses again were strong as each team could only muster one goal. That was enough for NYAC to hang on for the win, 8-7. Silver, the MVP tallied two goals while Tanya Gandy was a force on the offensive end, scoring four times. Cassie Wyckoff did the job in net, going all four quarters for NYAC in the win.

For complete tournament results click here. See below for final tournament standings and all-tournament teams.

Women’s US Open of Water Polo Final Standings
1 New York Athletic Club A
2 Diablo Black
3 CAL
4 SOCAL Black
5 SOCAL Gold
6 New York Athletic Club B
7 American River
8 OMBAC
9 Aztec
10 Diablo B
11 Marin
12 International

US Open Women’s All Tournament Team
MVP-1st Lolo Silver New York Athletic Club A
1st Tanya Gandy New York Athletic Club A
1st Juliet Moss New York Athletic Club A
2nd Emily Greenwood Diablo Black
2nd Kelly Mendoza Diablo Black
3rd CAL Dana Oschner CAL
3rd CAL Tiera Schroeder CAL
4th SOCAL Black Rachel Fattal SOCAL Black

Men’s US Open of Water Polo Final Standings
1 NPWPF A
2 Bruin
3 New York Athletic Club A
4 Olympic Club
5 Lamorinda
6 Santa Barbara
7 Miami Warriors
8 New York AC A
9 Sharks
10 NPWPF B
11 Davis Aggies
12 International

US Open Men’s All-Tournament Team
MVP – 1st Genai Kerr NPWPF A
1st Dreason Barry NPWPF A
1st Omar Amr NPWPF A
2nd Josh Samuels Bruin
2nd Matthew Rapacz Bruin
3rd Olexandr Sadovyy (Sasha) New York Athletic Club A
3rd Jeff Tyrell New York Athletic Club A
4th Trent Calders Olympic Club

Scoring – Women’s Final
NYAC 8 (0, 2, 5, 1) Gandy 4, Silver 2, Moss 1, Clark 1
Diablo 7 (1, 2, 3, 1) Greenwood 1, K. Neushul 1, K. Hill 1, B. Martin 1, A. Pezzolla 1, A. Honny 1, M. Hafferkamp 1

Scoring – Men’s Final
Bruin 4 (0, 1, 1, 2) Samuels 3, Reynolds 1
Newport WPF 11 (2, 3, 5, 1) Enloe 4, Amr 3, Lerman 2, Barry 1, Wise 1

5meter Nike Water Polo Camp

Architecture: London Aquatic Center by Zaha Hadid: “..construction for the ‘london aquatics centre’ for the london 2012 summer olympics by zaha hadid architects is now complete..capable of holding 17,500 individuals at one moment, this facility will be the venue for the swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo events. sheltering the sports events, athletes and supporters is an aluminum clad steel roof which spans 160 meters in length and 90 meters at its widest point. three substantial concrete columns effortlessly support the 3,000 ton sweeping overhead structure. the double curvature parabolic structure visually evokes the form of an undulating wave. on the interior, 850,000 tiles surface the pools, changing facilities and and floors. the cluster of concrete towers including the three meter springboards and diving platforms were formed and cast onsite..”  Hadidian, as only Hadid is able.