Project Believe

Full details of the program have not been released, including a complete roster of athletes. USADA officials were not immediately available for comment.

The existence of the program has been known by some for weeks. But it has been kept a secret while a variety of issues were being worked on behind the scenes.

The disclosure at the USOC media program clearly was unexpected. It comes with the BALCO scandal still dominating track and field-related news, with Marion Jones in prison and just days after a New York Times report tying Maurice Greene to doping. Greene has denied any wrongdoing.

The doping cloud that has for several years hovered over track and field is so manifest that a group of seven leading American athletes in the sport, appearing together on a panel at the media summit, was asked by a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram if any of them had any words for Jones – behind bars within the paper’s circulation area.

None did.

At another moment during their appearance on the stage, hurdles star Terrence Trammel said, “Any time somebody tests positive in track and field, it’s a major blow. It doesn’t matter if it’s during the Olympic trials or the Olympics, or Christmas, or whenever. It’s a huge blow.

“… Quite frankly, it sucks. It really does.”

Another major doping-related positive, shot put champion Reese Hoffa said, “would be just devastating to the sport,” adding, “It would be very hard for us to recover.”

That’s why, Clay said, he agreed to be part of the USADA initiative.

“Their goal is to try to prove that athletes are clean rather than athletes are dirty,” he said of USADA officials, adding, “I’ve been tested I don’t know how many times – in a two-week period I was tested six times, blood and urine, five vials of blood each time and urine tests. 

“I’ve got another round coming up. I am tested randomly more than the average athlete is tested. I’ll be doing random tests a few times a month up until the Olympic Games and through the Olympic Games.”

All that in addition to “big tests at meets,” plus being in the World Anti-Doping Agency pool, which is part of a top athlete's normal routine. “Any time I get a chance to prove I’m clean I try to take that chance,” Clay said.

Felix, saying it was “personally devastating” to learn that Jones had lied repeatedly in denying doping over the years, said, “I feel even more responsibility on myself to be a role model.”

Phelps said his involvement in the project – on top of getting tested in the normal course of events “in the triple digits a year” – involves two urine samples and two blood samples weekly for six weeks. He started undergoing the "Project Believe" tests the second week of March.

He said, “It’s just to show people that I’m purposely going out of my way to show you, to show anybody who doubts, no bad substance has ever gone into my body and no bad substance ever will.

“I grew up watching some of the greatest athletes ever. Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. Roger Federer. Cal Ripken Jr. I watched these guys. They’re genuine. They’re not doing anything illegal. They’re doing it because they love it. They’re the best because they work the hardest.

“It’s something I always want and will always to have – everybody on the same level playing field. 

Bob Bowman, Phelps’ coach, added about the swimmer’s involvement in the initiative, “He’s going to have a very specific baseline physiology and they’ll be able to tell a lot more about variations. Beyond that, what else can he do?”