Jessica Hardy, Hardy, Har...Why ignorance ruins it for the rest

It always happens this way. As soon as I'm about to get excited about an athletic achievement of more than impressive proportions, scandal strikes. It not only gathers clumps of asterisks on the personal achievements of the athlete in question, it casts shadows on the entire community of competitors that are shocking the world, with or without doping.
Think back, if you will, to the homerun race of 1998 when America was apparently watching the resurgence of it's national pastime. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were hitting homeruns at an inhumanly fast pace and everyone took the bait of legitimacy hook, line and sinker. Without mentioning other performances that still stand in doubt, most for good reason, the entire sport hit a tailspin during the release of the Mitchell Report last summer. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro joined McGwire and Sosa as the poster children for the darkest age in hardball.
Baseball isn't the only sport that has suffered from dopey dopers. Cycling is absolutely in shambles (especially in America) after Floyd Landis' tested positive for the juice following his victory in the Tour de France. Not only did he make himself look foolish he also added fuel to the international fire that an American icon, Lance Armstrong, used EPO as well. Track and Field has been so marred by the incarceration of the sweetheart of the Sydney Olympic Games, Marion Jones that everytime an athlete gets anywhere the podium officials might as well be holding a syringe and cup.
And now we come to the instance that has upset me the most. Jessica Hardy. Although she is probably one of the least known olympians on this year's US swimming squad, she may have taken all the wind out of Michael Phelps sails before the Games even begin. She has tested positive for a stimulant, but more importantly, she has tested positive for stupidity. Not only has she ruined her chances for Olympic glory, she has inadvertently put questions in the minds of audiences everywhere: Is Dara Torres for real (swimming best times at 41 she must be doping); Is there any way that Michael Phelps could possibly be all natural? Most evident, is anything in sports sacred anymore?
The second to last question bothers me the most, simply because I want to believe in Phelps so much. He could potentially become the most dominant athlete that this planet has ever seen, but something tells me that Jessica Hardy may have just foiled this whole scheme. Pity to the pathetic that need to cheat, and pity to the innocent bystanders that suffer most.