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OMAHA, Neb. -- Katie Ledecky, whose own extraordinary standards are her sternest competition, is a one-woman metaphor for American swimming at the upcoming Rio Games.Just as Ledecky is expected to win every time she dives in, at multiple freestyle distances, supremacy is assumed of the U.S. Olympic team. And that dominance has differed only by degree over the long haul. U.S. swimmers collected a combined 40 of the 100 gold medals available in Athens, Beijing and London, and 90 medals overall. Australia is the only nation within shouting distance, with 45 overall.The thermostat gets turned up another notch after the crucible of the Olympic trials. An audience that tunes in every four years is conditioned by success, spoiled by a long, unbroken string of personable stars.First-time Olympians will make up more than half of the Class of 2016, a slight uptick from four years ago. Of the 45 team members for the Rio Games, 30 are rookies. Several are solid medal contenders. The rest will face the usual challenge of avoiding the happy-to-be-there syndrome and racing rather than being athletic sightseers.I think theres some real strengths and there are some, I would say, significant challenges, said womens head coach David Marsh, whose SwimMAC Carolina contingent on the team includes 19-year-old Kathleen Baker in the 100-meter backstroke. Were going to be counting on [veterans] to help fast-forward the younger swimmers so that its not an Olympics of experience, but an Olympics of performance.For all the buzz about newcomers, continuity and first-name recognition also are assured. Five reigning gold medalists will be back in the blocks, and the sports longest and flashiest rivalry lived to see another day.Almost two years after bottoming out personally with a drunken driving arrest, Michael Phelps is poised to add to his record stockpile of 22 Olympic medals, qualifying for Rio 2016 in three individual events despite times that his coach -- and head Olympic mens coach -- Bob Bowman called mediocre. Phelps duel with Ryan Lochte in the 200 individual medley was the marquee race of the trials in Omaha and takes their glittery Olympic rivalry to a fourth continent.Ledecky, the 800-meter champion as a 15-year-old in 2012, is still the youngest athlete on the team but has vaulted from obscurity to international prominence and now a prohibitive favorite in three events. Four-time gold medalist Missy Franklin, battle-scarred at 21, persevered and survived a volatile week in the pool and will swim three events in Rio.Franklin said she tried her best not to measure herself against her brilliant summer of 2012, but still felt vulnerable when she arrived in Omaha. Her very public odyssey from amateur to pro, with its attendant disorientation and distraction, is one that many of her younger teammates may want to watch closely as more and more of them have a shot at extended careers.I think I thickened up my armor quite a bit this week, so moving forward, just very proud of that and excited to see where that toughness can lead me, she said.Sprinters Nathan Adrian (50 and 100 freestyle, and 400 free relay) and Dana Vollmer (100 fly and 400 free relay) will return for their third and fourth Summer Games, respectively. At age 35, Anthony Ervin sent statisticians scrambling by making the cut in the 4x100 freestyle relay and the 50 free -- 16 years after he medaled in both in Sydney.Inevitably, the trials culled senior leadership, as well. Missing from the Rio roster are 2012 backstroke gold medalists Matt Grevers (100 meter), who said hell keep swimming while pursuing opportunities outside the pool, and Tyler Clary (200 meter), who retired after his last trials swim fell short. Veteran sprinter Jessica Hardy ended her competitive career, and iconic 12-time medalist Natalie Coughlin put hers on hold.An eclectic group of rookies elbowed through the crowd to take their places, and they didnt come out of nowhere. Hardy was a formal mentor to several swimmers on the national junior team who are now Rio-bound, including Leah Smith (400 and 800 freestyle, and 800 free relay) and Olivia Smoliga (100 backstroke).It was a really hard team to make, Hardy said. That talent came to fruition a lot sooner than I expected. Its going to be cool to see.Stanford graduate Maya DiRado, dynamic in the pool and possessed of a Zen aura outside it, won both individual medley events and the 200 backstroke to head into what she insists will be her first and last Olympics at age 23. On the other end of the emotive spectrum, DiRados 20-year-old Stanford teammate Simone Manuel wept with joy on and off for 40 minutes after she qualified for the 100 freestyle.She has had the Olympics on such a pedestal, and at 19 years old you can build that up to something that maybe you dont have the emotional maturity to handle in the moment of racing, said Stanford head coach Greg Meehan, who was named to the Olympic womens team staff Sunday. Now that the pressures off, Im really excited to see her swim with some freedom.The men tasked with continuing the much-decorated U.S. tradition in backstroke include David Plummer, owner of the best 100-meter time in the world this year, a father of two with salt-and-pepper hair who at 30 is the oldest male swimmer to make an Olympic debut in nearly 100 years. Josh Prenot, part of a sizeable University of California contingent, blazed to the second-fastest 200 breaststroke of all time (2:07.17) in the trials final.Yet roughly half of the winning times in Omaha lagged behind those of four years ago. Bowman and Marsh had little explanation other than the obvious -- the scope and smothering pressure of the meet, which can be just as hard on seasoned swimmers as green ones.The times I just went arent going to cut it in Rio, and Ive gotta figure that out, said Cals Tom Shields, who qualified for the 100-meter butterfly behind Phelps in a final that was dramatic but not particularly fast. Im very aware of that, and Im sure Michael is, too.As is their practice, neither Phelps nor Bowman offered any specifics on exactly what tweaks theyll make in the training period between now and Rio -- the time swimmers refer to as a double taper. But Phelps, like all of his teammates, needs to step down briefly from the emotional and physical summit of trials before he can eye a higher destination.Marsh said he can divide the team into those who were relieved to make it and those who felt pure joy. Relief is probably easier to get ready, he said.Added Bowman: One of the things that we have always done well, better than anyone else, is improve from the trials to the Games, and Im confident were going to do that again. Yeezy 350 v2 Black Pas Cher . Most important, perhaps, it went off without a hitch. Organizers poked a little fun at the now-infamous opening ceremony gaffe that saw only four out of five snowflakes open up into rings, leaving the Olympics logo one ring short. 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Quick stopped 27 shots in his return from a 24-game injury absence, Jeff Carter scored the tiebreaking goal with 7:55 to play, and the Kings snapped their five-game losing streak with a 3-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. PORTLAND, Ore. -- A volunteer football coach and six players for a small town Oregon high school team face criminal charges for a hazing initiation in which 11 freshmen at a summer training camp had intimate parts of their bodies aggressively targeted, a prosecutor said Tuesday.The Philomath High School volunteer coach, Cooper Kikuta, has been charged with misdemeanor criminal mistreatment, punishable by up to a year in jail, and the players who allegedly hazed the freshmen are accused of juvenile crimes similar to adult charges of misdemeanor harassment and assault, said Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson.Haroldson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that sexual abuse charges were not filed because he didnt see any evidence in the case to indicate that the touching was done for purposes of sexual arousal, but rather it was done in a hazing context.The alleged hazing happened during the football teams July trip to Camp Rilea on Oregons northern coast, Haroldson said. The players were targeted as a form of initiation and one of the alleged victims was grabbed and held down twice, said Haroldson, the Corvallis Gazette-Times reported (http://bit.ly/2cbLqUS ).Kikuta, 22, previously played on the Philomath team.The basis of the charge is that he withheld care for the kids that he was supervising, Haroldson said Tuesday. This occurred in his presence.Public records show Kikuta lives in Corvallis, home to Oregon State University. He does not have a listed phone number and did not immediately reply to a Facebook message seeking comment.Kikuta does not have a criminal record in Oregon, according to state records. Haroldson did not immediately respond to a telephone message inquiring if Kikuta has a lawyer who could comment on his behaalf.ddddddddddddPhilomath, population about 4,500, was a timber town for generations but has undergone a transformation as the lumber industry declined and was the subject of the 2006 documentary Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon about the clash of cultures hitting the community amid an economic transition driven by technology.Haroldson declined comment on who reported the hazing and would not say whether authorities believe it was an annual initiation ritual for the team. The intimate areas of the victims that were touched included their genitals and anuses.One of the critical points here is ensuring that were not continuing to have hazing in this football program, Haroldson said in the newspapers report. It ends now.The announcement of charges followed weeks of uncertainty about the team after Philomath school officials canceled the first three games, citing an investigation into unspecified football camp misconduct.The fourth game of the season is scheduled for Sept. 23 but officials are still continuing to assess if, or when, the varsity team will begin competing, Superintendent Melissa Goff said in statement.She said families of students identified as possible victims were given information about mental health providers and coaches are being required to take new training on prevention of bullying, harassment, and hazing. Teachers and staff members will take child sexual abuse prevention training in September, she added.We take hazing and bullying issues very seriously, and we have no tolerance whatsoever for the type of allegations raised in this investigation, Goff said.-----Follow Steven DuBois at twitter.com/pdxdub ' ' '