ESPN Olympic Sports

Chloe Sutton turned 20 this week with a unique goal in sight. If all goes well for the next few months, she could become the first U.S. swimmer to have made Olympic teams in both open water and pool events.

Sutton, who swims for the Mission Viejo (Calif.) Nadadores club, blazed onto the open water scene at age 14 and over the next two years would win gold in the 10K at the Pan American and Pan Pacific Games and a bronze medal in the 5K at the 2008 World Championships. Sutton was the only U.S. woman to compete in the 10K race in Beijing in 2008, the first year the grueling discipline of open water was included in the Summer Games, and finished 22nd.

But by 2010, Sutton's double life was wearing thin. When she qualified for the open water worlds and the Pan Pac pool team -- events that were three weeks apart -- her coach, the venerable Bill Rose, asked where her heart was and Sutton put open water aside.

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Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesChloe Sutton will vie for spots in the 400 and 800 at the Olympic trials in late June.

"She was never not a pool swimmer," Rose said. "Ninety-eight percent of her training was in the pool and geared for the pool." Sutton benefitted confidence-wise from her early success and grew because of her experience at the top level internationally in open water, Rose said.

Sutton has won the 400 in national and international competition and is a two-time national champion in the 800 since targeting the pool, but she's still in transition. Like many open water swimmers, she used a two-beat kick, but Rose has phased that out in favor of a six-beat kick to bump up her speed, asking her to give up her old two-beat cadence even in training. Sutton just completed that changeover and is racing both events with her revamped stroke now, but won't see what happens in a tapered meet until the Olympic trials in late June.

Rose said he thinks it will take an 8:18 to get on the Olympic podium in the 800 -- six seconds faster than Sutton's personal best, but achievable, he said.

"I have to give her so much credit," Rose said. "She has her eye on the prize. She lives the sport."

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Despite a gloomy prognosis that her recovery from a torn right ACL and MCL could take six to eight months, U.S. defender Ali Krieger said Sunday she hasn't given up on the 2012 London Olympics.

"I'm not going to give up, not going to lose hope," Krieger said after watching her teammates beat Guatemala 13-0 on Sunday at the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament. "People who have had this say everyone is different. Some people are back in four months, some people have gotten back in nine months, a year. But I'm going to stay hopeful and stay positive, and I'm pretty strong. I'm a fighter and I've been there before.

"I think I'm going to come back stronger than ever."

Krieger injured the knee in Friday's game against the Dominican Republic when an opponent collided with her plant leg. She said she knew it was bad, but didn't know it was that bad until the MRI came back Saturday.

"I didn't know it was my ACL," she said. "It didn't feel that bad, but I knew something obviously was wrong with that much pain."

Krieger said she will fly home to the D.C. area Monday and have surgery on the knee as soon as possible. "I'm going to get it done this week because I want to start that process started and try to get back. I'm still hopeful for the Olympics."

"I'm really sad for her," U.S. coach Pia Sundhage said. "She helped the team and she had a very good World Cup. That's tough for her, but at the end of the day, we can't do anything about it. The next step is to move on and find someone who can replace her. ... We need to look at it and find players to compete for that spot. But we have time, so I have no doubt in my mind. Maybe [the replacement] is already in squad, maybe she will be someone else coming in and fighting for the spot."

Krieger said her feelings have come in waves since the injury.

"It's been pretty emotional, pretty draining the past few days," she said. "This is the first time injuring my knee and it's pretty bad. Obviously, I want to be playing -- who doesn't? -- but I'm taking it pretty well. I'm staying positive and looking forward. I'm just taking one day at a time."

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Despite the record-setting score, the U.S. women's soccer team's 14-0 rout over the Dominican Republican might have come at a price. Defender Ali Krieger left the game in the first half with an injured right knee and her status for the rest of the Olympic qualifying tournament is unknown.

U.S. coach Pia Sundhage said the team won't know the full extent of Krieger's injury until it receives the MRI results Saturday.

"It's probably a serious injury, but by tomorrow we'll find out what it is," she said. "We as a team will move forward with or without her -- we just have to figure out what the deal is with her knee. We're obviously all thinking of her and wishing her nothing but success."

Krieger, who was not available for comment after the game, injured the knee when she fell awkwardly.

"She shoots and I think comes down funny on it," teammate Abby Wambach said. "With this kind of [turf] surface [at BC Place], you never know exactly what the prognosis is going to be until you get the results back from the MRI."

Wambach fell several times on her left knee and said she was happy to get a breather when Sundhage substituted Alex Morgan for her in the second half.

"We want her to last as long as we can in this tournament, which is one reason we took her out at halftime," Sundhage said. "The other reason is we have some good players on the bench."

I wasn't surprised when I saw Johnny Weir's comeback announcement. All the planets in his personal universe have aligned to make a return to competition completely logical. If he attacks his mission with all the purposefulness he promises, Weir could have the best of two worlds: Representing his country in a country he loves.

The 27-year-old Weir, long coached by Russians, speaks the language and has immersed himself in Russian culture; earlier this month, he married an Atlanta-based lawyer of Russian heritage. What better place to visualize the skate of his life than his home away from home during the 2014 Sochi Olympics?

There's another intangible. Weir has always been comfortable in his own skin, and he is a thoughtful, witty interview, but there was one area where he stubbornly asserted his right to remain silent. Now that his sexual orientation is a non-issue (as it always should have been), that's one less distraction from his goal. If he's called on to be a spokesman for gay athletes, my guess is he's ready.

I also wasn't surprised to see Weir's news go viral. There may be better jumpers and spinners among the pool of men gunning for Sochi in two years, but there is no better pure performer, and that has won him a huge and loyal fan base.

Limber and elegant, a risk-taker in his costumes and choreography, Weir's artistry is hard to fit within the rigid mathematics that now circumscribe figure skating. I thought Weir's scores in the free skate at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics were too low, and I wasn't alone. He'll have to earn his way into the stony hearts and calculators of the judges again, and that will likely involve full mastery of a quadruple jump.

There are no sure bets two years out from the next Winter Games. But I have no doubt it will be interesting to see Johnny Weir give skating another go.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The U.S. women's soccer team had an abrupt greeting when it arrived here this week for the start of the Olympic qualifying tournament. The first was snow and significantly colder than normal weather for Vancouver (it is much colder here now than it ever was during the 2010 Winter Olympics). The second was a fatal shooting in the restaurant of its hotel.

The players said they were all upstairs in their rooms when the shooting occurred Tuesday evening around 8:45 p.m. in the hotel restaurant.

"All of us were a bit scared," goalkeeper Hope Solo said Wednesday afternoon. "We all travel all around the world; big cities, small cities. It's a normal thing that crime happens. We were aware of the situation. It was scary for us, but it was handled incredibly well by the hotel staff and the police officers."

"It was a little scary at first," forward Alex Morgan said. "I've never been so close to a shooting even though we were upstairs. Everyone was taken care of really well by our general manager. We were calling down and guest services were very nice to us and telling us not to come down. The situation was handled really well.

"I don't think this affects us at all. Even though it was in our hotel, we didn't witness it, so I don't think that's going to be a problem. We were definitely a little shaken up the first moments when we heard about it."

Asked about whether the incident affected her, Solo replied: "Every experience in life affects you personally. You start to question what life is all about. You start to think about your loved ones. That's pretty normal. We know we're in a very safe place, both in Canada and up in Vancouver, and keep in mind, I live in Seattle, which is just a couple hours down south. I feel safe. The team has no second thoughts about being here or performing well in the tournament."

The eight-team tournament begins Thursday at BC Place Stadium, with the top two teams advancing to the Olympics. The United States plays its first game Friday night against the Dominican Republic.

With snow on the ground and temperatures in the 20s, midfielder Megan Rapinoe said she hopes the new retractable roof remains closed.