FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — Shirley Babashoff gazed out at the Los Angeles Basin, tucked in a flat sheet of sunshine, and sighed. The same storm clouds that washed away her prospects of seven gold medals at the Montreal Olympics 40 years ago are gathering over the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, which begin this week, threatening a rush of new members into an elite club no one wants to join: athletes who were denied a gold medal, or any medal at all, by competitors who were doping.
Babashoff arrived at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 with a chance to match the performance in 1972 of Mark Spitz, whose seven golds sealed his status as an American icon and propelled him into a career as a product pitchman.