She's been dubbed "Missy The Missile" or the "female Michael Phelps."
Teenager Missy Franklin has had Olympic dreams for as long as she can remember, and this week they are coming true as she swims for a place on the U.S. Olympic team.
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Out of the pool, Franklin may act and appear just like any other typical teenage girl. But her life, as she lives to swim, is anything but ordinary.
Take the Monday morning, earlier this year, when there was a knock on the Franklin family's front door at 5:45 a.m.
It was an anti-doping agent. A woman with FINA -- the international governing body of swimming and diving -- had traveled from Bogota, Colombia to Centennial Colorado where Franklin lives, to get a urine and blood sample from Franklin.
The 17-year-old All-American swimmer has been sick. She didn't feel good for more than a week. It didn't keep her from any of her workouts or races.
She coughed between strength-training sets.
"We are a month away. It is crazy," Franklin said, as she looked at her strength coach Loren Landow of the Steadman Hawkins Clinic.
Landow smiled at Missy.
"It's better to be sick now than next month," Landow said.
They are focused on the Olympic swimming trials in June.
"The long term goal is always London. We will be ready," Landow said.
Olympic dreams come with costs that most of us wouldn't even think about. Missy can't take much to help her sinus infection. Missy's mom, D.A., is a doctor and knows exactly what would help.
"Poor girl is sneezing and coughing, and we can't give her anything," said D.A.
Many common medicines are on the National Anti-Doping Organization of the United States, or USADA's "off-limits" list. USADA drug tests top athletes to make sure no one is cheating by taking performance-enhancing substances.
Missy surged to the top of USA swimming when she was 14 years old. That success put her under an anti-doping microscope that would make most teenagers freak out.
D.A. and Dick Franklin are surrounded by computer screens on the kitchen table.
"We have to get all of this in," D.A. said.
They are inputting Missy's hour-by-hour schedule into the USADA website. They have to document every place she will be, at what time, and for how long. This must be done for every day of the year.
"She is a teenager with a busy and ever-changing school and practice schedule, and she travels a lot. It is tough," D.A. said.
It is time-consuming and tedious.
"What are we on, Monday?" Dick asked.
"It is really crazy. They have to know where I am at all times," Missy said.
Anti-doping agents follow the computer schedule. They can show up anywhere, anytime.
"Totally random, they just come to my house or wherever I am," Missy said.
They can come to a football game, a friend's house, the mall or a movie.
"If we are hanging out, we have to be so careful to watch the clock and stick to her schedule," her best friend, Abby Cutler, said.
Anti-doping agents have shown up at Regis Jesuit High School where Missy is a junior.
"It was Missy's freshman orientation," D.A. said.
That day, the agents took a urine sample, but it was too diluted. That happens a lot to athletes because they drink so much water.
Under USADA rules, agents can't let the athlete out of their sight until they get a second sample. So, they went with Missy to her classes.
"Everyone was like, 'Who are these people, and why are they watching you?' I was like, 'They are my doping-control agents. They are just making sure that I'm not on drugs," Missy said.
Privacy is a luxury that elite athletes lose. Agents watch the athlete use the restroom and put a sample in a bottle to make sure the sample is not compromised.
"It is awkward to have someone actually watch your urine go into a bottle with your legs spread out," D.A. said.
The athletes must be nude from just below the chest to their knees.
"This is my daughter you are talking about," Dick said.
And for athletes under 18 like Missy, someone else must "watch the watcher." Once, that 'someone' had to be Dad.
"I'm looking at the stall and watching this watcher -- the lady -- watching my daughter who is in the stall ... you talk about uncomfortable, right?" Dick chuckled. "And then hearing her pee in the bottle. And then seeing Missy come out with the bottle."
As awkward and tedious as it is, the Franklins appreciate the purpose: To protect the integrity of Olympic sports. It has also helped quiet hurtful rumors.
"The first time we heard a rumor like that she was 12," Dick said.
"Naturally, when you've got someone who most people look at as pretty extraordinary at an early age, then they start questioning 'Why is that? How did that happen? Is she on something like growth hormones?'" Dick asked.
So Missy is glad for a little inconvenience and lack of privacy. It is proof that her rise to the top in the world has only come from hard work and heart.
If any banned substance is in the urine, the athlete fails the test.
But, if an athlete isn't where she said she'd be at the scheduled time, that is a failure too. Three of those scheduling failures can suspend an athlete for 18 months. Missy has never had a failure of any kind.
A facility at the 2012 London Olympics will test more than 5,000 urine and blood samples.
Curious if a medication you are taking is among those permitted, or prohibited by USADA? Click here to find out!
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