I don't know if Ye has ever been involved in doping. However, while her performance is remarkable, it's also not inconsistent with that of other young swimmers who are drug free. Have a read of Don't be too quick to question Chinese success by Phil Lutton who documents other cases of young swimmers (Stephanie Rice) lowering their personal bests by significant amounts to break records. Lutton notes:
To the wider sporting world, Ye is only now becoming a notable name. Yet to swimming diehards, she has been one of the rising stars for some years, even if her surge of form in London has caught most people by surprise. Beisel and Rice had been the favourites for gold.
Ye won the 200m IM at the Asian Games in 2010 (2.09.37) and the 400m IM (4.33.79), all at age 14. At the time, she was listed at 160cm tall. Now, the official Olympic site lists her 12 cm loftier at 172cm. That sort of difference in height, length of stroke and size of hand leads to warp-speed improvement.
A swimming coach once told me that you can't swim faster than your height. In other words, the taller you are the faster you can swim (which is why there aren't any short swimmers winning medals amongst the men).
Lutton also writes:
If America - a nation of 300 million - can produced a Michael Phelps and Australia an Ian Thorpe, is it really so bizarre to think China - with a population of 1.3 billion and a state sporting program run with military precision - could have found his female equivalent?Ye has spent time training in Australia. Her coach in Australia, Denis Cotterell has come out and said that he believes here to be clean:
Denis Cotterell, the former coach of Olympic gold medallist Grant Hackett, has trained Ye and other top Chinese swimmers.The Australian swimmer who won the silver medal behind Ye also defender her:
He said he was "100 per cent certain" Ye was clean and said the questions over doping had been raised by people who do not understand the sport.
"You have to have a look at the improvements in Beijing," he told PM.
"If people do their homework and you have a look at some of the world records ... the margins that they have been dropped by some of the extremely talented swimmers that have applied themselves over the past – it is a combination of their talent and their work ethic."
Cotterell said Ye's five-second improvement to her personal best time was not a one-off.
"[There have] been great achievements by people in the sport, it's part of the history ... and talent comes along and makes a good drop and shocks a few people but we generally seem to have accepted it," he said.
"But for some reason in this case now, it's not, because of the Chinese [history]."
"Ian Thorpe, no one questioned, Michael Phelps, no one questioned. And having worked with the girl and seeing how hard she works and the talent she is, it is disappointing that the kid is in the media conference on her own with 100 journalists having to defend herself."
"I like to believe innocent until proven guilty. As far as I'm concerned I think she is an amazing swimmer and it's just amazing that I got to be as close as I was with how amazing she is," Coutts said.So, why the criticism of Ye? I think partly it's because of the alleged doping by Chinese swimmers in the 1990s (guilt by association), partly because of her remarkable performance (a young Ian Thorpe also faced accusations), but mostly I think it's racism. If she had been American or Australian I very much doubt that such accusations would have been made (or at least not so publically).
"I have never been in that position myself, I have never been accused [of doping] but I'm sure it would be tough for the athlete knowing people are saying things like that about you. It wouldn't be a nice feeling. As I said, innocent until proven guilty. You can't speculate something about someone if you don't know."
So, well done Ye Schiwen.
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