LONDON: Doping speculation swirling around Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen is unfair and may be triggered as much by where she comes from as her remarkable performances in the Olympic pool, rival team coaches said on Tuesday.
Ye won the women’s 400 individual medley in world record time, with her last freestyle length faster than American men’s champion Ryan Lochte.
The time was also some five seconds faster than her previous personal best but, while eye-catching, that was not particularly unusual given that it dated from when she was a 14-year-old. She is now 16.
“While there is no positive test, there’s nothing to say. That’s it,” French coach Denis Auguin, whose swimmer Alain Bernard won 100 metres freestyle gold at the 2008 Beijing Games said.
“Effectively it is very astonishing but you see other astonishing things in swimming, extraordinary things,” he added.
The latest controversy blew up after American John Leonard, executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, commented on Ye’s time in an interview with a British newspaper.
Leonard, who is not part of the US coaching staff in London, said that history showed that every time something “unbelievable” occurred in swimming, it turned out ultimately to involve doping.
“Unfortunately whether it be in our sport or other sports, some people just jump to conclusions when they see something they think was impossible. I don’t know why society is like that,” said US head women’s coach Teri McKeever, putting distance between the team’s position and that of Leonard.
David Marsh, one of the US team coaches said that trainers were rarely as surprised by performances in competition as the media and public because they were well aware of what was going on in training.
Bob Bowman, coach to 14-time gold medallist Michael Phelps, was of a similar opinion.
“Honestly, I don’t think 4:28 is an impossible time,” he told reporters. “I think the girl has good technique and she did an amazing last 100 but people do amazing things sometimes.”
“If it was another country there’d be fewer questions asked,” Auguin said. “There’s a bit of an injustice in that, even if the past shows us that there were some abnormal practices in China.”
China briefly dominated women’s swimming in the 1990s but their reign ended as fast as it began, following a series of doping scandals.
China has vehemently rejected suggestions of doping and defended Ye’s performances and criticised what it sees as a lack of respect for its athletes.
Ye is among a handful of elite Chinese swimmers trained by Australian coaches in Australia. (Reuters)
