Ye Shiwen, a 16-year-old Chinese swimmer, won gold in the women's 400m individual medley event, setting a world record of 4min and 28.43sec. The final 50m of the length was covered in 28.93 seconds - Ryan Lochte, the American gold medalist covered the same distance in 29.10 seconds. This stunned the world. But in some quarters, it raised doubts, suspicions even of the incredible nature of this athlete's performance.
Let's go further into this topic. In the 2010 Asian Games, Ye recorded a time of 4min and 33.79sec - that's a solid 5 seconds slower than the world record she managed few days ago. In terms of percentage improved, it's stands at 1.95%. These are great numbers. Numbers that tell the story of rigorous effort over many years, and the training that goes into raking up the medals.
Another athlete, Ruta Meilutyte, a 15-year-old Lithuanian girl based in Plymouth, and trained by English coach, John Rudd, went on to take gold in the women's 100m backstroke, timed at 1:05.47 (In 2011, she set a national record of 1:07.96). In terms of percentage improved, it stands at almost 4%. A four percent improvement for Ruta in one year; a two percent improvement for Ye in the last two years. John Leonard has said nothing about Ruta's performance.
Not for one second am I questioning the authenticity of Ruta's incredible win, no. That would be ignorant and stupid of me to do so. I am only raising a few questions. Why was the Chinese girl alone looked at with suspicion? Why did only only her astounding success evoke suspicions of doubt and fraud in commentators (BBC's Claire Balding) and an experienced coach (John Leonard), when it's already been confirmed she's clean (by the IOC)?
Personally, I wasn't very thrilled about the Chinese taking over the pool (Yes, I am rooting for USA to top the medals tally), but this comment irked me beyond limit; it screamed of jealousy and clearly, an inability to take defeat in a sportsman-like attitude. Time to resign, Mr. Leonard, no room for prejudice here.
John Leonard, the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, has this to say:
"We want to be very careful about calling it doping.The one thing I will say is that history in our sport will tell you that every time we see something, and I will put quotation marks around this, ‘unbelievable’, history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping involved. That last 100m was reminiscent of some old East German swimmers, for people who have been around a while. It was reminiscent of the 400m individual medley by a young Irish woman in Atlanta."Clearly, he wasn't accusing her of doping. He was only being "very careful".
Let's go further into this topic. In the 2010 Asian Games, Ye recorded a time of 4min and 33.79sec - that's a solid 5 seconds slower than the world record she managed few days ago. In terms of percentage improved, it's stands at 1.95%. These are great numbers. Numbers that tell the story of rigorous effort over many years, and the training that goes into raking up the medals.
Another athlete, Ruta Meilutyte, a 15-year-old Lithuanian girl based in Plymouth, and trained by English coach, John Rudd, went on to take gold in the women's 100m backstroke, timed at 1:05.47 (In 2011, she set a national record of 1:07.96). In terms of percentage improved, it stands at almost 4%. A four percent improvement for Ruta in one year; a two percent improvement for Ye in the last two years. John Leonard has said nothing about Ruta's performance.
Not for one second am I questioning the authenticity of Ruta's incredible win, no. That would be ignorant and stupid of me to do so. I am only raising a few questions. Why was the Chinese girl alone looked at with suspicion? Why did only only her astounding success evoke suspicions of doubt and fraud in commentators (BBC's Claire Balding) and an experienced coach (John Leonard), when it's already been confirmed she's clean (by the IOC)?
Personally, I wasn't very thrilled about the Chinese taking over the pool (Yes, I am rooting for USA to top the medals tally), but this comment irked me beyond limit; it screamed of jealousy and clearly, an inability to take defeat in a sportsman-like attitude. Time to resign, Mr. Leonard, no room for prejudice here.
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