Well, are they?

American coach, John Leonard certainly thinks so. (Grauniad Linky)

Ye stunned world swimming on Saturday by winning gold in the 400m individual medley in a world-record time. It was her final 100m of freestyle, in which she recorded a split time of 58.68sec, that aroused Leonard’s suspicion. Over the last 50m she was quicker than the American Ryan Lochte, who won the men’s 400m individual medley in the second-fastest time in history .

😯

And then…

Asked about the accusation that she was doping, Ye replied: “The Chinese team keep very firmly to the anti-doping policies, so there is absolutely no problem.”

😆

Nice answer.

Are they doping? Are the yanks a bit sore about Beijing? A bit of both?

Absolutely, 100% yes.

It does seem pretty amazing what she achieved though. To go several seconds quicker than her personal best is quite incredible. The alternative argument made by one of the commentators (not sure who he was) is that when you’re young, it’s not wholly unusual to better your PB by quite a big margin. The steep learning curve of experience coupled with the enormity of the event could explain the result.

Then again…..

Doping control at the Olympics is all well and good and of course all medal winners are tested. But how does the testing work for the other 364 days when they aren’t winning a medal?

She has got very big hands. I imagine if you select early in life for physical attributes, sooner or later you find some people perfectly formed to do well at whatever sport.

Other than that your question is impossible to answer here, unless anyone here has actual inside knowledge.

But how does the testing work for the other 364 days when they aren’t winning a medal?

As far as I know, in a very similar way.

From the beeb:

‘Australian swimming legend and BBC analyst Ian Thorpe adds his view to the Ye Shiwen controversy: “How we should talk about it is that we should take away the nationality. If we had an athlete from Team GB who dropped three seconds we would say ‘Wow’. I took five seconds off my time in the 400m freestyle from 15-16. We have to remember young swimmers can take off chunks of time others can’t. We should wait. This is what I don’t like in sport, when people are successful people say it is because of drugs.”‘

doping through anatomical selection? seems ok to me.

until proven otherwise it’s either:

xenophobia
sour grapes
slander

I don’t know what anti doping controls swimming has. If they don’t have the same as road cycling do now – eg EPO blood and urine tests, transfusion tests, biologicial profiling, etc then there will almost certainly be doping in the sport. Whether the Chinese themselves are is certainly a reasonable question then given the level of performance – it’s very reminiscent of the bad old days of cycling – but you’ll need to question all outstanding performances, not just the Chinese’s

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/07/30/clamp-quickly-tightening-on-olympic-doping/

All we can do is speculate

THREAD CLOSED

We’ll have no speculating on here.

from reading the question is simply her performance for the last leg is quick, as in almost as fast as pure freestyle and the mens version of the race, the speed difference between the legs is unusually large.

She might not be doping, but we only have to look at cycling to see that unusual results are often drug assisted.

THREAD OPEN AGAIN….

To be fair to the septic, he didn’t accuse her of taking drugs, he said her performance was unbelievable…..which it was, considering it was faster than the mens version!

On that basis it is unbelievable, as women NEVER beat men in strength/speed events.

As far as I know, in a very similar way.

In the article the IOC director says that their mandate for doping control only covers the period from when the athletes enter the Olympic village. It does not cover any period before that.

Testing out of competition is down to national governing bodies and from the article, it sounds like it’s a case of self policing.

It may be speculation, but John Leonard’s highly informed and expert speculation is pretty convincing.

Typical spiteful accusations thrown around by very sore losers.
The US know that China has concentrated strongly on developing swimming since 2008, and with their population and investment, its inevitable that they find some young stars.
The US are getting desperate and playing dirty.

gt, it was Mark Foster who made those comments and he knows a bit more about swimming than most.
They were made in response to Balding’s implied accusations of doping immediately after the race, although I can’t find the link at the mo.
As he said, she is tested, and if you can’t improve at the age of 16, when can you?

She’s racing tonight too in her stronger event, 20:43 in the 200m medley. Hope she wins.

Good article in the bbc on chinese swimming.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18945809

Unless you have splits for each leg then this is still speculation. She might have been pacing herself for an all out attack at the end where the men went for it at the start then tailed off in the end. Overall Lochte was 23 seconds faster than her so where’s the problem. Last Olympics the winning woman was 26 seconds slower and that was with Phelps getting a new world record in the mens race. The US coach sounds like he has a really bad case of sour grapes.

Until proven I’d rather think she was clean.

Typical spiteful accusations thrown around by very sore losers.
The US know that China has concentrated strongly on developing swimming since 2008, and with their population and investment, its inevitable that they find some young stars.
The US are getting desperate and playing dirty

Yeh he’s American, therefore a bad loser and almost certainly evil.

She beat the fastest man in the world in an event that has been dogged by doping. Unless you are wilfully blind that ought to be evidence enough.

Ioum, if she were American what would you be saying?

It’s sad isn’t it how the watching public struggle to trust the performance of those we watch any more. Partly through bitter experience of having our “heroes” exposed in the past and partly through an element of xenophobia or at the very least a lack of understanding and exposure to a different culture leading to an element of suspicion.

My only thoughts on it are as geetee says about the out of competition testing is carried out by the national bodies which can only lead to conspiracy theory surely. Well documented issues with national collusion in the eastern block nations producing well juiced athletes doing “unbelievable” feats gives conspiracy theorists plenty of ammunition to state it’s still going on. Secondly, one of the commentators mentioned they always know virtually nothing about the Chinese swimmers prior to a meet as the Chinese often brought different ones to every meet so they were always virtual unknowns to the outside world. Most athletes are hugely well known with past form which I guess helps to cement some trust.

I’m going to watch and applaud on face value or the whole thing becomes not worth the effort.

The world’s nations struggle to trust each other to be above board in much of what goes on be it politics, business, arms dealing, environmental waste etc etc. I guess there is no reason why sport should be any different.

she didn’t beat the fastest man in the world, she swam one 50m split faster than the equivalent split in the men’s race.

She beat the fastest man in the world in an event that has been dogged by doping. Unless you are wilfully blind that ought to be evidence enough.

Wrong. Mens time 4:05:18, Womens Time 4:28:48. She was 23seconds slower than the mens winner. She swam the last 50m faster that’s all.

he said her performance was unbelievable…..which it was, considering it was faster than the mens version!

But if you actually look at it, it wasn’t in any way faster than the men’s version. She was over 20 seconds slower than Ryan Lochte.

She had a different balance of splits – her first three splits (the other three strokes) were slow, and the last one was fast, whereas he was more even in his splits.

Saying that she swum better than a man for 100m but ignoring the rest of the race is weird – you might as well compare that 100m with the womens 100m race (she’d come last at that speed) and use that as evidence against her.

They were jolly fast, and faster than the final splits in the 400m freestyle, which is impressive, but then she had been swimming a whole lot slower for the other 300m than they do. If you look at Rebecca Adlington in the 400m, she did slower splits until the last 100m where she really hammered it (even more so at the last Olympics I think), and I take it no one is saying she is cheating?

It’s also weird the argument that the last 100m split being faster than the others means that she was obviously cheating – surely if you were taking performance enhancing drugs, they wouldn’t drug you for only one stroke, they’d work for breaststroke etc too.

She did go jolly fast, and like all the extremely fast athletes, there is a real chance she was cheating, but to say ‘she did 100m faster than a man’ is completely ignoring the context of that 100m. It’s been picked up on by the press because it’s a nice figure, but does ignore that she was actually 20s slower over 400m than the same man.

It is also worth remembering that the person who is putting out all this stuff about doping is a big US coach – and the USA swimmers, particularly the high profile male ones who’ve turned up hoping to take back all the gold medals, are going to be a bit annoyed about Chinese swimmers being so jolly fast.

Unless you have splits for each leg then this is still speculation.

on here:
http://www.london2012.com/swimming/event/women-400m-individual-medley/index.html

And as several of us have pointed out, she was slower on every leg other than the last. And even then she beat him only by 0.2 seconds on that last leg but was 23 seconds behind overall. So what it looks like is she put everything she had in later in the race rather than earlier.

surely if you were taking performance enhancing drugs, they wouldn’t drug you for only one stroke, they’d work for breaststroke

Last comment on this as I must get on and I really don’t want to come across as a pro dope theorist however…

As an ex relatively serious competitive swimmer I’d say that you dope the engine, but that is not the whole performance. Freestyle is a comparatively (note comparatively- they are all hard!) easy and not too technical stroke. Breaststroke is very technical to get right. A supercharged and doped body with mediocre technical ability would naturally show more gains in the stroke that does not reward technical competence quite as highly. I would suggest the out of balance performance in comparison to Lochtie with the least technical stroke sticking out like a sore thumb is evidence for rather than against something being “unbelievable”.

Ye splits

28.85
100 m
1:02.19
5
33.34
150 m
1:37.53
3
35.34
200 m
2:11.73
3
34.20
250 m
2:50.53
3
38.80
300 m
3:29.75
2
39.22
350 m
3:59.50
1
29.75
Finish
4:28.43 WR
1
28.93

and lochte.
Split
50 m
25.62
2
25.62
100 m
55.02
1
29.40
150 m
1:26.19
1
31.17
200 m
1:56.86
1
30.67
250 m
2:31.04
1
34.18
300 m
3:06.53
1
35.49
350 m
3:36.08
1
29.55
Finish
4:05.18
1
29.10

It may be fine, but…

Out of interest have the records been reset since the banning of the suits?

you might as well compare that 100m with the womens 100m race (she’d come last at that speed) and use that as evidence against her.

Typically the final split from an IM is 18-22% slower (mens is 19-23%) then the 100m freestyle. Her split was only 10% slower.

It’s also weird the argument that the last 100m split being faster than the others means that she was obviously cheating

Firstly, no one has said she is obviously cheating, it’s just very suspicious. And the fact the last split was so fast is the entire reason it points to doping.

In short, to speed up that much over a final lap means the race was swum and probably finished with a reserve. A more even paced effort would show an athlete working to their max and would produce a faster time. See here for more on pacing strategies.

And lets add in to this the Chinese swimmers have failed 40 drug tests since 1990.

EDIT: and one more thing, she’s improved 7 seconds in the last year. Which is phenomenal for an elite athlete.

Yeh he’s American, therefore a bad loser and almost certainly evil.
She beat the fastest man in the world in an event that has been dogged by doping. Unless you are wilfully blind that ought to be evidence enough.
Ioum, if she were American what would you be saying?

I’ve not made any accusations about the US swimmers. Like I said (with reference to Mark Foster), if they are tested clean then they deserve to be treated as clean.
If not, you lose the wonder of sport and the bitterness of politics takes over.
But from your statement above, are you that keen to throw accusations of cheating that you’ll completely ignore the facts?

She has got very big hands.

Adams apple?

Out of interest have the records been reset since the banning of the suits?

No.

Out of interest have the records been reset since the banning of the suits?
No.

a little more info:

Sun yang, 20, is the world champion over the men’s 1500m freestyle distance and world silver medallist over 400m. He is one of only two male swimmers to break a world record in an Olympic-sized pool since 2010, when world governing body Fina outlawed so-called ‘ultra-fast’ 100% polyurethane swimsuits. The other is Ryan Lochte.

All we can do is speculate use our lack of knowledge/experience to make our own minds up then burn her because she’s foreign

Are the Chinese doping?

Absolutely not. I would stake my reputation on this.

official reports suggest she may not even be human.

Respect to the Chinese team, they are providing some outstanding quality in sport!

Why is it wrong to question something that is so unprecedented? I mean look at Ben Johnson in the 1988 Olympics. It is very reminiscent of that. Humans are far more homogenous than we give ourselves credit for. Winning by a little bit is the norm. Winning by a huge margin especially when that margin is waaay way way outside of your normal parameters of performance needs to be questioned as much as celebrated.

Respect to the Chinese team, they are providing some outstanding quality in sport!

Except you should see what they put their children through to get them to that level. North Korean style labour camps spring to mind.

I saw that article in the daily fail as well. Along with the inflammatory ‘diplomatic row brewing’ headline.

Great article here on this debate.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that she is doping, but the last leg time and the pacing strategy are both suspicious. Also, the chinese have a recent history of doping in swimming.

Not just the Daily Fail

See

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/hrlc/documents/publications/hrlcommentary2007/childrensrightsinsport.pdf

Allegations of abuse at Chinese sports school

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/23/young-athletes-abuse-studies-olympics

All for the Olympic spirit! YAYYYYY! The Olympics is used by certain countries as a load of ulta-nationalistic posturing bollocks, the sports involved seem to be full of doping – many of those that are not caught now seem to be caught 5 years later on when detection has caught up with the new drugs dopers are using, combined with it’s disgusting levels of corporate sponsorship (to make matters more hilarious those that are involved in sweatshops) the whole ordeal is farcical nonsense.

A mate went to watch and said that watching such a live, strong performance was amazing and unbelievable. As always, we can only hope for a positive conclusion rather than pure speculation.

I don’t really like all this speculation, there are few facts sadly when it comes to doping, but IMHO some of the Chinese female athletes just look physically a bit (choosing words carefully) enhanced. Some XC riders appeared on the European scene before the Beijing Olympics on a points scoring mission. I was in the changing rooms with them and was pretty shocked – perhaps it’s genetics, perhaps not. And remember at the Aussie Olympics, the massive shoulders on the Chinese swimmer girls ? That tendency seems to have gone, bit obvious maybe.