Chinese swimmer 'judgment' warning
Teenage swimmer Ye Shiwen has performed remarkably
A senior figure in the London 2012 Games has warned against "irresponsible" and "destructive" judgment of the Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen after a leading coach described her world-record breaking race as "disturbing".
Duncan Goodhew, Olympic Village Deputy Mayor, and a gold medallist in the men's 100 metres breaststroke in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, said competitors were innocent until proven guilty - and that there were always "incredible improvements" in performance at large sporting events such as the Olympic Games.
"There are always incredible improvements in any large sporting event such as the Olympic Games, and of course, in terms of that, innocent until proven guilty," he told ITV Daybreak. "I think it is very destructive and very irresponsible of anybody to accuse people until they are proven guilty."
His remarks were made following rumblings over the remarkable performance of 16-year-old Ye changed to overt suspicion when American coach John Leonard described her world-record breaking race as "disturbing".
China's appalling past record for their swimmers failing doping tests has led to the inevitable suspicions over the teenager, who took five seconds off her personal best and more than a second off the world record in the 400m individual medley.
Ye Shiwen's swim was described as "insanely fast" by previous world record holder Steph Rice - indeed, in the final 50m, Ye swam faster than the men's champion Ryan Lochte.
Leonard, the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, told the Guardian the performance was "disturbing" and "unbelievable".
He added: "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. She looks like superwoman. Any time someone has looked like superwoman in the history of our sport they have later been found guilty of doping."
It all sounds like sour grapes, the young girl did an amazing performance, blew the field away and smashed the world record. Good for her, Losers, suck it up!!!!
And anyway why dont you YANKS start moaning about the 15 year old Lithuanian girl who study in Plymouth, England and trains in the local pool? She won a Gold and she is only 15??? Is she drugged up??? I mean how did she win it and beat defending champions and record holders and at only 15???
Sore losers!!!
To Glen all the Sevens.
mm We do not hate the Americans, we think there are a lot of very loud americans, a lot of brash americans, & a lot of really thick americans. Thats just the ones over here. But Jealous (please note the "A")
Never! We know you have earned the right to stand on your own two feet. We know that mostly your politicians cannot do this without putting their big feet in the wrong place. We feel that if you want to act as Sheriff of the World, you can. But this is not Dodge City so we do not need you here. We appreciate you probably cannot understand half of the Olympic events. Why would you need to? You got your own games, Netball for Men. Rounders for Men, Rugby but with lots of padding just in case you fall over. You probably do have a manly game. Dont You? We taught you about politics, you sodded that up. We taught you about Law, how badly that went. We tried to teach you how to read & write, so thats possibly our fault that you cannot spell or talk properly. Hate you of course not! Pity maybe
Sorry losers USA!
It always has to be the bloody americans that moan!
Yankee loser coach John Leonard should get a life and pull the finger out of his arse!
Ye was Incredible for china!,Only thing we find disturbing is the yankee crying and moaning from the American camp!Who are very very bad losers!!!!!Get a life or go back home!
Everyone that is faster and better than Americans is always Disturbing to them as they think they are gods gift to everything and no one is better
This swimmer has more than likely trained very hard and is at optimum fitness on healthy foods instead
of Hamburgers like the Americans are addicted too
very irresponsible of the americans to throw these accusations around to a young 16 year old teenager
Jealousy comes to mind
you just have to live with it America and move on in life
