What does everyone think about the Ye Shiwen swimming performance?

Danthus · 30 Jul 2012 at 07:51

Ye Shiwen, a 16 year old Chinese swimmer won gold in the 400m individual IM.

Nothing out of the ordinary there, however she knocked 5 seconds off her PB.

The 50m freestyle leg she swam was faster than Ryan Lochtes time.

Taking into consideration the swimmers are no longer wearing the high tech suits does this raise eyebrows for anyone else?

vanandjuanunited · 30 Jul 2012 at 07:52

Maybe they farted.

Shamikebab · 30 Jul 2012 at 09:06

Yeah I was watching that, she gained about 3 seconds over 2nd place on the last length and a half, was incredible to see.

At that age it is possible she could improve her PB significantly, who knows really.

Azza · 30 Jul 2012 at 09:48

Just a brilliant swim, this sort of thing is pretty common in swimming.

Cosimo · 30 Jul 2012 at 11:10

I thought the fifteen year old Lithuanian girl, Ruta Meilutyte, was just as impressive.

Danthus · 30 Jul 2012 at 13:54

Azza said:
Just a brilliant swim, this sort of thing is pretty common in swimming.

Beating your own best by 5 seconds is common. Don't forget that her time for the 50m freestyle leg was better than Lochte.

RoboCod · 30 Jul 2012 at 16:01

The commentator saying something along the lines of "oh, 5 secs off her PB, is something else afoot here perhaps?".

Imagine if that was a British swimmer, it would be all praise and good comments. Pretty disgusting.

Bennie-Mac · 30 Jul 2012 at 16:13

Its the olympics, if you were competing would you not turn it up to 11?

Edit - Oh i didnt realise it was all basically because of her 100m freestyle, has anyone got a link to the race itself?

Ben Cole · 30 Jul 2012 at 16:19

OldCoals said:
The 50m freestyle leg she swam was faster than Ryan Lochtes time.

My eyebrows were raised when I heard that one on the TV.

merlin · 30 Jul 2012 at 16:21

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/30/ye-shiwen-world-record-olympics-2012

Fishy.

hsp70 · 30 Jul 2012 at 18:55

Ben Cole said:
My eyebrows were raised when I heard that one on the TV.

That's just sensationalism, she swam the last leg (of 8) faster than Lochte because she paces herself differently over the 400m. Would your eyebrow still be raised to know she is actually 23 seconds slower (4:28.43) than Lochte (4:05.18) overall and 15 seconds behind the 8th placed male (4:14.89) in the final?

Also all medallist are tested and samples held for 8 years for further testing.

Just sore losers from the American coach.

hsp70 · 30 Jul 2012 at 19:01

Also she has 1 WC gold and 2 Silver medals so it's not like she came out of nowhere. Considering she's only 16. It's easier to improve PB's as your body grows compared to older competitors.

HangTime · 30 Jul 2012 at 19:09

Just thought I'd point out that the comparison with Lochte isn't strictly 'fair' in the sense that it may not be a like for like comparison i.e. maybe Lochte caned it in the first 50m of that leg and then was tiring/eased off for the second 50m. Rather selective statistic chosen I feel.

Consider this, she won her race with a winning margin of under 3s, compared to Lochte's margin of 3.68s. So Lochte didn't need to go any faster, he was already annihilating the competion by MORE than Ye Shiwen. In fact in percentage terms his margin of victory relative to his time is even more dominant that that suggests, 3.68/245.18 (over 1.5%) compared to 2.84/268.43 (~1.06%).

Tell you what boys, this Lochte fella, looks well fishy to me

(((((

OF course that doesn't mean to say that it is all above board but you've gotta be careful when people start manipulating the stats, cherry-picking segments to try and illustrate their point etc.

Random Guy · 30 Jul 2012 at 19:30

Was an amazing swim

The_One · 31 Jul 2012 at 09:14

As a medal winner she gets tested straight away.

Ian thorpe was just talking about the controversy on olympic breakfast just. he said at such a young age its common to knock 4 or 5 second chunks off your best times. Once maturity is hit you only knock off tenths here and there.

psychodil · 31 Jul 2012 at 09:57

Terrific swim, well deserved gold. She passed the drug test, congrats to her on her gold is what I say

We are just jealous that there aren't many Brits as talented as her at such a young age.

Danthus · 31 Jul 2012 at 10:16

psychodil said:
Terrific swim, well deserved gold. She passed the drug test, congrats to her on her gold is what I say

We are just jealous that there aren't many Brits as talented as her at such a young age.

Has she passed the test, I know all medal winners have been tested.

ThomasTheTankEngine · 31 Jul 2012 at 10:38

OldCoals said:
Has she passed the test, I know all medal winners have been tested.

Passing a test and actually being clean aren't the same thing.

Danthus · 31 Jul 2012 at 11:28

She has passed according to WADA.

Reemul · 31 Jul 2012 at 12:25

I think the issue is she is from China a communist state where what the governement wants and says goes and you have very little input. Off course we will just be called racist for saying out loud something along those lines, personally I would be thinking it regardless of where they come from, we defintely have past examples of the USA and Canada using steroids along with many other countries but communist countries defintely have the biggest examples an most recently in swimming as well.

They could easily have a drug that is undetectable. Take THG which was used for 7 or 8 years it was undetectable until a sample was given to the anti doping agency and they could develop a test for it. No reason why other countries and athletes could be using something similar. It seems with the amount of money and fame that now comes with winning there are people out there that will do anything to win.