The 16-year-old's performance in winning the 400m individual medley on Saturday (July 28), when she took five seconds off her personal best and more than a second off the world record, finishing with a faster 50m freestyle than the men's champion, Ryan Lochte, had managed in his 400 individual medley win, raised the kind of questions over doping which have faced Chinese swimmers and athletes in the recent past.

But Ye Shiwen, whose winning time of 2min 07.57sec, 0.58sec faster than Australia's Alicia Coutts, an Olympic record, was unequivocal when the question was flatly put to her in the post-race media conference of whether she had ever taken banned substances.

Shaking her head, she replied: "Absolutely not."

Asked if she agreed with the comment made earlier in the day by the Chinese head of anti-doping, Jiang Zhixue, that commentators were "biased" against China, she responded: "I also feel the same that they are biased.

"In other countries other swimmers have won multiple golds and nobody has said anything.

"So how come people will criticise me just because I have multiple medals?

Ye Shiwen of China wins the women's 200m individual medley

"Of course I think it is a little unfair to me.

"However I am not affected by that.

"I want to thank my coach and my parents; they have supported me and helped me.

"They are the people who can make me strong.

"That's why I am not affected by the outside noise.

"I have trained for two and a half hours in the morning, and two and a half hours in the evening, and I have done this for nine years.

"I was picked out at school by my teachers when I was seven because I had a good physique for swimming."

Asked for her view on the debate which Ye's victories have provoked, America's bronze medallist Caitlin Leverenz, who clocked 2:08.95, responded: "I think the best thing I can do right now is all that I did, that is, go out there and swim my own race.

"It's not my job to point fingers.

"I'm not the person to judge on anyone and their performance.

"That's [world governing body] Fina and USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) and their anti-doping agency, they take care of all that stuff and I trust they have done their job as well as they can.

"I would like to congratulate Ye because she's had an awesome meet so far.

"Winning two gold medals is a tremendous accomplishment."

US swimmer Caitlin Leverenz celebrates with compatriot Ariana Kukors after taking bronze

Asked if she thought it was possible that Ye could swim so fast in the final freestyle leg, America's bronze medallist Leverenz responded: "I think that she has proved that it is possible.

"I think it's easy for people to point fingers.

"I think you can just as easily point fingers at the other amazing races that we have had, someone like Missy had a great double, for instance.

"It's not my place to question anyone's performance.

"She did have that amazing last 100, and like she said she's had a lot of training to get to that point."

Ye said other young swimmers could well be making a similar impact to herself.

"It's very likely, because I believe there will be more and more young swimmers coming through who are as capable as me."

On a night when Michael Phelps became the most medalled Olympian of all time, collecting a silver in the 200m butterfly and gold in the 4x200m relay to total 19, Ye described the US swimmer as her "idol".

She told the press conference: "I used to believe that Michael Phelps was my idol, and he still is.

"I hope one day I can win as many medals as he has, but I don't know, I can only try my best."

Michael Phelps' double winning performance took his tally to 19 Olympic medals

Ye's performance on Saturday (July 28) was described by John Leonard, the US executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association,  as "suspicious", "disturbing" and "unbelievable".

But Ye has been defended by figures at the Games including London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe, who responded to her initial win by saying: "I don't care what the international media say, I think it was a fantastic performance."

Colin Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association, has also insisted that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, Ye must be given full credit for her performances.

"She's been through WADA's (World Anti-Doping Agency) programme and she's clean," Moynihan told press.

"That's the end of the story."

While the first of Moynihan's points may be true, the second isn't.

BOA Chairman Colin Moynihan says Ye Shiwen must be praised for performance

It certainly raised old suspicions in some quarters about Chinese swimming, which suffered major embarrassment in the 1990s after a period of dominance.

A month after China had won 12 of the 16 women's titles at the 1994 World Championships in Rome, seven of their swimmers registered doping positives at the Asian Games.

At the 1998 World Championships in Perth, four Chinese swimmers were sent home after testing positive for steroids, a week after one of their teammates and her coach had been discovered with human growth hormone at Sydney Airport.

There was a similar pattern in athletics, where Chinese women athletes produced a series of staggering world records in the 5,000m and 10,000m in 1993 before virtually sweeping the board at the World Championships in Stuttgart as they took 1500m gold, all three medals in the 3,000m and gold and silver in the 10,000m.

Those achievements raised a predictable storm of awkward questions, many of them directed to the mysterious coach in charge of training, Ma Junren.

Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, five of Junren's runners were dropped from the team amid suggestions that they had tested positive for the banned blood booster EPO, although all were allowed to continue competing.

On the eve of the 2001 World championships in Edmonton, where Ma had been controversially appointed as the head coach, two of his athletes tested positive and received two-year bans.

Asked if she was a genius, Ye's pale, wide face broke into a rare smile.

"Genius?" she said. 

"In my mind everybody can be a genius.

"Everyone can realise their dreams."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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