Ye Shiwen doping suspicions at London 2012 Olympics stem from Chinese drugs baggage of 1990s - Telegraph
Swimming
Ye Shiwen doping suspicions at London 2012 Olympics stem from Chinese drugs baggage of 1990s
Ye Shiwen, the sensational 15-year-old wonder swimmer from China can thank a    broad-shouldered compatriot Le Jingyi, who dominated the Foro Italico pool    before Ye was even born, for the air of suspicion that is dogging her London    2012 Olympic Games victories.
Golden hour: Shiwen Ye, pictured celebrating her swim on Saturday, was faster than Ryan Lochte over the final 50m Photo: REUTERS
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Le was the swimmer of the 1990s who became a postergirl for a Chinese swimming revolution, spearheading China's 12 out of 16 remarkable victories at the Rome World Championships in 1994 – an achievement that was to be emphatically undermined by revelations of widespread doping.
Yet Le never tested positive and she was vociferous in defending her astounding speed. Asked point blank if she had taken drugs, Le's immediate response was to trust the drug testing regime.
''I think the results of doping tests can prove who took drugs, and who didn't. We can tell from the results,'' Le said.
But suspicions remained strong and swimming coaches – usually pot-bellied, straight-talking men, many of whom had seen the East German doping factory at work – pulled no punches. They voiced their thoughts loudly. Even though there were claims of racism, of jealousy and of pure lies, the subsequent events proved them right.
For Le's swimming colleagues started to fail drug tests. When the jaw-dropping Chinese juggernaut had swept through Rome, it went on to the Asian Games, blitzing the results with 23 swimming gold medals. But then, as those Games were concluding, seven swimmers tested positive.
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The drugs slur escalated four years later when a female Chinese swimmer, Yuan Yuan, and her coach were caught at the Australian border trying to smuggle human growth hormone en route to the 1998 World Championships in Perth. Another three Chinese swimmers were thrown out of those championships when further drugs were discovered.
In all 32 Chinese swimmers were caught taking drugs in the 1990s, two of them twice.
The Chinese authorities, fearing loss of face, started to implement a widespread and centralised drug-testing regime and this year more than 13,000 drug tests have beeb implemented across all of their sports.
Chinese drug officials tested all of their swimmers before they got on the plane to London. Not helping Ye's reputation is the drugs-test result of her compatriot, Li Zhesi, who was banned several months ago for erythropoietin (EPO).
But Ye trains in Australia under respected coach Denis Cotterell, who used to be in charge of Australian distance star Grant Hackett.
The legendary Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe, who trained under other coaches, revealed he too advanced his times by five seconds when he was just 16. The difference is that Ye's times are faster than the men – a statistical anomaly.
The Chinese officials expressed some frustration that the finger was being pointed at their swimmer and not others. "Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the Beijing Games, and American swimmer Missy Franklin is also incredible," the swim chief, Xu Qi, told Xinhua news agency on Tuesday morning.
"Why can't China have a talented swimmer?"
China can have great swimmers, but they come into any major competition with that drugs baggage of two decades ago still fresh in people's memories. It is a heavy bag indeed.