China’s double-gold-medal swimmer Ye Shiwen called US swim coach John Leonard “unprofessional” for voicing to reporters unfounded suggestions that she had achieved her sensational times by doping.
“The coach was not professional,” Ye said about a series of interviews in which Leonard kept insisting that Ye’s result was “impossible”.
His allegations are based apparently in large part on his belief that it doesn’t make sense for Ye’s time on the final 50 meters of the 400 IM to have been faster than her time of 29.32 seconds on the freestyle leg of the 200 IM which she swam three days later. He said the only explanation was that Ye had eased up in the latter swim in an effort to avoid arousing more suspicions.
Ye broke the world record in the women’s 400-meter individual medley on Saturday and also broke the Olympic record in winning gold in the 200-meter medley Tuesday. What really raised eyebrows was the fact that she swam the final 50 meters of the freestyle leg of her 400 IM faster than US star Ryan Lochte swam his.
“It doesn’t add up,” said Leonard. “She swam three competitive splits in pine wire what women are doing right now and then she unleashed an historic anomaly. There’s something not quite right there.”
“Freestyle turn is different from breaststroke-to-freestyle transition and the former is much faster than the latter,” Ye said, explaining the difference in time. “So it’s normal the last 50 meters in the 200-meter medley is slower than that in the 400-meter medley.”
Ye swam the freestyle leg — the final 100 meters of her 400 IM — in 58.68 seconds but her world-record time for the entire 400 meters was 4:28.43 compared with 4:05.18 for Lochte. The fact that Ye swam the final 50 meters in 28.93 seconds — about a sixth of a second faster than Lochte’s 29.10 — appears to have been due to different mindsets dictated by their respective races. Ye was trying to win the race while Lochte shut himself down during the final 50 to conserve energy for other races because he was about 4 seconds ahead of his nearest rival — Brazil’s Thiago Pereira — who finished with a time of 4:08.86.
“How can I be compared with Lochte?” Ye said. “His 400 meter result was more than 20 seconds faster than mine, and he was totally relaxed over the last part of the race. But I was trying my best to come back from behind.
“Freestyle was my favorite in the medley, but I still cannot be compared with professional men’s freestylers,” she added.
Leonard may not have been familiar with Ye’s previous successes in the medley. She has been among the world top women’s medley swimmers since 2010. At the 2011 world championships in Shanghai she won the 200 IM with a time of 29.77 in the final 50-meter freestyle leg, only slightly slower than her time in London.
Ye’s teammate Li Xuanxu — bronze medalist in the 400 IM — is the only other female swimmer who can come under 30 seconds in the final 50 meters of both the 200 and 400 IM.
The strongest rebuttal to Leonard’s allegations was made by FINA Wednesday when it announced that Ye had been tested for drugs and there was no basis to support Leonard’s insinuations. Leonard’s American Swimming Coaches Association is an unofficial association operating outside FINA.
Now that Ye has completed her events at London with the 4X200m freestyle relay Wednesday, she says what she wants more than celebration is a good night’s sleep.
“Because of doping tests and press conferences, I went back to my room very late these days,” she said. “I am very sleepy. As the competition is over, I can finally have a good sleep.”
The skeptical reception accorded Ye’s swims comes in stark contrast to the unquestioning media celebration that greeted Missy Franklin’s sensational swim Monday to win gold in the 100-meter backstroke in 58.33 seconds. That was the fastest time ever by a US woman and it had come less than 20 minutes after she had swam to qualify for the final of the 200-meter freestyle.
It’s also worth noting that US swimmer Allison Schmitt swam the final 100 meters of the anchor leg of the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay final Wednesday in 58.44, faster than Ye’s 58.68. Her time wasn’t greeted by any hint of skepticism or cynical insinuations of doping.
