Khrm. I may have created some false impressions, so let me state a few things for the record. I am not suspecting any swimmer, Chinese or American at this time. I was just delighted that a cheat (who had been caught earlier, had served a suspension, came back still winning) was caught, if only 8 years afterwards, and hopefully his achievements will be erased from the official records.
Let's not name any athletes as this is understandably a touchy subject.
I am not happy with the way US media handles this. In the 80s the same people who were pointing fingers at East German girls (about the same age as this Chinese girl) for steroid use, were simultaneously hero-worshipping NHL/NFL-players who more or less openly gulped anabolics and/or other stuff.
I am not happy with the way our media (or anyone else's) handles it. We had been calling Norwegian Xcountry-skiers cheats for their use of asthma medication in the 90s (come on, if you suffer from asthma, you are not participating in endurance events?). But lo and behold, our entire team was caught using drugs that cover the use of EPO ten years later.
The nation has still not recovered from the shame.
A full team of Chinese female track stars (endurance events) disappeared from the scene at one point. Curiously at about the same time as new tests were announced. Their coaching staff had several advisors from East Germany. Mostly hearsay?
A few years back American sprint runners started tattling on each other, which lead to some suspensions, and obviously also litigation. Several were never caught, but a shadow was cast as other athletes under the wing of the same coach were caught.
The weight classes for weightlifting have been redefined (may be twice already?) for the sole purpose to erase the old world records from the books. In other words, they admitted that the old records were most likely achieved by cheats who never got caught.
I may be a pessimist, but I still suspect that not all get caught. Judging from what I have read the testers now think that they are ahead in the game, but that is a recent change. Before that the cheats were ahead, because doing minor alterations to some drugs made them invisible to tests without culling their effectiveness.
Because nations compete and want to win, this is unavoidable. The athletes get caught in the middle. Sometimes they don't really have a choice whether to take a drug or not. Happens in totalitarian countries, but also in the so called free countries it may easily happen that a shady coach or somebody else can influence some eager youngsters so that they cross the line.
I hope Ye Shiwen is innocent. It is sad that the OG is so far away from the original spirit that accusations will fly. It is sad that she is caught in the middle of this, but
nowadays that cannot be helped!! Large nations compete for supremacy and lesser nations for their share of the glory. Innocent and guilty people alike are caught in it.
Summary: This is nothing new. This kind of rumors should not have come as a surprise to anyone involved. It is sad that young people cannot just have fun competing, but them's the breaks.
The
ancient Greek olympics were not free of similar power struggles and accusations between competing city-states. IIRC one of the reasons they were discontinued was that the games became too political.
I do prefer nations competing at Olympic Games as a kind of substitute to a war.
