China hits back at ‘biased’ Ye critics

The father of Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen and the country’s anti-doping chief have hit out at “biased” suspicions over her record-breaking performance at the Olympics.

Ye captured the women’s 400m individual medley title in a world record time, but her victory was marred by suspicions of doping after the head of the World Swimming Coaches Association said the achievement was “impossible”.

Her father told Chinese news portal Tencent the swimming team had gone through an especially rigorous anti-doping regime and attributed her victory to a combination of hard work and guidance from Chinese coaches.

“A lot of different people had to provide all kinds of help for this result to be possible,” said Ye Qingsong, urging doubters to “look at her (drug) test results”.

“It’s normal for people to be suspicious,” he added, saying “western media has always been arrogant, and suspicious of Chinese people.”

China’s anti-doping chief Jiang Zhixue said on Monday that Chinese swimmers have undergone nearly 100 drug tests since they arrived in Britain.

“I think it is not proper to single Chinese swimmers out once they produce good results. Some people are just biased,” he said.

The schoolgirl timed 58.68sec in the last 100 metres, a whisker off US winner Ryan Lochte’s time in the men’s competition, and her final lap was quicker than the American champion.

The achievement was briefly among the top 10 most talked-about subjects on Sina Weibo – China’s answer to Twitter – yesterday.