As doping scandals go, the case of Ye Shiwen is unconventional. Thus far, it has more to do with diplomacy – or the lack of it – than pharmacy. No one has even directly accused the young Chinese swimmer of cheating. But after she delivered some extraordinary times in the pool at the weekend, John Leonard, a respected US coach, dubbed her performances “unbelievable” and “disturbing”.
It is not clear what Mr Leonard hoped to achieve by these remarks, to which he added some general observations about past Chinese cheating. The Olympic doping testers will decide whether there was anything untoward about Mr Ye’s astonishingly fast swims.
But if his innuendo served any purpose, it was to anger the Chinese team and to convey more than a slight whiff of American sour grapes. It is early days but already at these games the Chinese team is making big inroads into the aquatic events – a discipline that has until now been dominated by the US.