KARACHI: 16 year old lightening rod, winner of two gold medals at London Olympics, Chinese Swimmer Ye Shiwen is a world record breaker of women 400m individual medley.
Shiwen, an incredibly fast swimmer, is compared to world class swimmers like Ryan Lotche and Michael Phelps. This is the first time this unbelievable swimming star has participated in Olympics. In the final of 400m individual medley she won the gold medal and broke the world record, held by Stephanie Rice since the 2008 Summer Olympics, with a time of 4:28.43, swimming the last 50m in 28.93 seconds.
She started swimming after her kindergarten teacher noticed she had large hands and took up swimming as a sporting career in 2003 in Hangzhou.
Shiwen, an instant sensation, swam so fast in 200m that swimming professionals like John Leonard, the Executive Director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, doubts her performance.
However, Shiwen's final 50m split of 28.93 seconds is not that unusual for a female. Rebecca Adlington split a 28.91 seconds, 0.02 faster than Shiwen, during the 2011 World Aquatics Championships of the last leg of the 800m freestyle race. Similarly to Shiwen, Adlington caught her opponent to win gold during this last leg.
Lord Colin Moynihan, Chairman of the British Olympic Association, later revealed that Shiwen had passed all drugs tests and said she deserved recognition for her talent.
Accused with the doping charges, Shiwen sailed out of this controversy swiftly, as a legend. Shiwen said the controversy surrounding her gold-medal winning performances at the London Olympics is just “sour grapes.”
The inconceivably fast teenager also went on to comfortably win the 200m individual medley and set a new Olympic record.
Proud Chinese swimming star, Shiwen says hard work has led to her winning form. “My results come from hard work and training and I would never use any banned drugs,” she told the state-run China News Service on Monday. “The Chinese people have clean hands.”
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